Friday, October 23, 2015

October 18-19 Vienna

October 18-19 – Vienna

Vienna is NOT showing its best weather being both cold and rainy.  But we were off early to see the Lipizzaner horses at the Spanish Riding School.  I had ordered tickets on line and they were sublime – right above the royal box at the opposite end from which the horses enter the ring.

It was a full crowd, as always, and there are very strict rules about using a camera since it might spook the horses.  The performance consisted of 5  parts:  
the ‘youngsters’ who are still learning their paces and not ready for prime time; 
Pas de deux
Work in Hand & Schools above the ground – lots of jumping up on all fours; standing with hind legs holding the whole damn horse up etc.
All steps of classical school – dancing, trotting, dancing close etc
Quadrille with eight horses doing their stuff weaving in and out of each other.

Gay and I kept worrying that the horses may not love this work they do, but on reading further on google, and in the book we bought, we felt less concerned for their well being. They have a sauna and very lovely quarters when not performing.  And obviously each rider takes very good care of their special horse.  The horse is bred for this particular work and is known for its docile nature, sturdy structure, ability to learn, and longevity – they last for over 40 years.  And as to the riders, they train quite awhile before we ever have a chance to see them in performance.

It being Sunday, and most of Vienna closed up for the week-end, including many sites, we spent the balance of the day relaxing until dinner at Artner – another small intimate restaurant within walking distance of the hotel.  Like the Entler, few foreigners….of course next to us was a lovely mother/son from Mechelen Belgium.  He works in Austria as a mechanical engineer, and proud mama came to visit him. We spoke English together as we ate our dessert, and then walked back to the hotel.

Monday – a raw, very rainy day.  We had determined that Monday/Tuesday would be the time to use our two-day hop-on hop-off Vienna Sightseeing pass which allowed us to go free into almost every major site.  First we took two of the bus routes without getting off, just to get our bearings.  We were all set to get off at the National Art Museum only to discover it was closed, so in the pouring rain we got off at Landtsmann’s cafĂ© for lunch.  This is a traditional coffee house and restaurant made famous by the likes of Freud, John Lennon, most famous musicians and god knows who else.  Built at the time of Biedemeyer, we sat in the Biedemeyer salon and enjoyed people watching as much as we enjoyed our light lunch.  Then off to the Albertina Museum of modern art to see Picasso, Miro, Giacometti and many German and Austrian painters of the early 20th century.  At this point we went back to the hotel to rest until dinner at Danieli’s – a fabulous Italian restaurant.  The taxi driver wasn’t quite clear on where it was and even with his GPS he coded it incorrectly and took us for a very long ride…..and when he finally acknowledged his error, he took us to our destination which was less than ½ mile from our hotel and charged us nothing!  For appetizers, Gay had grilled avocado w/ shrimp; I had prosciutto and melon. For our main course Gay had monkfish and I had pasta with a light lemon sauce and zucchini shredded.  This is a wonderful restaurant, like all the others with a nice mix of Viennese, Italian and American guests.  Gay managed to have a three-tiered set of gelato – raspberry, apricot and strawberry.  I watched. 

The taxi got us home by 10:00 and straight to bed. 

A small note on what I enjoy about Vienna:  the restaurants call a taxi for you and tell you to wait inside.  The taxi driver comes in to where you are, and you follow him out.  No standing on corners soaking while you wait.  Granted they charge you from where they started their journey to get you, but on average every taxi ride is 10 euro or less, and for an 80 yr. old sister who doesn’t enjoy walking very far, this is quite ideal.

Tomorrow is our last tour day, and they promise clear skies – if not blue. Then dinner at Entler again, packing, and voila – trip over.

October 16-17- Vienna

October 16 – 17 - Vienna

Last night we heard a splendid concert of the Vienna Symphony (NOT the Philharmonic).  It was at the Musikverein, built by none other than Franz Joseph…. Of course.   I had ordered the tickets on line so we simply picked them up, and once the hall was open we went to our very lovely seats on the ground floor.  A most elaborate hall, as are all buildings in Vienna.  It was a packed house with people sitting on stage behind the orchestra players, and standing in the back of the hall.  Not a seat to be had.  Few tourists, mostly solid Viennese dressed quite nicely.

