Smile

Her name is Sylvia.

She's the lounge pianist on this ship. I don't know how she knew I was going to take her picture. She was sitting in profile playing the piano, I was surreptitiously (I thought) getting my camera read to take her picture. I turned and snapped it just as she turned her head and gave this pose. She plays the kind of piano my father played, and a lot of the same tunes ("Satin Doll," for example). One of the songs she plays a lot is the old Charlie Chaplin standard, "Smile." I think it could be a theme for this trip. We are smiling a lot.

We smiled at breakfast when Kitch ordered fried eggs and when they came and he added bacon to his plate, our waiter Miroslav came over and rearranged the food, forming the bacon into a smiling mouth and adding strips of tomatoes to make it look like a smiley face.

We smiled at the crowd of ducks which discovered that someone in the room next to Mike and Char would toss them bread chunks.

Today the listed excursion was the Wertheim which, I am sure you will be surprised to learn, is a Medieval town, with narrow, winding, cobblestoned streets, a castle, a city market place with a fountain, and lots of quaint shops. I had some foot problem yesterday and decided I could pass this walking tour. But then we had the glassblower last night and he had some cute little birds I wanted to buy, but he was only selling them at his shop, so when my foot didn't feel all that bad this morning, I decided to take the tour anyway.

I am so glad I did. Talk about your "smile" days.

Unlike most of the other towns we have explored, Wertheim's old town is tiny, So tiny that with ~200 people walking in 5 groups, we pretty much filled it and the guides had conferred beforehand to decide who would go where when. We were constantly running into another group from our ship. I don't know what they would have done if two ships had been here at the same time. So it was really an easy day and an easy hour of walking.

Wertheim is famous for glassworks, wine, and castle ruins. As you enter the city center, you find this sculpture celebrating the famous glassmakers who have lived here.

We started at the famous "leaning tower of Wertheim."

Now, it may take some suspension of disbelief to put this on a par with the other famous leaning tower in Pisa, but if you catch it at the right angle, you can see that it is slightly slanted, due to the softening of the soil from all that flooding (as you will see later, Wertheim has had its share of floods over the centuries!).

From other angles, the tilt is not really noticeable. (You won't see any pictures of people from this cruise trying to hold it upright, for example!)

We continued on through the main gateway to the city, unchanged for hundreds of years, and into the market square, or around the periphery of the market square. Our tour guide, Christine, was quite good and had wonderful stories to tell, but the thing she told us that resonated most with me was that all German children when they reach age 15 have a trip to a concentration camp, to learn what was done in Germany. She herself had gone to Dachau and said it was the most terrible thing she remembers seeing. This, combined with our guide in Nuremberg telling us about school children taken to the coliseum and the documentation center to learn what the Nazis tried to do makes me realize that Germany takes the actions of Adolph Hitler and the Nazi Party very seriously and is determined not to let this happen again. Let's hope...

The town square has many interesting buildings, including this one, which contains the town's smallest window.

(do you see it?)

And this one, the narrowest building in town, which happens to belong to the glass blower we saw last night. When this building was built in 1520, you paid by the amount of space that your house took up on the ground. So it cost very little. You'll notice that as the stories get built onto the original structure, they get wider!

We also learned that in medieval times, the town square was used to burn people for witchcraft--or for jealousy. The brewer became so wealthy selling beer after the town flooded, making the water undrinkable, they ended up burning him for being rich. Somehow burning the guy who makes your beer seems like cutting off your nose to spite your face!

Christine took us down to the Tauber river to show us the record of the water levels when the town has flooded (which, apparently it does regularly).

I'm glad we weren't visiting in 1784, which is the top level there, but there are high enough levels in the 21st century to help make one understand why houses in town are much cheaper than houses across the river on the hilltop!

Mike and Walt climbed up to the castle. Char and I went to visit the glass shop and make a contribution to its economy. Then we stopped at a cafe for a cappuccino before walking back to the ship.

In the afternoon (after lunch and a nap), we had a tour of the ship's galley, which was fun to be able to see where all those great meals come from and ask questions about how it all works (I surprised myself by asking THREE questions!). Our program director had said she thought we would be surprised to find out how small it is, but having been watching TV cooking contests, nothing surprises me any more. I thought it a decent size, though when you add all those cooks and waiters, I'm sure it seems very crowded indeed.

After the daily briefing, we went down to dinner.

We started with some hard sausage wrapped in paper thin cucumber and dipped in some sort of sweet sauce that was very spicy hot. That was followed with a chicken cassoulet with puff pastry, then a Viking surf and turf with shrimp, roast beef, and a spinach potato pile that was quite a delicious combination. Dessert was creme brulee with chocolate ice cream on waffle. Sounds like a nice idea, but you don't need anything with creme brulee and the ice cream was just too much. Also sad that there was only a hint of sugar crust on the creme brulee (and that only in one spot), though the custard itself was good.

Char decided she wanted to be special. She couldn't choose between the creme brulee and her favorite ice cream, pistachio, so she decided to see if she could get pistachio instead of chocolate.

Victoire! she shouts!

I had my own dinner surprise.

We have been having flies on board the ship (not surprising to have critters, given that we are on the river 'n' all!). The wine did not come with a fly, but he decided that it looked so good he would give it a try. It took a good 5 minutes before the waiter came and removed it and that fly was still swimming. At least he died happy.

