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Published: November 10th 2017
Cologne church at night.
Taken from the observation deck of our ship.Geo: 48.5839, 7.74553
We woke up in Koblenz, Germany this morning and got ready for our excursion for the day. Stacy didn't feel well this morning and returned to the ship just before the bus left for Marksburg Castle. I soldiered on without her. The castle is one of a very few castles that was never destroyed. It is over 700 years old. It sat up on top of a large hill overlooking the Rhine River. I returned to the ship and we cast off for a day of sailing up the Middle Rhine River thru a gorge. There were 22 castles on the hilltops in this area dating from the 11th century. It was a spectacular voyage. Everyone was up on the observation deck, sitting in lounges and drinking beer and wine. For dinner, we went ashore to Rudesheim. This excursion took us into old town and a nice restaurant with an oompa band. We had a nice traditional German dinner. I took a shot of Schnapps from a six foot board with 5 shot glasses attached. Five of us lined up and all drank at once. Stacy got picked to play a bell with 8 other people. They played
Edelweiss. The director pointed to each person to play the bell. It actually sounded pretty good. Then we went around the room doing a line dance to some German music. We then went back to the ship for the night. The next morning we went on an excursion to Heidelberg Castle. It was raining there and the place was packed with tourists. In the cellar was the largest wine barrel in the world. It could hold 60,000 gallons of wine. After Heidelberg, we sailed to Speyer. I went and took a look around Speyer for a while. Then off for our next adventure. The next morning(today) we decided to sleep in and have a leisurely morning instead of going to Strasbourg. We were there 2 years ago so felt we didn't have to see it again. In the afternoon, we took a bus tour of the Alsace region of France. It included a stop at a winery and we got to talk to the owners and try some of their wine. We then went to a small village called Obernai and walked around for an hour. Then back to our ship. We sail tonight for Breisach, Germany.
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Michele McGauvran
non-member comment
Gorgeous photo Bob. Love this one. That would be on a wall in my house.