The concert consisted of two pieces by Tsychovsky: the Violin Concerto with a young woman named Arabella Steinbacher as soloist. She got a zillion standing ovations and played a small encore before our intermission.  Afterwards was the 4th Symphony filled with bombast and lots of brass.  Amazingly there was a taxi right there waiting for us and we got home lickety split for a short drink in the bar before retiring.

Today, Saturday with a promise of blue skies and crisp fresh air, we went on a quest to find Gay a phone cable and plug for her phone. She had left hers on the ship, and while we called them immediately yesterday, they never found it. So we walked to the Kartner strasse pedestrian shopping area where at a T-Mobile shop they fitted her out.  Then since she was not feeling up to par, we hopped in a cab and returned to the hotel.  I marked out my route and took off for MAK:  The Viennese Museum of Applied Arts located about 2 kilometer from the hotel.  It was a lovely walk past the park of the KurSalon, to the museum building – again built by Franz Joseph.  What a juxtaposition: an ornate, gilded building with elaborate frescoes and lots of gold, and in its galleries displays of modern furniture, porcelain ad objects of the 20th century.  On the main floor, coming off of the lobby which had floor to ceiling spaciousness were various rooms or galleries: One room focused on Jugenstiel; another on Biedemeyer, another on Klimt.

  Downstairs was my favorite part of the museum – MAK Design & Labor.  It showed new design concepts for familiar objects: see-thru toaster; modern plastic containers; a toilet designed to be totally recyclable with even the water re-used, while the waste is conserved for fertilizing fields.  It requires no hook-up and was funded by the Gates Foundation. They showed all manner of objects associated with eating and the kitchen – a stove made from an old oil drum; a stove made from a shopping cart; a desalinization object made from recycled plastic; etc. etc. I spent at least 90 minutes in this one area alone and didn’t begin to skim the surface.  The top level of the building was a photographic exhibit, and one of Christof Niemann an illustrator who works internationally and has an absolutely amazing imagination.  I will have to learn more about him.  The last exhibit was of modern photographers – most a little too dramatic for my liking, but I thought Jock would have enjoyed it lots more than I. This museum will deserve a return visit should I come back to Vienna.

I fell into a cab because I was late, came back, relaxed for a bit and then we were off to dinner at a local FABULOUS restaurant recommended by the front desk staff.- Restaurant Entler. Definitely a local restaurant, elegant with amazing food and service.  All other guests were Austrian – including three with their dogs: a poodle, a shepherd, a retriever and a spaniel.  Every dog gets a water dish from the restaurant and sits quietly under the tables.  There is theoretically one dog for every three people in the city.  We both started with a pumpkin soup, then gay had lamb and I had fried porcini mushrooms w/ yogurt sauce.  Her dinner won the prize.  We will go back again – it was a winner and a price performer.

Tomorrow Lipizzaner  Horses and a museum or two.

October 15- Vienna

October 15 – Vienna

We arrived in Vienna on the morning of the 14th in very rainy weather.  We had a rainy bus ride to give us a panoramic tour of the Ring and its critical buildings.  Then we were dropped at Swedenplatz where we began our walking tour which, of course, included one museum, the main cathedral and then back for lunch.

In the afternoon I packed and had a deep-tissue massage before eating an early dinner.  We were all going to a concert of Strauss and Mozart at an auditorium within the imperial palace.  A 32 piece orchestra and 4 singers gave a delightful concert for 90 minutes.  Then we went back to the ship for our last night.

Gay and I took a taxi to our ‘home’ for the next five nights – the Best Western Kaiserhof which is lovely.  While we cool our heels in the lobby waiting for our room to be ready, I thought it time to summarize our river cruise.

