May 8 Switzerland

Happy Mother's Day to all mothers out there among our faithful followers.

Also, Happy Birthday to Adam on his birthday!

This morning we left the boat.   We went through a series of canals during the night and were docked in Basel, Switzerland before 2:00 AM.  Someone on the boat had to leave by 4:00 AM to catch their flight home.

We made arrangements for a taxi to pick us up at 9:30 AM so we had a leisurely departure from the boat.  We had to be out of our cabin by 9:00 AM.  We went to the sun deck to wait for our taxi after leaving our cabin.

This is the view of Basel, Switzerland from the top deck of the Viking Helvetia. Once again we were blessed with a beautfiul day.

Switzerland has an amazing public transportation system.  Our taxi took us from the dock to the train station in Basel.  We then took a train from Basel to Bern.  Transferred in Bern to another train.  Went from Bern to Interlaken.  Transferred to another train in Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen.  In Lauterbrunnen we transferred to a cable car right at the train station.  The cable car took us part way up the mountain to Grutschaip.  In Grutschaip we transfered to an electric narrow-gauge train car that took us into Murren where we are staying for two nights.  We left the boat at 9:30 AM and were checked in at our hotel in Murren by 1:00 PM.

This is the ticket counter at the train station in Basel.

This is the train we took from Basel to Bern.  It is one of the high speed trains, ICE.

Here we are on our first train of the day.

The train from Bern to Interlaken took us along the entire south shore of Lake Thun.

Mary at the train station in Interlaken.

From Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen we started climbing and the scenery changed.  We followed this little river for quite a while.

 The view of the Lauterbrunnen train station from the cable car that took us from Lauterbrunnen to Grutschaip.

 Looking down on Lauterbrunnen from the cable car.

 In Grutschaip we transferred to this narrow-guage train car.  This car took us from Grutschaip to Murren.

 Mary on the narrow gauge train car on our way into Murren.

We arrived in Murren!  Note, the elevation: 5,361 feet.

We are staying two nights at the Eiger Guesthouse.  This is a picture of the Eiger Guesthouse.  It is located directly across the street from where we arrived on the narrow guage train car.  There aren't any motorized vehicles in Murren.  It is similar to Mackinac Island in that respect.  It is a pedestrian town.

 This is our room.

 The view from our room when we checked in.  This is the opposite side of the valley from Murren.

Murren is a big down hill ski village.  They don't have a ski resort as such.  There are several ski lifts in the area and it appears people ski down the mountain into the village.

We took a walk around town.  There are several scenic overlooks in the town.  This is looking down on another little village in the valley below us.

 Another picture of the same view overlooking the village in the valley.

 Here I am on our walk around Murren.

As soon as the snow melts, then Murren becomes a center for hiking.  There are several trails that take off from Murren through the countryside on the side of the mountains.  After our walk around the little town of Murren, we took a walk on a trail labeled "easy".  There were several streams and waterfalls along our walk.

This is a transition season for Murren.  On our way up the mountain there were people with downhill skiis.  They can still ski at the top of the tallest mountain, Schilthorn.  There was also a young man with a mountain bike on the cable car.  He got off at an intermediate stop on the last leg of getting to Murren.  There are several mountain bike trails in addition to the hiking trails in this area.  People take the cable car and train up the mountain and ride their bikes down the mountain.  The people we saw had full gear, with helmuts, shin guards, etc.

Many of the hotels and shops are closed in Murren from the end of the ski season until the start of the summer tourist season.  The snow has melted around Murren and it is green with lots of flowers, both wild flowers along the trails and planted flowers in the town.  Many of the hotels and shops stay closed from the end of April when the skiing ends until the end of May or even the beginning of June.

It was cloudy when we arrived in Murren but it cleared up as the afternoon went along.  This is another view across the valley from Murren.  There are glaciers on these mountains.

 This is a telephoto view of a farm across the valley.

This is another picture from our room at the Eiger Guesthouse.  The train station is the building on the right.  The farm in the picture just before this is way in the distance just to the left and below the steep rocky mountain in the center of the picture.

