Rhine River Cruise Day 9 Afternoon - Koblenz

One last shot from the boat in the Rhine River Gorge:.  


That afternoon we docked in Koblenz, a town at the confluence of the Rhine and the Moselle Rivers.  It was founded more than 200 years ago as a trading settlement.  The "German Corner" where the two rivers meet has a huge statue of Kaiser Wilhelm I.  It also has a lovely strolling park along the river banks and a piece of the Berlin Wall.  Not too remarkable looking now, but obviously of great significance in recent history.  

Linda and I went on the "easy stroll" with our guide through the town

We visited the Liebfrauenkirche (church of Our Lady) in the town.  One of the points of interest there was an unusual statue of Joseph holding baby Jesus. 

We also happened upon a group teaching kids to do CPR

A town landmark is the Schängelbrunnen fountain which has a statue of a boy in the center.  According to our Viking materials, "during the French occupation of 1794-1814, there were a lot of boys born to French soldiers and German women.  They were given the derisive name "Jean," which in the local vernacular morphed into "Schang" and then "Schängel."  These street urchins were known for their pranks and today all Koblenz-born citizens are called "Schängel."  They have come to embrace the image of Koblenzers as being fun-loving, quick, and clever."  Throughout the town, the manhole covers feature the Schang boy.  Seems to me there's more to this story, but I'll let it be.  As you pass by the fountain, the "Schängel." boy spits a jet of water at you every few minutes.  

Another fountain in the city is called the Historiensäule or History Column.  It has 9 levels, each dedicated to one era in the town's history.  

From a spot right near the docking point, there's a tram that takes you way up over the Rhine to the Ehrenbreitstein Fortress of Koblenz 400 feet up above the river bank.  Melissa and Diana took the tram up to see the fortress.  Linda and I just took it for the ride and the view (and the W/C at the top).  We were told that we could get a discount if we said we were from the Viking ship.  But with my nearly non-existent German and the ticket-taker's English we somehow gave him the idea that we were staff from the boat.  Seems like his BS meter should have gone off that these two gray haired ladies were crew members, but oh well.  In the end we got free round-trip tickets and didn't discover until later that they said Viking Crew on them.  

Back on the boat, we got our waiter Edgar to take a picture of our table. He always addressed us as “Ladies and ladies” with a touch of pomp. One of the more impressive things about the waitstaff was that they learned all our names by the second day. Obviously part of the boat culture, but more than any of us could imagine doing. 

River Cruise Day 9 - The Rhine Valley Gorge (the real thing was way better than the PBS commercials)

Saturday was the only prolonged daytime travel on the boat.  For a good reason - we were cruising through the Middle Rhine Gorge, a very scenic stretch marked by multiple castles on the banks as well as towns and vineyards.  I tried to keep track of which castle was which, but when I looked at my list and my pictures, I wasn't so clear about it after all.  So forgive me if I mis-identify any.  I've done my best.  

Our tour manager, Rene was an amazing narrator.  His ability to tell the stories of the castles (for several hours) and communities along the way was truly impressive.  We've encountered many tour managers and guides in our international travels, but he was certainly among best - knowledgeable, very funny, calm in the face of passengers’ worries and nudging, concerned for our welfare and ready to help in any way that he could (special appreciation from me since he really looked out for me in terms of mobility issues and helped me find ways to enjoy the day trips without too much physical stress).  

The vineyards grow on very steep riverbanks where the grapes have to be harvested by hand.  This is where a lot of the grapes for Rhine Rieslings, Moselles, Chardonnays and other wines are grown.  