I read on cruise critic that someone called Uniworld ‘the Seabourn of river cruising’ and I have to agree.  It was called a boutique cruise and it certainly seemed to be.  Each ship holds maximum 150 people,  The individual rooms while smaller (to allow the ship to get thru canals and locks) were sumptuous with flocked wall paper, marble bathrooms, lovely duvet-covered king size beds, and on the top level French doors that slide open.  There are four tiers for the cabins, and we were happily on the top level. Above us is the sundeck which when not going under bridges has sun chairs, tables, and the bridge house.  On our level was the diningroom, the lounge and the library, not to mention the lobby from which we left the ship.

Every evening, like on all ships the next day’s program was provided with critical information regarding the tours of the day and whether we were to have our VOX box with us (the means by which tour guides in each town could talk into our ears instead of screaming at a crowd).

The tours were well laid out and the guides, to a person, were excellent.  They always had a ‘gentle walkers’ tour which meant a little less walking, and at times a taxi to take one into the center of town, there was also an ‘active’ tour which could include bicycles, longer hikes, or more hills.  In each town we would be shown the important sites, shown where we could meet, and then always enough free time to have a snack or to shop.  It was always organized and one never felt uncared for.

On board it was almost perfect.  One could sit in the lounge and watch the world float by sitting on couches or comfortable chairs; snacks and drinks were available all day long. Breakfasts and lunches were buffet style with a few special foods – soups at lunch, typical German food eetc.  (Unlike the big ships, the food is tailored to the country in which they are sailing, and many of the food stuffs are picked up at local ports). Thus on this trip there was cheese, sausages, wienerschnitzel and potato based dumplings. Salads were fresh greens, and all manner of additions.  Perhaps only sandwiches were poor…it’s not a European concept.  

Dinners were always amazing with free flowing wines. Everything was beautifully presented and amazingly good.  

Considering that the whole crew is less than 41 (and that includes the hidden people in the engine room, docking the boat or doing laundry) we were impressed.  To a person they were helpful, always wanting to accommodate your every wish, and most amazingly: they all seemed delighted to be helping us.  One can sense if crew aren’t happy, or if there are frictions, and I can say I didn’t see any of this. One got to know every waiter and waitress, the front desk staff and of course our cruise director Heiner Schmitt.  

We were told on the last gala night that the captain was truly sweating as we were sailing down the Danube.  The water was very shallow and he said that in 30 years of sailing river boats, he had never seen it this low – ever.  At worst we would have had to finish our tour by bus, or be given a refund….but as guests we were only slightly aware of this impending crisis.  To us it simply meant a longer day in Regensburg, and an earlier departure than usual. We had no idea of how fragile our adventure was.  The simple fact that this was handled with such aplomb is a credit to the entire cruise line, who despite providing us a lovely day, felt they needed to compensate us with a $250 credit on our next cruise…. Which I am sure we will use.

The evening entertainment was varied:  speakers came on board; entertainers came on for an evening and on long cruising days they had daytime entertainment: glass blowing, lectures etc.  And if that wasn’t enough there was one woman who was the entertainment with her piano and her vast array of songs in her repertoire.

Perhaps for me the most delightful thing was that this was an all inclusive trip.  Amex had provided us each a $250 credit, and Gay and I were hard pressed to use it.  We paid for the concert in Vienna, used the laundry service rather than do it ourselves, and bought a map. But there we were with one day to go and over $100 credit. So I had a massage.  Then, since they can’t give it back, we asked them to give it to the charity which they support so that our balance was $0.00.  That one can have Tanquaray gin, lovely wines, and all tours and tips  free makes a big difference.  You never feel nickel and dimed. And if anything you felt coddled. The only things for which one would be charged were special tours which could be arranged, or the concerts off the ship where they can’t count on everyone wanting to do these things.

Overall, between the quality of the tours, the all-embracing sense of being cared for, and the most amazing staff, I will definitely chose to do this again.