This is the dining room in the Eiger Guesthouse.

Saturday, May 7 Black Forest & Breisach, Germany

This was the last full day of our cruise.  It went by very quickly.  The weather has been incredible.  We had another clear blue sky day with temperatures in the 70s.

I have mentioned seeing swans all along the Rhine from the time we left Amsterdam.  When we woke this morning we were docking in Breisach, Germany.  They had a large number, maybe 70 or 80 swans, in the river to greet us.  Here are just a few of the swans in Breisach.

Mary wasn't feeling 100% this morning.  All the rich food we have been eating caught up with her.  I ventured off on the shore excursion into the Black Forest in the morning while Mary stayed back at the ship and relaxed and read her book.  So far she has read two books.  The first book she read was the Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie King.  The second book was Noah's Compass by Ann Tyler.  She started and finished Noah's Compass yesterday.  It was a very good read and there were parts of it where Mary would laugh out loud.

The Black Forest is a hilly or low mountainous region in the southeastern part of Germany.  the very south part of the Black Forest borders Switzerland.  The entire area of the Black Forest is about 150 kilometers from north to south and on average about 50 kilometers from east to west.

The Romans gave this region the name Black Forest because the woods was very dense with trees (mostly pines) and was inaccesible to them due to the steep hills.  My visit to the Black Forest consisted mainly of a bus ride through the area.  We had a step on guide that gave commentary as we drove along.  We mae a couple of stops as we went along.  And, yes, the area is very scenic.  We were told over 50% of the trees from early times are now gone but the area still maintains a forest feeling.

The first stop on our visit to the Black Forest was at a former Benedictine Abbey in the town of Saint Peter.  The abbey was founded in the year 1093.  The present church was built in the 1700s.

The interior of the church was painted white with lots of ornamentation.

Our second stop was at a place called Hofgut Sternen located in Hell's Valley surrounded by the wooded mountains.  One of the things the Black Forest is known for is cuckoo clocks.  The side of this house is a giant cuckoo clock.

This is a stream running through Hofgut Sternen.  The bridge in the background is a railroad bridge.

A sample of the many cuckoo clocks you could buy.

One of our guides wearing a traditional Black Forest straw hat with "red bulbs."  The tradition of the bulb hat was created over 200 years ago.  The red bulbs indicate the woman is single.  After they wed, tradition dictates the woman wear black bulbs.

This afternoon there was someone waterskiing next to the boat.  The boat is a Mastercraft.  The water was very calm and just begging for someone to ski on it.

We were walking through the town of Breisach in the afternoon and saw this sign.  It reminded us of Raina and Bob.

This was tonight's dinner menu for the Captain's Farewell Dinner.  Click on the picture to enlarge it so you can read the menu.

Mary and I both had the beef.  The beef was very tender and despite its red appearance, it was cooked!

Prior to serving the Baked Alaska, the waiters paraded through the dining room with the flaming Baked Alaska.  The grand finale of our cruise on the Viking Helvetia!

Additional photos from Strasbourg, May 6

We have more pictures from our day in Strasbourg yesterday.

There are canals in Strasbourg in the area of town refered to at "Petite France."  This is the oldest part of Strasbourg still intact.

This is a "tanner's" house in the Petite France section of Strasbourg.  It was used by a tanner.  The gable part of the house has openings in the roof to allow air to circulate around the skins drying in the attic.

This is a statue of Gutenberg, the inventor of the printing press.  He was in Strasbourg for 10 years from 1434 to 1444.   As any good Chamber of Commerce does, Strasbourg is riding on his fame.  The German town of Mainz is where Gutenberg was born.  According to the people in Strasbourg, it is not known if Gutenberg invented the printing press in Strasbourg or just improved on his invention, but at any rate he lived here for 10 years and a printing industry sprang up in Strasbourg along with paper mills as a result of the invention of the printing press.