The day was sunny and crisp, but pretty chilly as you can see by our attire and extra layers. Worth every shiver though.  Definitely one of the highlights of the cruise for me  

The Middle Rhine Gorge morning is featured on the PBS commercials.  It didn’t disappoint.  In all, there were 20 castles/embattlements, but here are a few.  I’m struggling with formatting so I’ll list them in order

1) Nollig “Castle” c.1300- actually part of the fortifications for the town of Lorch am Rhein

2) Stahleck Castle 12th century, but repeatedly attacked in the 17t century and rebuilt in 1909  Now a youth hostel 

3) Sooneck Castle built in 1834 by the CrownPrince of Prussia

4) Reichtenstein Castle a reconstructed Neo-Gothic castle

5) Rheinstein Castle 14th century- complete with a drawbridge and ivy covered facade

 This one, the Pfalzgrafenstein Castle is specially featured in the ads preceding Masterpiece Mysteries etc.- perhaps because it’s in the river itself so it’s easier to photograph. It was a toll station on the river.  Now a museum that can be reached by ferry.  

One of the later segments of the trip was through a tight bend in the river where currents are treacherous and the famous Lorelei Rock juts out to ensnare ships. The Lorelei was a mythical siren whose beauty and song lured passing sailors to their deaths. 

You can barely make out the statue at the base of the rock in my photo, I’ve added another one I cribbed from Wikipedia

One thing I enjoy about river cruising is that there’s almost always something interesting to watch on the banks from your stateroom.  In this case, towns, trailer parks near castles, passing trains full of automobiles, and a campground where you can sleep in huge old wine casks. 

Rhine River Cruise Day 8 - Speyer and Rudesheim

Friday we woke up in Speyer, which was once a center of Ashkenazic life in Germany. Accoding to our Viking materials, there had been recurring pogroms there. However in 1084, Speyer’s Bishop issued an invitation to Jews to settle there. According to our guide, “it was a business development move, since moneylending was forbidden for Christians and the city needed funds for the new cathedral….In return, the Bishop offered rights and protections that until then were unprecedented in Europe.” A strong Jewish community grew there at the time. You can still see the remains of an 1104 synagogue and a mikvah from 1126. 


Melissa was interested to learn that the Museum SchPIRA, dedicated to the Jewish history of the area is named in reference to the name Schapiro which comes from variants on the town’s name - Speyer, Szpira, and Spiro (Melissa’s last name). 
Quoting from the Viking doc again, “Almost all of Speyer’s Jews were murdered during the Holocaust.  But in 1996, a resurgence began when some Jewish families settled here from Eastern Europe after the fall of the Iron Curtain. The cornerstone of their new synagogue was laid in 2008. 

River Cruise Day 8 Evening - Rudesheim - Wine in a Monastery!

[Apologies for the earlier blank post. Hit the wrong button. It also means I couldn’t fully edit this post so there may be some errors/omissions that I’ll have to correct later]

Friday evening, some elected to stay on board while Linda and I opted for the trip to a winery in the Eberbach Monastery, founded by an Augustinian order, but “handed over” to Benedictine Monks in 1131.  It’s now a secularly managed winery and events space/education center/museum  

We walked around the grounds and heard about the rigorous lives of the Benedictines. My summary: Lots of prayer, not much sleep, and they had to invite lay-brothers into the monastery because there was a lot of work to do when not praying.  They also offered herbal medicine and food to the struggling community around them  (Sadly we didn’t get to visit their herb garden on this visit).  

The monastery is supposed to be one of the best restored in Europe (the lion on the lawn is some promotion going on all around the area - like the bulls awhile back in NYC)  

I’ll bent the monks would have appreciated this more modern approach to mowing the lawns:

Next we were led into the barrel room of the old winery for a tasting of 3 different Reislings, the specialty of the winery and the region. All tasty in my opinion, though differing in sweetness to dryness  

After the tasting, we took a tour of some of the other ares in the compound, including the monks’ meeting room and the monastery church. They asked for someone to sing to demonstrate the acoustics which were amazing (our guide said the sound lasts for 7 seconds). After my wine tasting, I was willing to sing a hymn, but there’s no picture or recording sadly. The sound truly did linger  I recall learning in College Glee Club that the music of the time was meant to layer as it progressed  

Last stop on the tour was the collection of wine presses used through the years. Truly impressive in their size (and when you consider they were operated by hand). I wish I‘d taken a shot with a person for scale. 

After the tour we had a lovely dinner in the old refectory and now that we were newly acquainted, we could choose the right wine to go with our meals. As often happens, we were too involved in food and conversation to take pictures of the meal, but it was very good. 