As I said earlier, it is like Star Flyer on steroids. It’s not a sailboat, but similar in size of crew and passengers.  As on Flyer one did become a small family  sitting at meals with your favorite friends, but able to identify absolutely every passenger within a few days of being together. But what was superior to me were the local tour guides, the imaginative  itineraries, the quality of food, and the luxury of the staterooms.

I will definitely do this again.

October 13-14 - Passau and Durnstein

October 13 & 14:  Passau & Durnstein

This morning we got to sleep a wee bit longer with our departure planned at 9:30 am. It was overcast and raw and everyone had on the layered look. Our guide was brigitta, a very lively, witty woman.  It always delights me when you find a German with a real sense of humor.  She had it, along with very powerful knowledge.

Passau is at the confluence of three rivers: The Ilz, the Inn and the Danube.  So it gets flooded and like other towns these high water marks were shown on the side of buildings located near to the river.  We walked up hill through narrow lanes (gasse in German), being told about the signs on buildings to identify the tradesman within, the dates on top of doors done at the Christmas time; and of course we landed at the town square where there was the bishop’s home (very baroque with huge painted ceilings) and the cathedral.  We were given a small lecture about the cathedral, and then wandered around for 30 minutes until we were to return to the church to hear an organ recital. The organ here is the largest cathedral in Europe with over 1725 pipes. 

Gay had stayed at the boat having not slept well, and it was just as well since there was a lot of walking and the organ recital, while it demonstrated the organ, was not a very interesting concert.   These concerts are given every day at noon, and every seat in the pews was taken. We sat in the front row so we could study the modern altar piece and the ornate decoration on the ceilings, and of course we all felt quite holy.

After the concert we were urged to walk quickly down the steep alley ways back to the ship so that we could head off to the next site. We sailed further down the river to the tiny town of Engelhartzel with a population of 1000, and a Trappist monastery known for its beers, cheese and bread.  Our first stop was a small children’s park which lays out the whole river system in miniature so children can learn about locks, rivers, flooding etc.  IT was the size of a small mini-golf area but very well done.  Next to it was a small aquarium which is freshly fed by fresh water and contained a variety of local fish. I kept wondering how you could employ enough people to support this aquarium and park and learned that the fish are fed automatically, and the school parents supported the park. (The school had 35 students from 1-6 grade and 25 pre-school).

Next into the monastery which was beautiful but very sad.  Trappist monks are a quiet sect that simply work and pray. They are not ministers, but they work very hard making their cheese and beers….all FOUR monks.  It turns out that before the war there were 78 monks, but Hitler sent them all off to Dachau, and only 15 returned.  Those have been dying out, and of the four left the ‘youngsters’ are 52, and the others above 80.  Not many people want to join the Trappist sect and yet who will maintain this elaborate church and its associated beer business?  They are not allowed to make a profit so all proceeds from the beer are poured back into the monastery for repairs and maintenance.  But to see how elaborate the church was, you wondered how it could keep going.

Having gotten somewhat depressed, we headed to THE bar/hotel of town where we sampled the Trappist beers (not my favorite), ate some cheese and then headed back to the boat ready for a warm shower and dinner.

Our gang of Ian and Rosemary, Jerry and Sue dined together and off to bed being promised a rainy day tomorrow.

October 14 – Durnstein

A wet soggy day. I stayed on board all day watching castles pass us by as the rain dripped away on the windows.  Instead I planned our Vienna days and watched the movie The Woman in Gold since it had lots of pictures of Vienna and the Belvedere.

Tonight is the official gala reception followed by the gala dinner, and tomorrow we sail into Vienna for a full day on the ship and a concert in the evening.


October 12 - Regensburg

October 12 – Monday – Regensburg

Another gorgeous morning.  We awoke in Bach, south of Regensburg, at 8:00 a.m. on a frosty morning.  For us Vermonters it was crisp but lovely in the upper 40’s for the Australians and folks from Arizona and Bangkok it was downright freezing and they were bundled up with hats and mittens.

As soon as we were off the ship, it started further south heading for Vilshofen just north of Passau.  We hopped into our buses and headed into Regensheim where we had a 2 hour tour of the town before bus #3 headed to the BMW plant.  

