Ted-Ted the Rabbit

When Mary & I were in Kuekenhof Gardens in the Netherlands prior to boarding our boat back on May 1, we came across a very interesting creature.  It seems that in Holland, Ted-Ted is a rabbit.

Thursday, May 5, 2011 Speyer, Germany

We had a very leisurely day.  We had the choice of leaving the ship this morning and visiting Heidelberg or staying on the ship as it sailed from Mannheim to Speyer.  We chose to stay on the boat and cruise instead of sightsee.

We had a very relaxing morning with a late breakfast, Mary read while I wrote postcards and did yesterday's blog (it takes a long time to download each picture), watched the other boats go by and after lunch we napped and walked into Speyer.

Speyer turned out to be a nice little town and not touristy at all.  They have a park along the river.  It is about a 5 minute walk along manicured paths through this lovely green park to the big church that dominates the town.  The main street leads straight away from the church.

It seemed as if the merchants were having a sidewalk sale as they had many garment racks on the sidewalks in front of their stores.   There was one store that reminded us of Bibelot in Minneapolis.  The little downtown was about 5 blocks long.  It was set up like a pedestrian mall.  There were lots of sidewalk cafes.  Most of the sidewalk cafes were full of people (Germans by the sound of their talking) just relaxing in the sun.  It was probably around 70 degrees in the sun.  There were locals wading in the river enjoying the nice day.

We came back to the boat for our evening activities and dinner.

They post the menu before dinner and lunch every day.  Each day has a different menu.  Our theme tonight was an international dinner.  If you click on the picture you can enlarge it and you can see what we were offered.  We both had the perch with ice cream for dessert.

This is a picture of the perch.  Notice the presentation.  Everything they put in front of you is very interesting.

This was our Belgium ice cream.

After dinner we took a couple of strolls on the sun deck.  It was dark and there was a little sliver of the moon.  So it has been confirmed that there is a moon in Germany!



Pictures of the trip

Hello faithful followers,

We thought we had a good internet connection so will try to show you some pictures from the past couple of days.

The Viking Helvetia in Cologne, Germany.

Mary & Greg with the boat in the background.  Wednesday, May 3 in Braubach, Germany.

The view from Marksburg Castle.  Wednesday, May 4

Hey Tim, this one is for you.

At Marksburg Castle.  One of the cannons used to enforce collecting tolls from the boats that went past on the river.  They could also use the cannons for self-defense if necessary.

Another one for you Tim.

This was a knight's helmut.

The view of Marksburg Castle from our room on the Viking Helvetia.

Much of the scenery along the high bluffs of the "Middle Rhine" reminded Mary of the Mississippi River near Fountain City.  The Rhine River is much narrower than the Mississippi River.  Much of the Rhine River has dikes or retaining walls to keep the river from flooding.

One of the many castles along the "Middle" of Rhine River.

There are lots of little villages all along the way and they all have at least one church.

One of the many villages with the church in the village and the castle overlooking the river and the village.  We were told the church was always built in the highest part of town because the Rhine River used to flood a lot.  It doesn't flood as much any more because of the dikes and retaining walls but apparently flooding is a major concern all along the river.  We have been told the river is very low at the moment due to lack of rain for the last 2 months.

During World War II, the allies didn't bomb any of the castles along the Rhine River.  So the Germans built facades to look like castles at the entrances to their train tunnels so the allies wouldn't bomb their train tunnels.







Castles & Lilian May 4

Greg, Kyung-Sook, Mary, Dieter

Lilian, Kyung-Sook, Dieter



Wednesday, May 4

Our trip is flying by!  This was the highlight day of our trip.  We spent time with Lilian and her parents and we cruised through the "Middle Rhine" the narrowest part of the Rhine River Valley with the steepest embankments.  Lots of small village, picturesque vineyards and lots of castles! 

I have been averaging around 30 photos a day up to this point.  Today I took 200 photos!

I'll give you the day in chronological order.

Before continuing my commentary, I want to report our weather has been so good we are kind of taking it for granted but it was another warm, sunny day.

We started out with a leisurely breakfast.  You can either do the buffet and/or order off the menu.  We discovered they have very good oatmeal.  They have lots of fresh fruit.  They have wonderful fresh blueberries we have been mixing in with our oatmeal.  Their French Toast is actual toast.  They have tomatoes sliced into thirds which taste like stewed tomatoes.  They have wonderful yogurt with lots of different nuts and fruits for toppings.

