Nurnberg (How they spell it)

Early this morning we passed the European Continental Divide. The canal linking the Main and Danube rivers was only completed in 1992, although other parts of the canal system were in place before this date. This summit of the Canal is located 406 metres above sea level, which makes it the highest point of Europe’s system of commercial waterways. Instead of going ‘up’ in the locks as we have done since leaving Bucharest, we now go ‘down’ in the locks before reaching Amsterdam. 

It costs 13 Euro cents per mile to travel on the river systems using the many locks.

Today we are in Nuremberg, Germany. This is the place Hitler declared would be the place where the General assemblies of his party, the so called Nuremberg Rallies, would be held. The City is quite big really and the large Fortress/Imperial Castle with its walled interior has pride of place overlooking the City itself.

Because of Hitler’s presence here at times, 90% of the Old Town suffered extensive damage during World War 2, due to bombings by the Allies, but much of it has been restored to the glory it once knew as the unofficial capital of the Holy Roman Empire.

In one of the town squares there is a VERY ornate fountain with statues hi-lighted in gold. There are a couple of very nice Churches which, of course, are ornate and huge with lovely stained glass windows and impressive looking Pipe Organs. In one of the market squares there was a fruit and vegies market, but, the thing that interested the majority of us was the stall selling the original recipe Gingerbread. This was really delicious and we did end up buying a couple of pieces to bring back to the boat. We enjoyed our look around this City very much.

Once back on the boat, we were entertained by a German ‘one man band’. He was truly very talented, playing 5-6 musical instruments and entertaining us with his antics. He appeared not to speak English, so his announcements were met with dead silence most of the time, but he managed to get his message across and he had some of the passengers up and participating in the musical hilarity in the end.  This fellow had the biggest moustache we’ve ever seen.

In th grounds of the Imperial Castle

 Marketplace

The Beautiful Fountain