We walked across the stone bridge built in the 12th century, and our guide filled us with data about why this town was a huge trading place being perfectly situated on the water.  We saw the building where salt was stored and learned of the importance of salt in the middle ages when it served as a preserving agent, a tanning agent, a wool agent, and of course a spice.  It was called ‘white gold’. Thanks to its location along the Danube, it has become  a popular tourist site not just for foreigners but for Germans as well. It was one of Hitler’s favorite towns because it looked so traditional.  It had a fairly large Jewish population before the war, and we passed many sites where Jews assigned to the stone quarries worked before being sent to Dachau.   The main town square, like all others had THE cathedral, and from there one could head to various shopping streets.  

At 10:30 we BMW tour people walked back across the stone bridge to our bus which took us to the outskirts of town where we were met at the plant by a lovely British woman of about 32 years of age.  She moved to Germany being in love with a young German, learned the language and is now the guide for BMW with most English groups.  She was delightful and knowledgeable and for the next three hours we visited inside the plant.  This plant is the most automated of all BMW plants and turns out about 1200 cars/day.  That is an outstanding number…but when one walked in the plant you understood why.  We saw three main sections: The Body Shop where the structure is put together; The Paint Shop where interiors and exteriors are painted; and the Assembly Shop where lights, tires, steering wheels, gas caps, etc are put on the car.

I was mesmerized by the robots which seemed almost human.  In the body shop there are 2350 robots and 1000 humans – of which 2/3 are programmers.  The humans work in shifts, so that at any one time the 2350 robots are being managed by about 100 humans.  In fact in the body shop one saw almost no humans…. A few at quality control stations; a few that opened and closed ‘garage’ style doors where robots were working behind, and a few delivering parts to the robots.  Each robot in one area did about 1650 unique copper welds, and when they got to that number they automatically replaced their copper’fingers’ and kept going.  It takes about nine hours for the parts to become a body.  They then move to the paint shop which takes about eleven hours to paint and dry the car, and finally nine hours in the assembly shop.  So basically every two days a car went from nothing to fully running car ready to be road-tested.

The Paint Shop employed only 900 humans of which 2/3 were robotics programmers and such. Each car is given five coats of paint.  The surface of the car is somewhat magnetic at this point so the robotic paint sprayers could make a perfect coating….and for me the magical thing was: the cars are not done in any order so that we watched first a black sedan, then a white convertible and finally a red suv type car go thru the paint process….using the same damn paint sprayers.  The robotic sprayer can change its color nozzles in seven!!!! Seconds.  And no spillage from one to the next occurs. 

Since every car is unique, we learned that of the 270,000 cars made per year NO TWO are alike – people want different colors, different steering wheels, different location of steering wheels based on where it will be driven, and on and on.  I found that amazing – truly Just in Time manufacturing.

The final stop was the assembly shop which is where we saw the most humans, because here the small parts, tailored to each car are put on.  Each worker has less than 28 seconds to complete their task, and the cars are running on a permanent belt as they move through the processes from windshield wiper installation to gas tank cover, to the final adding of the medallion at the end.  If a person takes longer, the computer starts playing a song in that area that alerts supervisors to slow down the belt, and on computer screens through out this area they show how many seconds different cars took – the highest we saw was 50 seconds – which means 50 seconds MORE than the allotted 28 seconds.  That’s a major screwup…but most were at zero or close to that.  To avoid a job being too repetitive, the worker is told when he has done a task for 30 minutes, and he should do something else. If he wants he can stay for up to two hours, but then he MUST go to a new assignment.  All of course with the robot doing the ‘heavy lifting’ raising the car to put something underneath, or raising up the nose so a grill can be put on without strain.  The guy doing tires was amazing: he stood in one place, along came the car at the same time as the tire of choice for that particular car rolled in front of him….perfectly timed.  He simply aimed the tire at the wheel, a gadget came and tightened the wheel, and presto 28 seconds later it was on its way.