As we were eating breakfast we arrived in Koblenz, Germany.  Koblenz is at the confluence of the Rhine and Moselle Rivers.  We did a shore excursion in Koblenz to a castle named Marksburg.  The Marksburg is a fortress above the town of Braubach just outside of Koblenz.  It is the only medieval castle of the Middle Rhine that has never been destroyed.  Almost all of the other castles and fortresses have been destroyed during one war or conflict and then rebuilt.  Tim, you would love this place!  This place still has some of its original furnishings.  They even have a room where they display their weapons and protective gear from the middle ages.

After our tour we reboarded the boat for our cruise through the Middle Rhine.  There were numerous and almost continuous castles and fortresses for the rest of the day until we arrived in Rudesheim around 4:30 PM.  Between and below the castles were charming little villages.  There are train tracks on both sides of the Rhine River in this stretch and 5 minutes didn't pass between trains on one side or the other.  There is also constant boat traffic.  We spent the entire afternoon on the sun deck listening to the commentary and watching the world float by.

For lunch, we had a choice of eating in the dining room or on the Sun Deck.  They made part of the Sun Deck like a street festival with different food booths.  We chose to eat on the Sun Deck so as not to miss any of the scenery.  The food was all German ethnic food.  We enjoyed the Black Forest cake for dessert the most.

The boat arrived in Rudesheim just after 4:30 PM and we saw Lilian and her parents on the shore waiting for us.  By 4:45 PM the boat was tied up and the gangway was cleared for disembarking.  It was fun seeing Lilian again and meeting her mother, Kyung-Sook, for the first time.  Her father, Dieter, had visited with us when Lilian lived with us.  They gave us a brief tour of Rudesheim and then Lilian, Mary & I toured a Mechanical Music Museum.  It was very interesting.  They have various "instruments" that were made to play at fairs, festivals and carnivals.  Our guide gave us a demonstration of one or two insturments in each of the rooms we went through.

Then we headed for Wiesbaden.  They grow a lot of grapes in this region and most of the grapes are used to make Reissling wine.  Dieter drove us through some of the vineyards and to a beautiful setting that was once an abbey.  It is now used for conferences, weddings and special events.  It was also the setting for a Sean Connery movie in which Sean Connery plays a detective monk.

In Weisbaden, Dieter took us to a park that overlooked the city.  It was a lovely park.  Very wooded.  It reminded us of Peninsula State Park.  Weisbaden is known for its thermal baths.  We stopped in the heart of downtown and put our hands in a couple of fountains to feel the warm water of the hot spring.  Then we walked around the lobby of their state theater.  It was very ornate.  Nicer than anything I've seen in the United States. 

Next we had a very memorable dinner at the Kafer'S at the Kurhaus in downtown Wiesbaden.  Karer'S is a fabulous restaurant in an impressive building.  The building was built in 1907.  Lots of wood and elegance with European charm and intimacy.  The food was outstanding.  It was truly a magical setting and is was fun getting caught up with Lilian and talking with her father and mother.  It was a very European 3 hour meal.  We had a wonderful time together and the time passed all too quickly.  We had to get back to the Viking Helvetia before we were left behind.  We were the last ones back on the boat, arriving at 12:15 AM! We are excited to know that Lilian is coming for Chelsea's wedding for sure...she wouldn't miss it!

Marksburg Castle

Tuesday, May 3 Cologne, Germany

Hello Faithful Followers,

Today we visited Cologne, Germany.  Cologne is the home of Eau De Cologne although we didn't buy any.

The boat docked just after 9:30 AM.  We joined a number of other fellow cruisers for a walking tour of the old part of the city.  Cologne was badly damaged by allied bombing during World War II but the old part of town has been reconstructed to look like it did before the war.

The big highlight is their gothic cathedral.  It has twin spires that are 515 feet high.  At one time, until the construction of the Eiffel Tower, this was the tallest man-made object in the world.

After our tour we returned to the boat for lunch.  I had bratwurst and Mary had a salad and a little "muffeletta" sandwich.

Then we struck out on our own and headed for the chocolate museum.  It is operated by Lindt.  Lindt is from Switzerland but some part of the process in taking a cocoa bean and making it into chocolate was invented in Cologne. The museum had 3 floors and had fairly extensive displays and exhibits that talked about the history of chocolate from the time the Europeans learned about it from the Aztecs in Mexico. 

They also explained how they process the cocoa bean from the time it is grown until it becomes the chocolate we eat.  The most intersting part for us was they had an area with machines actually taking the liquid chocolate and forming it into little candy bars. Of course, there are free samples!

After spending a fair amount of time in the chocolate museum we walked around the town on our own.  We returned to the boat for the late afternoon talks and then dinner.  Tonight's entree was lamb.

