The Rhine Diaries
Tuesday, December 11, Breisach, Germany across the Rhine from France
Actually day 2 of our cruise.
So far, so good. Our journey
began yesterday (although if you counted packing and the anxiety it created, it
started way before that.)
Sunday
we dropped off Scout but forgot her bag with all food and accessories, mandating
another trip to Catskill on our way to Newark.
We kept Henry the extra night, made a sandwich stop at Lawyers and a pick
up at the Teators, a drop off at Bryan’s, arriving at Newark airport with 3
hours to spare. We meet up with Tim
and Judy, drink beer, eat pretzels and board the plane.
We leave at 7:10 and are already 30 minutes ahead of schedule which
matters not to us as we have a 4 hour layover in Frankfurt before connecting to
Basil. We meet up with Pat and Jim,
(whose luggage is lost), board the bus to the ship, walk about, as we just
missed the official walking tour of Basil, unpack, drink tequila and head to
dinner. Which is lovely.
We have a perfect oval table for 8 and zany Zoltan, our waiter.
We discover a self serve mochachino machine and sit/ listen/dance to the
piano man in the lounge. We retire
but wake at 2AM when the boat docks and now we are both awake.
Me for hours, even with xanax. A
knock from Don startles us awake at 7:30. Breakfast
is a buffet with just about anything you desire, especially if you like smoked
salmon with capers.
Then
off to the Black Forest: beautiful
snowy landscapes but twisty windy roads. We
make stops at St. Peter’s church and shops of glass blowing and cuckoo clock
making. Mercifully Don changes
places with me. I sit up front so I
don’t hurl.
After
lunch we opt for the extra tour of Colmar, a small medieval French town.
It is beautiful but foggy and cold, much colder than the morning.
We have been lulled into thinking the day was improving—it was not,
quite the opposite. So we are
all under dressed and slightly crabby about the weather.
Our tour guide, Andy is a sketch and takes our mind off the weather.
Glugwein, hot wine, helps too. Even
so we are happy to wrap up our wandering through Christmas markets and head for
the bus. We change our clothes,
drink tequila and are ready for dinner. Zoltan is again our waiter.
He’s a big tall guy from Transylvania with a great sense of humor in
English, his obvious second language. Pat
and Jim’s luggage still hasn’t arrived and the airline has no clue where it
is. They did a mini shopping spree
and are now wearing different clothes and taking other people’s prescription
drugs. Reminds me of the time Ron
and I went to England for 2 weeks and my clothes went to Tampa, arriving home by
taxi shortly after we did.
Dinner
tonight is Chateaubriand preceded by
smoked salmon and a white potato soup, followed by regional cake and 2 cups of
that lovely mochachino.
Thursday, 12/12 Strassbourgh
Mochachino is not a good idea at night. So we watched a Meryl Streep movie till after midnight (still not tired) and spent the rest of the night in the twilight zone, not truly asleep/awake until about 5:30. After breakfast we walk a brisk 15 minutes to the bus. We don’t dock closer because of rodent (think RAT) problems created by the return of the swans. So after a bus tour of the “new” town we park and walk another 15 minutes to the old part of town which is actually on an island. Lots of timbered buildings and an ancient Gothic church. More fog and cold. More hot wine. After, I am happy to be sitting in the lounge by the big windows overlooking the river drinking hot tea and writing this journal. Ross is napping and the gang of 6 is still downtown. I wonder what they’re up to? And I wonder what’s for dinner!....duck a l’orange. Great food, great company, great day.
Friday, 12/13 Manheim to Heidleberg
First really good night’s sleep.
I feel like a new person but Ross, not so much.
A bit whiny about his stomach and the noises and things that go bump in
the night. Herring made its first
appearance at breakfast. I love the
food here. Always smoked salmon with
red onions and capers, fresh yogurt, cheese and meats in addition to regular
breakfast items. We are on the bus
at 8:30 to meet our tour guide Evelyn Obts who grew up here, worked as a travel
guide for 30 years and has returned home. She
was great. Took us to the castle
ruins and then into the old town for obligatory hot wine and Christmas markets.
We wandered around crooked streets, ducked into 2 churches and took
Evelyn’s recommendation for coffee at her favorite cafe.
We had just enough time for Ross to locate his nuts (candied) and hike
back to the bus.
Meanwhile
the ship has moved and we arrived at a new temporary port.
While we have lunch, we leave again, our first daylight sail.
Daylight yes, sun, no. Lunch today was all German specialties accompanied
by Pilsners and ommpa music. I am
beginning to feel like the goose stuffed for foie gras.
And the size of our cabin precludes jumping jacks and really exercise of
any sort. When I do yoga, Ross has
to stay in the shower or leave the room. There
is a walking/running track up top but it has been windy and foggy and cold.
We do 2 laps and retreat to the cabin to watch a movie.
When we surface the chef is doing a gingerbread demo and they are passing
around a local coffee with brandy. We
docked around 5 in Rudesheim , a good 20 minute walk to town.
We amble along the quayside and gingerly cross train tracks just as the
gates go down. All the shops, kiosks
and Christmas markets are open set against this old river town.
Our market purchases are only consumables so we are obliged to drink more
hot wein and collect the cups(blue). Back
for dinner and WOTD (wine of the day), a yummy reisling which Zoltan presented
to me as we exited the dining room. We
took it to the lounge and the party continues.
Saturday, 12/14 AM sail
This morning we woke to scenery moving in
our window, sailing again. I missed
most of the early castles as I was below searching for Benedryl.
Somehow I had a small serving of sesame in something at breakfast.
On deck, we saw more “castles on the Rhine” and plenty of picturesque
towns. After lunch we bussed to
Marksburg, the castle we passed this morning.
We were warned about the 192 stairs and very uneven cobblestones (they
were right). Our guide Jeffrey was
great and most enthusiastic about medieval toilets and torture chambers.
Useful info: the toilet door
was not shut when someone used the facility, only locked at night from the
outside to prevent thieves entering the castle through the shitter.
Now there’s quite a visual.
The
bus left us off near the city enter so we explored a bit, jostled around the
market, drank hot wine as the sun went down.
After
dinner the entire crew sang carols in English and after much clapping, danced
their way around the lounge, adding us as they went.
The tall blond grabbed Jim and off he went.
Sunday, 12/15 Koln
Rumor has it there is a lot of snow at our
house. How will we get in the
driveway? And if we get in, how will
we get out? Well, we have 2 days to
worry about that.
This
morning we wake up in Koln and bus to the cathedral square.
Our guide is 2 meter Peter and he is good.
You could easily wander around any city but without a local guide-or
doing a lot of homework- all cities are just cities.
We learn about the Romans, especially the mushroom soup poisoner known as
the Mother of Koln; see an enormous
excavated mosaic floor and more good stuff.
The cathedral dominates. All
the rest was vaporized in WW2. We
hear the bells and a little of the hymn sing in the sanctuary.
More hot wine, another cup and we head back for lunch.
I opt for a rest, journaling and a walk of the quay.
Tonight, beer crawl.
Monday, 12/16 sail to Holland
Beer crawl a mistake. Didn’t know it at the time, but I had food poisoning. (Should have had the brownie dessert instead of the marscarpone) Just made it back to the room before it all came up. Horrible night, afraid to eat anything. Still don’t feel right. So today was a lost day. Coke for breakfast. Stayed in bed all day except to visit the UNESCO windmill site.
Tuesday, 12/17 to the airport in Amsterdam
Party’s over! It was fun.