Rudesheim, Germany

Rudesheim is located in the Rheingau region of Germany, though one of the smallest wine growing regions in the country, it is world renowned for its high quality Reislings.

We spent a couple of hours walking around the town and this is what we found. It begs the question...what are they thinking?

We took a tour of the Schloss Vollrads wine estate which is located on the hills above Rudesheim. This is a very beautiful estate. We were able to sample some Reisling wine while we were there.

Heidelberg, Germany

Heidelberg is a perfectly preserved Baroque city located in the Neckar River Valley. Beautiful homes line the river. (Steffi Graf used to have a home here).

On a hill overlooking the river are the remains of the Heidelberg Castle with architecture spanning from the 13th to 17th Centuries.

Heidelberg is a University town. Being founded in 1386, Heidelberg University is Germany's oldest. According to our guide, tuition is 500 Euros per semester (That's right 5 hundred I didn't leave off a zero. That makes tuition around $650 US dollars.)

There is a central plaza downtown where the locals meet and hang out.

Next stop...Rudesheim.

Speyer, Germany

The boat was docked near a beautiful park in Speyer. Our tour guide walked us through the park to the central town square.

A very long time ago Speyer was a Celtic sttlement, then re-settled by the Romans, then destroyed in 450 A.D. by the Huns. From the 13th to the 18th century it enjoyed both prosperity and leadership as one of the seven free Imperial Cities in the Holy Roman Empire. Unlike so many other German cities, Speyer was not heavily damaged during the two world wars. Its major devastation occurred in the late 1600s when the French invaded and occupied the city until 1815.



An important law-making assembly of rulers was held in Speyer in 1529. It was convened by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V who was hoping to reach a compromise with the Lutheran princes. They would be sllowed to practice the "new" religion of Martin Luther within their own frontiers, but forbidden to impose it on their subjects. The princes strongly protested, then refused the offer. It was this incident that gave rise to the use of the word "Protestant".

The name of the town Speyer means "spire" in English, probably from the six soaring spires of the massive Romanesque Kaiserdom (Cathedral).

(On a side note, we're trying to catch up our blogging from the week on the river cruise. In reality, we just posted this

entry from the fast train from Amsterdam to Paris. Gotta love the train travel here...car attendants bringing snacks and beverages, free wifi and seats twice the size of airline seats and 3x the leg room!)

Strasbourg, France

Strasbourg is the capital of Alsace and is located halfway between Paris and Prague. Strasbourg is aslo known as the "Crossroads of Europe".

We had some free time to wander around Strasbourg and take in some of the local scenery as well as sample some more of those French pastries.

It also contains the Cathedrale Notre Dame.

Strasbourg contains historic canals which cross under covered bridges linked by medeival watchtowers.

On the run ... maybe more pictures of Strasbourg later ... next up, Speyer and Heidelberg, Germany.

Alsatian Wine Road

From Basel our boat headed north (while we slept) and docked in Breisach, Germany. The first thing we noticed is how many swans are in the river. That was a fun surprise! We got off the boat in Breisach and hopped on a bus and headed across the Rhine River to Colmar, France. C0lmar is situated in the Alsace region between Strasbourg and Basel.

Buildings in Colmar date from the middle ages. Colmar is a beautiful city with many half-timbered historic homes, cobblestone streets and small canal-like waterways.

On the top of the church is a stork's nest. At first we thought it was just a symbol to represent the church's desire for more babies in the congregation. But as it turns out, there are several stork nests in this area because some of the birds have decided to settle here.

And since Colmar is in France...we'd like to give a shout out to those French pastries ...the baked goods are phenomenally good! When you are walking through town and catch a whiff of the local bakery, it is simply irrestible!!

Colmar is the birthplace of the sculptor of the Statue of Liberty. There is a miniature version of the statue in one of the round-abouts outside the city. (By the way, there are many round-abouts in Europe and they seem to work quite well!)

After our walking tour of Colmar we got back on the bus and headed up the Alsatian Wine Road to the 16th-century village of Riquewihr. What a gorgeous area!!!! Kind of like Napa Valley...but way better!

There are vineyards everywhere and then dotted between the vineyards are these historic little towns.

Each town is dominated by the spire of at least one very old church.

There are many half-timbered homes most with window boxes and SO MANY flowers!

They plant roses at the edge of the vineyards because roses are a good indicator of plant stress or disease.

They plant geraniums in the window boxes to ward off mosquitoes.

The best part of this vineyard area though is that true "Alsation" grapes can only be grown below a certain elevation. That means that the higher parts of the hills and mountains retain their native forested vegetation instead of being covered by vineyards. In fact, no development at all occurs in the higher areas.

