Degendorf (where?)

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Successfully reached Degendorf last night around midnight, a small town that the staff say they've never stopped at before, so these high river levels must be very unusual for this time of year.



Surprisingly high uptake this morning for the two hour bus ride to Nuremberg, which is where the ship itself should have got to by today.



And now, writing at lunch time, things have just got really complicated!

Our sister ship "Lif", which is doing the same tour but in the opposite direction, is stuck in Nuremberg the other side of the low bridges, and we are stuck this side! Viking have come up with the ingenious solution of doing a complete passenger swap between the two ships, and then each ship will turn around and go back where it came from! This should work as the ships are almost identical except for some details of decor. With pain killers I should just about be able to manage the two hour bus ride, especially as we will be able to get straight on our new ship and have a rest.



After lunch on the ship we took a stroll around Degendorf and found a very pleasant gardening exhibition in one of the municipal parks. It was REALLY hot so of course we had to have a seriously tasty ice cream under one of the big sun shades. A lady and a younger girl sat down at our table. The young girl pointed to herself and said "schule Englisch" (school English) and I pointed at myself and said "schule Deutsch" and we all laughed heartily at our high wit!

A delightful conversation followed about nothing in particular in mangled phrases from both languages, and with lots of hand waving.



We struggled in the strong sun to get back to the ship, but we made it in time to have a good nap before dinner.



Those who left on the buses at 10.30. a.m. for Nuremberg (140 people or so) finally got back about 8.30. They had had a pretty exhausting day, including a big downpour too, so we certainly did the right thing staying behind!



Although one or two people were getting a little bit mutinous over the recent problems, the vast majority are thoroughly appreciative of the crew's efforts to get us back on track again in a difficult weather situation which was completely beyond their control. Consensus seems to be that we've all grown quite fond of them, and they of us, so we'll miss them. (where's me hankee?)



It's quite pointless trying to upload any more photos until we get to Nuremberg, though I did managed to get one through of Passau which shows how tight the clearance can be under the bridges.



Carole says she's fine, but anxious :-)

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