Tomorrow we reach the middle Rhine where there are a lot of castles.

Sorry for no pictures but we aren't able to download them.

May 2

You may or may not be able to see the picture I downloaded.  Our internet access is through a satelite.  It seems to have problems with dowloading and uploading pictures.

Hello faithful followers,

It is just past 11:00 PM on the boat.  We had a relaxing day getting used to life on the cruise.

We have been meeting people from all over the United States on our vacation.  We ate with different sets of people at breakfast, lunch and dinner.

This morning we visited a place called Kinderdijk.  We left the port of Amsterdam on Sunday night at 11:30 PM.  We sailed through the night.  There is little or no motion on the boat.  It is very stable.

We woke up this morning docked in Kinderdijk.  We have TV in our room.  We knew as soon as we woke up about Osama bin Laden which would have been a couple of hours after President Obama made his announcement.  We watched the CNN reports as people gathered in Times Square, Ground Zero and at the White House.  Coverage here has been continous all day everytime we turned on the TV.

After eating breakfast with two ladies traveling together (Catherine & Elizabeth) from Baltimore and Texas, we put on our warm clothing as it was in the low 50s with a stiff wind.  They divided the ship up into 4 groups of people that wanted to see the windmills.

We walked off the ship and had a walking tour of this Unesco World Heritage site.  They have 19 windmills from the 17th and 18th centuries.  We were able to go inside one of the working windmills.  They are very powerful.  Their main purpose was to pump water out of areas below sea level and into the canals.  The secondary purpose was as a source of power to grind grain.  The windmills became obsolete with the introduction of steam powered pumps.  Now all of their pumping stations are electric powered.

We left Kinderdijk at 11:30 AM and have been sailing ever since.  Just after we left Kinderdijk we had the mandatory life jacket drill with reporting to our muster stations.  That was followed almost immediately by lunch.

The weather warmed up as the day went on and the wind died down as we got further from the North Sea.  We didn't spend a lot of time on the top deck because of the wind.  We took naps this afternoon and then joined in the social aspect of cruising later in the afternoon and into the evening until it was time for dinner.

They have various nonstop things that pass the time away.  At 4:00 PM they had a Dutch Tea which gave us another opportunity to eat pasteries.  That was followed by a question and answer session with the ship's captain.  We learned things like the river is 12 feet deep in the channel, the boat has a 6 foot draft, we are traveling at 8 miles per hour and so on.

At 6:30 PM they formally introduced the ship's officers and staff.  The ship's captain looks like that tall skinny guy with the close haircut from the Drew Carey Show.  After the introductions we received a talk on our port of call for tomorrow (Cologne, Germany).  Then it was time for dinner!

We crossed the Netherlands/German border as we were eating dinner this evening around 7:45 PM.

We ate dinner with a couple from Ohio and a couple from Massechusetts.  There were 6 of us at our table tonight.  We were busy talking and were among the last to leave the dining room.

WE hope everyone back home is in good health and having a good week.

Greg & Mary

Sunday, May 1

May 1, 2011

Not sure why,  but I'm having some problems with my photos tonight.

We had a wonderful day visiting Keukenhof Gardens.  The flowers were gorgeous.  The weather was perfect.  There were lots of flowers in Bloom besides tulips.

We boarded the boat about 5:15 PM.  We have a lovely cabin.  At 6:00 PM they had an embarkation talk that lasted until 7:00 PM.  There are 190 people on board the ship.

At 7:00 PM we all went to the dining room.  We sat at a table with 8 other people.  We were near the windows so could see all the river traffic while we ate.  We can eat at a different table with each meal.

The food we had was excellent.  We started with a chef's salad, followed by minestrone soup.  Mary and I each had the Rockfish.  It melted in our mouths.  It was served with polenta.  The dessert we chose was the brownie with ice cream.

The other people at our table were from Tacoma, Washington, Savannah, Georgia and Alabama.  The first main topic after where was everyone from was everyone's children, grandchildren and families.

We were the youngest at our table but it appears there are other people our age on cruise.

We sail at 11:30 PM tonight.

Apparently the wifi internet is iffy on the cruise, so we aren't sure how frequent our next postings will be.

I'll try to get the picture thing figured out and further update this post later.

We are doing well and excited about starting on our cruise.

We have our first port of call at 9:00 AM tomorrow.  We get to see a UNESCO World Heritage site with 19 windmills before leaving the Netherlands.  We are there until about 11:30 AM tomorrow morning and then we spend the afternoon cruising.  I'm looking forward to the afternoon cruising.