Rhine River Cruise Day 7 - Strasbourg

Strasbourg is in the Alsace region (one of those ping-pong areas that was German-French-German-French...).  It's currently in France, but when my great grandparents and Diana's ancestors lived there, it was Germany.  The whole crew embarked on the Canal Cruise Through Petite France.  It was a rainy day so we were glad for the glass-covered canal boat, but it made taking pictures challenging.  Here are a few I shot:

Later we were bussed into the main part of town to have a wander, case the patisseries, and see the famous Gothic cathedral.  Our guide told us it was the world's tallest building from 1647 to 1874.  

The cathedral is also famous for it's astronomical clock.  There was actually an original one constructed around 1354. The one we visited was the second clock, completed in 1574.  There was a whole lot of politics (Catholic-Protestant-Catholic-Protestant and French-German-French-German) that I didn't completely follow, but you get the idea.  The second clock stopped working in 1788 and stood still unitl 1838 when a new clock maker, Jean-Baptiste Schwilgue  began to rebuild it.  According to our guide, he decided as a child that he would make it work again and spent the next 30 years acquiring the knowledge and skills to do so.  He trained his team for a year before they began work. The clock has a planetary calendar that shows sun and moon in their correct positions (and the moon in its correct phase). Wikipedia says that the gold hands show mean solar time and the silver hands show Central European Time.  There's also a rooster that crows every day at 12:30 as the apostles move around the clock.  We missed that part, but did get to see the phases of man's life (from baby to skeleton) move around.  

Rhine River Cruise Day 6 - Emily's Afternoon in Colmar

Wenesday afternoon, Chris, Marg, and Diana chose to go on a tour of the Colmar  WW II Museum and Memorial.  As per the tour description, "Visit the Colmar Pocket, where Allied forces pushed back Nazi troops during the brutal winter of 1944–1945. US forces fought alongside the French Army to overthrow the German occupation of this key region."  It also included the story of Audie Murphy, a US soldkier and later movie star whose "heroic stand changed the course of this pivotal campaign." 

I opted for the tour of the Medieval Village of Colmar, a town in France.  We took a "train" ride (more like a motorized Disney train with cars behind it) around the restored medieval town with 9th-century streets, 13th century Gothic churches and the orginal Old Town.  I found it a little Disney-esque in a manicured cutesy way, but the guide pointed out that unlike some similar sites, these buildings are all in active business and residential use.  Because of the winding streets and the curving of the "train", it was hard to get clear shots, but here are a few to give you a taste:


Colmar is also the home of Frederic Auguste Barholdi, creator of the Statue of Liberty.  Here is a small statue of his, known as the Statue du Petit Vigneron (Statue of the LIttle Winemaker).

There's also a statue of Bartholdi himself with a little Liberty just behind his shoulder in the Parc du Chateau D'eau (the Water Tower Park) 

After the motorized tour, we were set loose to explore on our own.  Without a guide, I was grateful to be in a French town since I was able to employ my college French to ask for (and  mostly understand) directions more easily than in the German-speaking ones.  I visited the Marche Couvert  where there were cheese, wine, vinegar, and produce stalls as well as some prepared food stands and snack bars.  


I also passed by the Eglise St-Martin, a mostly gothic church which is often referred to as La Cathedral, even though it's never actually been the seat of a bishop.  

Rhine River Cruise Day 6 - The Black Forest and E-bikes!

Well the wi-fi on the ship was reeeaaallly slow. Just couldn’t get things to upload. Then once we were on land in  Amsterdam, we were busy all day seeing the city and crashing in the evening.  Now back in Brooklyn and will try to catch up (and hope my aging brain can reconstruct the stories based on the cruise itineraries and my photos).  