River Cruise - Castles Along the Rhine

Some general notes about the River Cruise - the service is excellent...the food is "to die for"...and we feel very young! Most folks on the cruise have an age advantage on us of at least 15 to 20 years ... although we hope at that age, we can be as active as our cruise mates. One group of about 40 folks that graduated from a Maine high school in '48 takes an annual trip together ... and this year chose the Rhine cruise.


If you want to be pampered and totally taken care of ... a river cruise is the ticket. We leave our cabin in the morning ... they make up our room ... we leave our room for lunch or a tour ... they make up our room ... we leave our room for dinner ... they make up our room. Always leaving chocolates on the bed, fresh water provided in decanters, clean towels and linen ... and in the evening, the next day's itinerary is left in our cabin. Another good thing is that there is always free time scheduled in the itinerary as well. You can leave the ship anytime you want when it is docked (daily) and the only restriction is that you re-board before it takes off down the river.

The cruise manager (Mirela) is a "mother hen", continually on the public address system providing information and accompanying us on our tours. The tours are top quality with good audio equipment and local guides. The ship staff are exceptional (and very international) ... and take care of your every need. The meals are: full buffet breakfast; full buffet lunch (with some really good desserts); and, a four course dinner (with choice of wine where your glass is never empty). In between meals, special food events happen on the sun deck. Of course, there's Charlie, the musical entertainment and other entertainers that get on at other ports for the evening entertainment.

The ride is very smooth ... and scenic ... and you dock in the central area of the port cities (easy walking distance).

Basel, Switzerland

From Wengen we headed back down the hill toward Basel. We passed beautiful areas of Switzerland, some very pastoral scenes and gorgeous lake areas like Lake Thun.

Made it to Basel with time to spare and took a cab to the port to get on the ship for the river cruise.

Wengen, Switzerland

We spent two nights in Wengen, Switzerland which is located in the Swiss Alps. We arrived on Friday afternoon and the plan was to "hike in the alps" on Saturday. But Kathy tweaked her back Saturday morning so we ended up having a rest day instead. The best news was that the views from our room and balcony were spectacular.

One interesting side note - since we stayed in the

room for the day we turned on the TV. There was a soap opera on. The dialogue was in German but the background music was American with songs sung in English. We asked the hotel staff about this and she said that the younger Swiss generation thinks it's more "cool" to speak English and are giving up some of the Swiss traditions. She found this very disappointing.

Dinner and breakfast were included with our room rate so we were able to sample the traditional local cuisine. Here are the dinner menus (there were no english versions):

Freitagsmenu

(Friday's Menu)

17. September 2010

Zitronengrassuppe

(some kind of vegetable-based soup - tasted good)

Tomatensalat mit Zwiebeln and Schnittlauch

(salad...so far so good)

Sautiertes Fisch-Potpourri auf einem Gemusebeet

an einer leichten Krautersauce dazu Limettennudeln

(Fish sampler...Kathy even tried the trout which tasted much less fishy than the salmon...wasn't about to try the oyster.)

Apfel im Schlafrock mit lauwarmer Vanillesauce

(Apple something or other in a vanilla sauce...tasty!)

Samstagmenu

(Saturday's Menu)

18. September 2010

Gemusebouillon mit kalbleberklosschen

(Have no idea what this was)

Mit Sauerrahn and Zwiebeln gefullte Tortillas mit Tomatensauce und Kase Uberbacken

und Blattsalaten serviert

(Who knew unrolled cheese enchiladas with salad were a traditional Swiss food? These were GREAT!...by far this was Kathy's favorite food in Switzerland)

Gemspfeffer

Wurzig mariniertes Gemsragout, serviert mit

Butterspatzli glasierten Maroni, gefulltem Apfel,

Rotkraut, Rosenkohl, Brotcroutons, Specksteifen,

Champignons und Silberzwiebeln.

(When Ron asked the waitess what this was she pointed to the head on the wall for a visual clue. It was local mountain goat in some kind of sauce. We just kept reminding ourselves that it probably lived a better life than most of the farm animals raised in the USA. Still...it wasn't a real hit with either of us.)

Kleiner Sorbetteller mit Fruchten

(assorted fruit sorbet)

Lauterbrunnen Valley

Our train ride took us past beautiful deep green valleys, flowing rivers, and spectacular waterfalls.


We switched trains in the Lauterbrunnen Valley which is an idyllic looking mountain town.

Interlaken Ost

"Interlaken" is literally "between the lakes" of Thun and Brienz. It is a beautiful resort town located at the gateway to the Bernard Oberland, which is a region of the Swiss Alps. In Interlaken we hopped on the train for the first segment of our trip up the mountain.