At the time this house was built, property taxes were based on how big your house was at ground level and how many windows the house had.  This house was built on a corner and had solid windows along the upper three floors on two sides of the house.  The person that built this house was wealthy and wanted everyone to know it.

Strasbourg was no slouch when it came to their cathedral.  As with most of the other cathedrals we have seen on this trip, this one took centuries to build as well.

One of the distictive features on this church is the lace-like gothic ornamentation on the exterior of the church.  The church is built out of sandstone.

Our lunch menu in the dining room onboard the boat.  Click on this picture a couple of times and it will get larger so you can read the type.

I had the Braised Chicken in Reisling Wine Sauce, Crispy Bacon & Potato Puree.  This was for lunch!  This is a picture of my entree.  Mary had the Organic Stuffed Zucchini with fresh goat cheese, olives and tomato ragout.  If you ate in the dining room for lunch, it was the same as with dinner.  Always a very nice presentation of the meal.

The Alsace region of France is known for its gingerbread.  In the afterrnoon we visited a place that makes gingerbread.  We were told the original gingerbread was bread with honey in it.

This is the room where we heard the explanation of how they make gingerbread.  The man on the left in the white shirt is the owner of this bakery.  The lady in the foreground with the dark hair was our guide and acted as an interpreter for the man from the bakery.  Mary is on the right in the green top.

The next stop on our afternoon tour of Alsace was at a winery.  We sampled 4 different kinds of wines starting with Reisling because it was the driest.  The last wine we tasted was the sweetest.  Before the tasting they took us to the wine cellar to show us the barrels they age their wine in and to explain about the different types of wine they make.  The barrels are made from oak.  The man in the black shirt is the owner of the winery.

Our dinner menu for Friday night, May 6.  I had the trout.  Mary had the beef.

Here we have proof that there is a moon in Germany.  Mary is pointing at the little sliver of the new moon.

May 6, 2011 Strasbourg, France

Hello faithful followers,

We spent almost the entire day docked today.  We went through a couple of locks during the early morning.  After going through the locks it is like being on a long, narrow lake.  There is was no wind and the water was perfectly calm.  We couldn't help but think of you Adam.  This would be an ideal location to water ski.

Something we have seen more of as we go further upstream, but have seen all along the way are swans.  There are a lot of swans in groups of 2 to 6 every mile or so.  Also, although there is still a lot of boat traffic, we noticied there are quite as many self-propelled barges after we got past Speyer, Germany.  There also hasn't been as much industrial activity along the river and there are long stretches of woods with no houses or any sign of human activity.  However, when we do encounter something, whether it be a village or business, it is always densely packed.  You never see something sitting by itself.

We actually docked in the town of Kehl, Germany across the river from Strasbourg, France.  This is the park we docked next to in Kehl.

Mary in our cabin as the boat is docked next to the park in Kehl, Germany.

The view of the park from our cabin.  It was very tranquil and quiet here.  Just beyond the park was a residential district of very nice one family homes.

This is a picture taken from the sun deck looking behind the boat while we are docked in Kehl.  If you look closely you will see a pedestrian bridge over the Rhine River.  Germany is on the right and France is on the left.  Strasbourg is one of the three cities in Europe that is home to the European Union government.  The European Union parliment meets one week a month in Strasbourg.  At some point in the last couple of years they had the heads of state of several European Union countries and President Obama in Strasbourg for a meeting and they took a picture of all the heads of state on this bridge.  They waited for 20 minutes for Silvia Berlusconi from Italy but he was on a phone call, so they took the picture without him.  Apparently that created quite a "scandal" here in Europe.  The German head of state is the one that said to take the picture without him.

Mary in our cabin just before our shore excursion into Strasbourg, France.

Strasbourg is located in the Alsace region of France.  The Romans established Strasbourg as a military base on the border of the Roman Empire along the Rhine.  In the 6th century this area was controled by Clovis I, the first French king.  Since that time this area has changed hands between France and Germany many times.  So the city and the culture have been influenced by both the French and the Germans.

Flowers along our walk through "Petit France," an older part of Strasbourg.