We left Basel on the evening of the 20th and arived the next day in Breissach - our base for exploring the Black Forest and environs.  Linda and Mel were brave enough to choose the E-bike trip through the forest (more on that later).  The rest of us took a bus tour of the Black Forest.  I was surprised that the Black Forest is largely mountainous (as our guide pointed out, the mountains are not as high as what we call mountains in the US, but we got up to about 3000 feet and the mountains are as high as 4800 ft).  It's mostly a farming area - hard farming on rocky steep slopes.  Not an easy life in the old days and still not much easier today.  One needed to have a lot of kids to do all the work of raising cattle,sheep and pigs, growing potatoes and cabbage, and making the famous Black Forest ham. Nowadays, people often need to add some form of agro-tourism or similar to make it work.  In centuries past, before global warming made winters less harsh, one way that people kept busy and productive was to carve wooden animals etc. and in some households/workshops, that also developed into production of cuckoo clocks (which actually originated there in Germany, not in Switzerland as is commonly believed).  

Our bus trip took us to a pretty touristy site in the mountains (If you've ever been to Solvang, CA, you have a sense of it), but it was interesting despite the packaging for visitors. There was a talk about cuckoo clocks, a visit to a glass blowing workshop, and a  demonstration on how to make the famous Black Forest Cake (with samples).  I have to admit I skipped those so I don't have any photos, but maybe my companions will provide some I can add later.  

Instead, I went on the "stroll" to a very old chapel nearby.  The stroll turned out to have a pretty steep grade and some hair-raising steps with no bannister, but with my trusty walking sticks, I managed to survive and see St. Oswald's Chapel, consecrated in 1148 with gothic and baroque extensions added between then and 1719.  The walk took us past a stream and an old railroad bridge that was destroyed during WWII in an attempt to slow transport of goods to German troops.  It's since been restored and is functional again

Under the church was an ossuary - a collection of bones stored on sacred ground. Our guide explained that they had originally been buried in the church graveyard, but the ground eroded and shifted, necessitating removal of the bones to the space under the chapel. 

After the hike, we piled into the bus to head back to the ship for lunch. 

MEANWHILE: 

Linda and Mel, the brave adventurers, were on an all-day E-bike trip through the Black Forest. Linda had some worries initially about whether she would be able to handle it, but they both came through it OK and were grateful for the boost the e-bikes give the rider - especially when going up hills.  They passed through small towns, stopping for cake and coffee at one point and for lunch in a small restaurant.  Their last stop was at a local pig farm where the farmer family talked about their life raising pigs and running a farm-to-table restaurant that's very popular with the locals.  

It was a very cloudy and ominous-looking day, but the rain held off... Until the sky opened just at the last big climb.  Both riders were drenched, but intact.  Thankfully they were offered scnapps only after the biking was done (Mel said it tasted like a Yankee Candle; Linda had a teeny sip and decided no more).  Then they were transported back to the ship by van.  Both said it was one of their favorite days on the cruise. 

One culinary factoid I found interesting was that the famous Black Forest Ham developed out of necessity.  During the harsh winters, the livestock and the family lived in basically sealed up houses - all the smoke from cooking or heating filled the house.  Hams were hung from the ceiling and over the winter months were smoked as a consequence of being in that sealed up house.  Now of course, they do it in a more controlled way.  

Rhine River Cruise - Day 5 - We Board the Riverboat!

On Tuesday, we boarded the Viking River Boat Rolf and got settled into our state rooms.  Our quarters were compact to say the least, but very efficiently laid out with a veranda balcony just roomy enough for 2 chairs and a small table.  Nice spot to sit out and have a cup of coffee or a glass of wine, and also providing access to the breeze off the river. As we recalled from our previous Viking trip, the staff is welcoming and helpful and the procedures are well thought out and efficient.  

On the river, the fuel comes to the boat, rather than the other way around

I was able to watch the process from our balcony as they pulled up right beside us. 

The “light lunch” provided for new passengers turned out to be a buffet feast with everything from salads and cold cuts tor ribs, corn, and multiple desert options. 

We decided to go for a stroll on the dock to a point they told us was the junction between Switzerland, Germany, and France (though technically I think that point is located in the River). This monument marks the spot 

On the way back, noted a few barges and a “party boat”

Then back to the boat for cocktails, orientation, and dinner. The food onboard is fabulous. Here are a few examples

A gorgeous beet and quinoa salad, a Swiss specialty- potato rösti topped with an egg, and a braised beef dish. 

