Geo: 52.3738, 4.89095Arrived early at 11:30am, to a foggy and overcast day. Showers predicted, but the sun peeks out occasionally. Canal tour this avo then disembark tomorrow at 9am.Quick stroll around the red light district last night. The girls seemed a little prettier and less bored, than I recall from previous visits.Now the 9th. Met up with Jan and Tessa this morning, ran a couple of errands with them and came back to their house on a canal for morning tea. Then Rob and I caught a tram to the museum square: visited Van Gogh, a diamond house and Rembrandt's House. Then a long, leisurely walk home. Special home dinner tonight, rijsttafel tomorrow night and Japanese the night after.... read more

Geo: 49.9789, 7.92641Rudesheim, locally known for its fine Reisling and its quaint, 144m-long shopping street Drosselgasse. Population 10,500 and 3,000,000 tourists each year.Also there, was Siegfried's private collection of 350 mechanical musical instruments, dating from the middle 19th©. One of his machines included a piano keyboard and six violins (see pic and caption). I was also captivated by the collection of cuckoo clocks on sale, made in the Black Forest. These were beautiful and wonderfully intricate. If more than €400 was spent, the 19% VAT was waived and this more than covered the cost of shipping and insurance. Very tempted!After Rudesheim we sailed down the 50km Rhine Gorge, with castles and palaces every few km on both sides. Here the dastardly Nazis added castle-like stone facades to the railway tunnel entrances to fool the Allies. This ... read more

Geo: 49.7411, 10.1656Short video of our minstrel entertainers last night. Surprisingly our Wi-Fi upload speed is a creditable 1.5Mb/sec, download a miserable 0.5Mb/s, with frequent drop outs.Kitzingen is another pretty Franconian medieval town that claims to have one of the oldest cellars in Europe. The nuns first made wine here in the year 745 and our wine tasting was in a cellar dated 1138 (or thereabouts). The town is struggling economically since 20,000 US troops pulled out and APT have dealt with the council to build their own dock here.Visited the Wurzburg Residenz (palace) this avo. We were told that this and the Cologne Cathedral are the two most important sights in Germany. The palace is a smaller version of Versailles, but more ornate and the 1752 ceiling fresco in the grand staircase is a masterpiece. ... read more

Geo: 49.2106, 11.1773This 171km German canal (completed in 1992 at a cost of €2.3B) connects the Main and Danube Rivers over the Continental Divide/European Watershed. 16 locks raise and lower the waterway to a summit of 406m above sea level, the highest point on earth accessible by sea-going watercraft. These are the narrowest locks on the route and three of them each connect a height difference of 24.6m. In some sections the canal is an aquaduct, carrying the waterway over rivers and roads below. (I will try to get of photo of this)The total length of our cruise is 1,812 km - 745km on the Danube, 171km on the Europa Canal, 380km on the Main, 495km on the Rhine and 20km on the final canals into Amsterdam.... read more

Geo: 48.5784, 13.4579CK is a quaint town dominated by a hilltop castle and church. Charles and Camilla secretly honeymooned there. A big deal for the locals who apparently respected their privacy.NB. This urban myth, perpetuated by the guides, has been Wiki'd and found to be untrue.... read more