Heidelberg

We are on the road again. We have had 2 days of over 500 Km travel and although it has meant we were pretty tired by the end of the day it has been worth it.

We left Amsterdam on Tuesday morning and travelled to the Rhine River where we took a ferry ride for about an hour. We had travelled this stretch of the river last week. We enjoyed seeing it again as the weather was much better this time. The Castles looked much better on a sunny day!

We lost a couple of people at the end of the Ferry ride as they did not get off. We had to chase the ferry down the river to retrieve them. This resulted in a bit of lost time.

We then made the trip to Heidelberg in Germany where we stayed the night. This town is quite large with a river running through it. The old part of the town has some impressive buildings, a nice town square and a huge Castle standing high on the hill overlooking the town. The Munster church is in this old part of the town.

After we had looked around the town we all met up again for dinner in a local restaurant. Then off to bed for a well earned rest.

Amsterdam

There was no blog for yesterday as we really did nothing tour wise during the day. The weather was terrible and it rained heavily all day. We were to go to Cologne on tour, but…..due to the fact that repair work was scheduled to close the River to traffic for a couple of days, we had to miss Cologne and steam full speed ahead to get the Amsterdam side of the bridge before work started. However, we did stop in at a small town to let people who REALLY wanted to go to Cologne (4 1/2 trip in the rain, all up) get off and catch the bus which was provided by Avalon. We then picked these people up again further upstream. We ended up making it to Amsterdam last night around 9 pm.

Today the sun is shining and it has been quite hot really. This morning we all had a Canal Tour which was very interesting.  We actually found the little place where we stayed some 37 years ago when we had 2 nights here with the kids in 1977. The Eureka Hotel, if you might remember, kids. There are certainly some canals to travel down and the number of houseboats which are homes to families has grown heaps since we were here. They all have their little gardens and some have sun rooms, mostly they look quite comfortable.  We then paid a visit to the Gassan Diamond factory.  This was interesting, we saw the craftsmen perfecting the facets of the diamonds, and had the process explained to us, then were given a look at some beautiful diamonds without their settings…lovely.

After lunch we embarked on a tour to a Traditional Windmill Village called Zaanse Schans.  This place was some ½ hour out of Amsterdam and was an open air village with its typical Dutch houses, a number of windmills, cheese makers and clogs makers, as well as craft stalls, of course.  We actually went inside a windmill and had the workings explained to us. This particular Windmill processes chalk for making artists paints, and you were able to climb up to under the ‘sails’ for views over the nearby water and fields. The Clog making was amazing.  They use a machine with a principle similar to a key cutting machine and the new piece of wood is shaped by the shape of the neighbouring clog. This is then taken out of that machine and shaped in another one to finish it off….all taking around 5-6 minutes to make a clog. We have our last night on board tonight, so packing needs to be finished before we go to bed. We are having an extra 2 nights in Amsterdam before we join our next bus trip in 3 days time. Hoping the weather stays nice for the next 3 weeks.

Rudesheim - Rhine Gorge

Today was a late start as we weren’t due in to Rudesheim until lunchtime. We were running a little late, but after lunch we all boarded the local street train for transport up to the Siegfried Mechanical Music Instrument Museum.  This was an amazing array of old musical instruments which have been restored to working order by one man and his son. We were able to see and hear a few of these old instruments play their music, and the way all the different instruments moved and worked was really good to see. A very interesting place to visit. After the Museum there was a coffee tasting at one of the Coffee houses. The coffee was laced with brandy and that was the ‘coffee tasting’. A few of the passengers were hoping it was actually a coffee tasting….life’s full of little disappointments!

After leaving Rudesheim we travelled up the River until we came to the Rhine Gorge.  Here a number of us stood out in the cold wind and took photos of some of the 18 Castles in this area for a couple of hours. Some of these Castles were quite imposing, standing high on the hills overlooking the towns and the River. It was a pity that the sun wasn’t shinning, but, we can’t have everything, at least it didn’t rain until the last 5 minutes. There has been a change to our itinerary.  We are not stopping in Cologne tomorrow after all.  There is some repair work going on to a bridge down the River and it has been decided that if we want to get to Amsterdam on time for flight connections etc. we will have to travel through the night and day to beat the scheduled closure of the River. A trip is being offered by bus to Cologne from a port further downstream, but we have decided not to go on this. For a 4½ hour bus trip we would only get a couple of hours in Cologne, so…..we’ll stay on board and relax and pack ready for disembarking in Amsterdam.

Put in your money - go through the turnstile

 Fairground music maker

 Main Square - Rudesheim

 A couple of Rhine Gorge Castles

Wertheim

Today we are still in Germany in a little town called Wertheim. We arrived a couple of hours earlier than was expected, so after a quick lunch, we were off out to explore this place on our own. The town is at the junction of 2 rivers and therefore has a couple of little bridges over one of these to enable one to get to the other side of town. High on the hill is the Wertheim Castle ruins, these a result of the 30 year war. The views from up there justify the climb up to it and well worth it Dave says.  I didn’t go this time. There is a lovely Collegiate Church in the middle of town and it is a refreshing change after some of the many Churches we have been in. This one has very few statues, no stained glass windows to speak of and looks so nice with the orange sandstone bricks outlining all the Gothic arches in the building. A humble and nice place. 

The town square was busy with people sitting having coffee etc at all the little cafes and bakeries. The usual narrow cobble stoned streets/alleys with their steep sloping roofed houses are very nice. It didn’t take us longer than a couple of hours to explore this cute little town.

We had a few white swans and their babies outside our window this morning, no doubt looking for food. They sailed back and forth and eventually, Dave threw them the remains of a ‘delightful’ snowball which he bought yesterday to try. Our guide had said he thought these snowballs were terrible and we shouldn’t even try them…of course, Dave had to dash into a bakery and buy one. They are hard to describe, but are hard and dry.  Dave’s verdict was that our guide was 100% correct, they were awful! So, the swans ended up with what was left of the snowball after everyone had tried it yesterday.

Wurzburg - Rothenburg

Today we are docked in Wurzburg, Germany. This morning we had a tour of the Baroque Palace of the Bishop Prince of Wurzburg.  This Palace is very big and ornate (surprise surprise) but it also has the largest ceiling fresco ever painted. This in itself is truly magnificent and depicts life on the 4 continents which had been discovered back when the fresco was painted. The rest of the residence is very decorative and a bit over the top really, but…back then the Bishop had to have the best and the most of everything. Unfortunately, we were not able to take photos of any of the rooms or ceilings in the Palace, but we were able to buy post cards, of course. Dave has photographed these, and I did manage to sneak 1 photo before they said ‘no photos’. Also of note to see is the huge and impressive Fortress Marienberg which sits high on the hill overlooking the water and the town below.

 

After lunch we took a tour out to Rothenburg, which was about 1 hours drive from Wurzburg. Rothenburg is Germany’s Medieval Town and the entire town is enclosed behind high stone walls with gates and guard towers which date back to the 13-16^th Centuries. A lovely town to visit, so pretty, and all the houses are well maintained and decorated in different styles of architecture, and with the same cobblestoned narrow streets most of these places have. You can climb up steep stairs and walk around some of the walls of the town and we did this. You get great views of the town and all the houses and Churches from up there. Definitely well worth a visit.