Another interesting factoid is that while the car, including its doors and trunk are all painted at exactly the same time, it is easier for assembly human workers not to have the car doors on.They can get at the inner parts more easily….so the doors are taken off by the robots, and are following the car on a separate track until at one point, presto they are put back on the same car to which they had been previously attached. God forbid a different door would line up with a car.

The guides for what is required for each car are three pieces of paper with bar codes which are attached to the hood.  The robot is reading these bar codes to know what color, what steering wheel, what tire etc. is to be  put on THAT particular car.

Getting and organizing the parts for assembly workers for a  particular car are done by a human, who reads the bar codes from a computer screen where the  part required is symbolized by a picture of an apple, an umbrella, a kitten etc.  They found that someone quickly seeking a particular required part did better locating a part with such a simple kindergarten symbol than some numerical code.  It looked like children picking toys from bins.  At the end of assembly, voila…. A car.  It is taken out to be tested and every 10th car is actually taken out on a test track and driven by BMW employees.  Now That’s the job to have.!!

My only sorrow is that BMW does not employee many women in the plants.  Overall 25% of the workforce is female, and in assembly less than 7%. Naturally there is a fire department, an emergency hospital and all manner of employee support systems available. And as a manager you get a new BMW every year to drive (not unlike Belgium where employees got cars as well).

All in all a fabulous tour.  Afterwards we all reflected on how awed we all had been by the robots, hopped on our bus and went back to town, and once more walked across the stone bridge for lunch (wurst house right next to the salt storage area at the foot of the bridge) and to meet the rest of our fellow  passengers.  Then we all walked back (4th time) across the damn stone bridge and headed out of town.  At this point I had over 6 miles of walking between the four crossings of the bridge, the walk through the plant, and ambling in general.  I was glad to be done for the day.

Because the boat moves so slowly we needed to stall for time before driving to Vilshoven, so we drove on backroads into the Bavarian Wild Life park for a small ‘snack’ at 5:00 p.m.  The drive through the park was beautiful with lush dark trees and winding roads.  We landed up at a typically Bavarian guest house where our light ‘snack’ was beer, dark bread and a full plate of cheese and sausage.  The place was called Gut Schmelmerhof and even our guides didn’t know it.  It had been recommended by Uniworld HQ in Basel Switzerland when they knew we needed to allow for some stall-time.  It turns out a woman in HQ grew up in the Bavarian wood area and suggested it. So blindly we went, and blindly we were delighted.

Finally after another hour we were back at the ship where we were not alone.  All manner of river boats were there having taken the same tactic as we.  So since the places to ‘park’ the boats were limited, our River Princess was tied up to another river boat of another company which in turn was tied to another.  So we walked through two lobbies and into our ship where I chose NOT to have dinner but to go to bed instead.

A full and wonderful day.


October 11 - Nuremburg

October 11 – Sunday

A powerful if depressing day as we went back in history to WW II.  Our first stop on a sunny day was to look over a lovely lake (which is the hole where a huge stadium was to have been built) to the unfinished congress building which Hitler planned to be bigger than the colosseum.  It was never completed, but it would have been a grand statement.

Nuremburg is a lovely town, and I kept thinking that if the damn Germans hadn’t kicked us out,it would have been a lovely place to grow up.  The cities with their traditional buildings are lovely, the Jugenstiel facades are charming, and Germany now is a picture of success.  But it always gnaws at me that this very civilized country could be turned to animals in a very short period of time.

Our next stop was the courtroom of the Nuremburg trials.  Our guide, Stephen belongs to a group that give tours to children and tour groups like ourselves on the grim history of WW II. He couldn’t be more than 35 and is fervent in his descriptions of the Nazi horrors.  For a long time the citizens wanted to tear everything down that had to do with that period, but now with hindsight, and most participants dead, they have chosen to preserve some significant buildings as lessons to be taught.