There was a sort of piano lounge event afterwards, but we were beat so it was off to bed. 

Rhine River Cruise - Later on Day 4 - The True Adventurers

Behind the Münster, we found a small park, looking over the Rhine and caught a glimpse below of a cable ferry.  Developed by the Romans, it’s attached to a cable that traverses the river. The current of the river provides the force that pushes the boat across, using the hull of the boat like a sail to tack across. if you are interested in how it works, you can watch this short video 

As we looked down from the Münster, we could see that there were super steep steps down to the launch point and then another set of metal steps that looked challenging. Marg and I opted out, but the adventure team: Mel, Diana, Linda, and Chris decided to take on the challenge. They ended up crossing over bridge a little further downriver and then were able to double back and access the ferry on the other side.  On their way, fearless Mel scampered down the steps to put her feet in the Rhine.    

They found a ferry on the other side that wasn’t so daunting and rode back across  The boatman told them he had been on the job for 30 years and had recently semi-retired, leaving his son to do the work except for the Mondays when the dad still ran the ferry.

They also learned that the authorities have now cleaned up the Rhine sufficiently that it’s safe to  swim in again (unlike the Potomac) - and Linda got a shot of one swimmer. Evidently the current is so strong that many people bring a dry bag for their clothes so they can swim only in the direction of the current and then come back on foot or by public transportation  


Rhine River Cruise Day 3 & 4- Basel

 Sunday we took a train to Basel and checked into a really nice 3-bedroom Air BnB on a quiet residential street, but close to a bunch of restaurants and groceries (or so the maps and reviews said).

Unfortunately Sunday is a true day of rest for most businesses in that neighborhood, but after some further reconnaissance, we were able to locate one restaurant for lunch and with the energy remaining, we found a convenience store where we could buy some basics for a light dinner and the next day’s breakfast. 

The Murano on Hardstrasse welcomed us with a lovely outdoor space and a menu with 2 pages of Spring asparagus dishes as well as some local classics. The stand-outs were the cream of asparagus soup and  flamenküche (sort of a cross between a crepe and a flat bread with creme fraiche, cheese, ham, and potatoes). The pictures don’t really do either one justice, but both were very tasty.

The next day we were joined by our friends Melissa and Diana who, despite having just arrived on the redeye from Newark and a connecting train from Zurich, declared themselves up for adventure.  We decided to take the local tramline to the old town neighborhood of Basel.  It took us a while to figure out the ticket machine, but we were soon underway and into the old city in about 10 minutes. Riding on the iconic narrow green tram made me feel like I was in a foreign film where some trench-coated Continental type should get on and engage us in a mysterious conversation. But no such luck. 

First stop the Münsterplatz (Minster plaza) and the Basel cathedral, known for its Romanesque and Gothic architecture and its history of going back and forth between Catholic and Protestant occupants (not uncommon in this region as we’re learning). It has two towers - one dedicated to St. Martin and the other to St. George. Inside, it’s a light, airy space with amazing acoustics.

There was an odd sort of fellow playing a small portable organ.  Not the usual image of a cleric or church organist, but he played well and the music highlighted the sanctuary’s liveness. 

I particularly liked the crypt beneath which was set up for small scale services and recitals. 

The statue of St. George slaying the dragon made me laugh. The dragon looked more lie some kind of hound with wings than a scary creature. 

Next we wandered back along the Münsterplatz and down the windy cobblestoned streets to a plaza where we stopped for lunch. By then it was past lunch hour, but we happened on a basic looking place that turned out to have really good salads and another rendition of asparagus soup - definitely the star veg of the season in Basel. A bonus was watching them dismantle a huge Eurovision set (which required a crane to load the components onto trucks). 

By then Marg and I were done with walking and headed home while the rest of the gang, including the two most intrepid of travelers went off to explore some more. On the way back we noted an art gallery around the corner from our AirBnB and did a little shopping in the now open local Coop (I guess Switzerland also “runs on Duncan”.