The courthouse continues to be just that.  The only changes to the room were the removal of the translators corner which was glassed in, and a few rows of seats used by those in attendance. But otherwise to look at a picture of 1945 and 2015, there is little difference.  Quite chilling.

From there we went to a  portion of the unfinished Congress Hall known as the Documentation Center where the Nazis kept all their records.  It has a new addition attached to it, and provides a powerful exhibit of the history from 1930 – 1948 called Fascination and Terror.  Each room has video, illustrations, objects, and documents which show the hideous history year by year.  There was a hand-held device which allowed people to listen to detailed history on every object on display.  I could have stayed for hours.  We were told that were we to listen to each anecdote we would be there about six hours, at a minimum.  We had 45 minutes. Were I to come back to Nuremburg, I  would definitely go back here.

Now thoroughly depressed on a sunny day we raced back to our ship.  The Danube River is losing water by centimeters every day, so while our next stop was to be Regensburg, the captain decided to go past Regensburg to a small town of Bach, which was south of there.  It would put us further on our way south.  And in the morning they would get us up early and bus us back to Regensburg for a full day as planned, while the empty boat raced on to Passaul where we would meet it at the end of our Regensburg adventure.

So for the balance of the day we raced down the Main-Danube Canal, a man-made masterpiece that connects these two main rivers and allows for a complete passage from Amsterdam straight to Vienna and onward.  

To fill our time in the afternoon we had two great lectures: the first on Germany from 1945- 1990 given by a very witty, well-spoken political scientist.  After his lecture, I asked him what books in English told this story as succinctly, and he said he knew of only one:  Fritz Stern, The Five Germanys I have known.  Which happens to be the book I loved and made my book of the year about five years ago.  He also recommended two movies: Lives of Others about the Stasi in East Germany and Good Bye Lenin.  Both of which I have seen.

Our next lecture was on the building of the Main-Danube Canal with full descriptions of how the lock system works, the politics behind building it and its economic ramifications.  Very interesting.

Then cocktails and dinner and bed.  

A very full day.


October 9-10 Wurtzburg yo Bamberg

Oct. 9-10

 Wurtzburg, Rothenburg  and Bamberg

Awoke in Wurtzburg on the 9th to a foggy, cold day, so Gay and I did not join the morning tour of the Wurtzburg Bishop’s palace filled with Tiepelo frescoes and lots of rococo gold, pink and beige.  Instead, we waited another few hours, and then joined the group in the late morning to go through the lush, green farm land of Franconia.  

We were told all about crops, farming and how one hunts wild boar and deer before we came to the lovely town of Rothenburg.  With our guide William we walked through the thick city walls and walked in a leisurely manner up the hill to the main market square.  Things that were pointed out were the inner walkway on the backside of the city walls, which one can still use to circumnavigate the town.  We sampled various food specialities including: dried apple rings, a medley of sausages and something called snowballs which are a sweet large dough the size of a baseball coated in chocolate or sugar or honey.  

We learned about the history of the town which was only slightly bombed in WWII because the Americans made a deal saying that if the Germans would give in within five hours their city would be saved, otherwise it would be bombed to smithereens.  

Once in the market we had a lunch of bratwurst and beer in a lovely old pub, did a bit of shopping at the christmas shop which had every known type of ornament, nutcracker and nativity scene and then walked slowly back to the bus and ‘home’ to the ship.

October 10th

We arrived in Bamberg in the afternoon but the beer tasting  tour had been canceled, so while one could walk through the rain to enjoy the town which had NOT been bombed, I chose to stay onboard and read quietly.  In the afternoon we were given a short lecture about the ship itself, I talked with Bob, played scrabble, and then listened to the plans for the next day.  It would appear that around Regensburg there are few locks and over 100 kilometer of river without locks, and thus the water was too low. As a result we will have a slight change of plans, getting off early in the morning and being bussed ahead while the ship without the 90 people, and in daylight goes slowly down the shallow river.  I don’t know how our weight can make that much of a difference, but there you are.

It’s now the morning of the 11th – a Sunday – and we are off on a sunny day to re-live WWII.