After dinner there was a musical mystery contest, where you identified 16 songs and then guessed who the murderer in a silly story that was being made up was. I only got 15 of the 16 song titles right (I missed Celebration).

Tomorrow's excursion is to Marksburg Castle in Braubach, which is listed as a 3 degree of difficulty (the highest; today's would have been a 1) and recommended for people "in very good physical condition." Needless to say, I will not be taking this excursion, but will remain on the ship while we sail to Koblenz, where the people in very good physical condition will meet us after their tour.

Time Growing Short

Today was the last of our "optional excursions," trips for which we paid extra. It's literally all downhill from here, 5 more days and then home. In one way it doesn't seem possible the trip is so close to ending, in another, I'm getting anxious to leave the ship and fly home again. When I start taking pictures of dogs instead of buildings, that tells you something.

This is a real German dog...a German Shorthair Pointer. Beautiful boy. We made friends.

The day started as we pulled into Wurzburg.

As usual, the reception area was filled with people waiting to turn in their key card in exchange for a boarding pass so they could leave the ship and hop on one of the 5 waiting buses.

Everyone went on the first part of the tour, a visit to the Wurzburg Residenz, built in the early 1800s as the home of the "prince-bishops," bishops elected by priests (not appointed by the pope) who ruled this area...if I had internet access, I'd go into greater detail, but alas no. The building is huge (and apparently Orlando Bloom is shown on the balcony here in The Three Musketeers.)

It is also a HUGE disappointment for anybody with a camera, because photos are not allowed to be taken inside. That's understandable because they have to support the upkeep of the building and are doing a landoffice business selling postcards and books. I bought lots and when I get home will scan them to add to my Flickr file. Suffice to say this place is over the top (how often have I said that about some place we were visiting). I've decided I like the rococo (sp?) style better than baroque because the latter is heavier and while rococo is highly ornate, it has a lightness and sense of humor about it that I like.

When we left the tour, I took a couple of pictures on the grounds, including this one of a guy with an early version of an iPad.

Then we left on our optional tour, an ~40 miles drive out into the country to the town of Rothenburg ob der Tauber (on the river Tauber), a quaint, picturesque town that looked like it should have Disney characters marching around and cartoon birds flying overhead.

We stopped first at Gastof Glocke, a restaurant where we were having lunch. Not surprisingly, it was more "tubed meat," home made Bratwurst. along with mashed potatoes and sauerkraut.

In truth, I was disappointed in the braturst, which seemed dry to me. And the "local mustard" could have come from a jar of Heinz. The potatoes were actually the best part. But we all had a good time there anyway.

Then we began the walking tour. This is feeling like a Lamplighters tour! First we had the guide in Nuremberg who reminded me so much of Lamplighters co-founder Ann MacNab and today we had a tour guide (whose name I never did get) who looks very much like soprano Clair Kelm.

There was construction going on in parts of the town, and it seemed as if everyone was getting into the act.

We also passed by the Torture Museum and, though we didn't tour it, we did appreciate this medieval version of water boarding (which I called "water caging"). Transgressors would be locked up in this cage and dunked into the water until they confessed...sometimes they forgot to bring them back up again.

We walked to the market square where there was, the guide apologized, the most boring clock in all of Germany.

She was right. It depicts the result of a would-be duel between two guys, which was solved instead by the drinking of some beer, so the doors open, the guy on the right lifts a glass of beer, drinks from it and the doors close again.

We had free time and did some wandering, buying post cards, visiting shops, listening to a street performer play the violin, and having an ice cream cone.

I resisted the temptation to check the price on this teddy bear we saw in a doorway.

The walk back to the bus seemed so much longer than the walk to the market place, mostly because it was without making stops to discuss an historic this or that. I was really lagging behind and was depressed to see that even Ron and Barbara were ahead of me.

Ron is about to turn 90 (but I suspect they didn't do the whole walking tour). The guide assured me I was NOT the last to return to the bus, but I was pretty darn near close.

When we went up to the lounge for cocktail hour, the place was like a sauna, so it was nice to have the cold beer Walt bought in Bamberg yesterday. This is a smoked beer and not entirely unpleasant. It reminded me of standing around the campfire at "Eric's property" and drinking beer.

Dinner was, as usual, delicious

There was melon and prociutto, crab cake for a starter, then a black cod coated with a macadamia crust (which was to die for), and finally a rather unusual tiramisu, but delicious nonetheless.

After dinner we had a demonstration given by a glass blower from the town we are visiting tomorrow (the name of which escapes me and, as I am sitting in a darkened room, I can't find the paper that has it written on it!). He was very entertaining and had some lovely things on display, as well as getting a few screams out of some in the audience with his fire displays!

Tranquility

Some are born tranquil.

Some achieve tranquility.

Some have tranquility forced upon them.

I had tranquility forced upon me today.

I woke up full of hope that now that we were out of the Bavaria Channel, my computer would magically once again attach to the internet. Alas, that was not to be the case. When Char pulled out her iPad and Mike, Kitch and Walt all had cell phones which connected with the internet, and when there were people happily e-mailing away on the ship's computers, I had to admit that it was my computer's problem, not an internet problem.

I was able to use Char's iPad to send an e-mail to Jeri asking her to post a message on Facebook (because I didn't seem to be able to get on Facebook on the iPad either).

I gathered up my flash drive when I saw there was a vacant ship computer and nobody waiting in line and, though it is always a frustration trying to get to the yahoo site where I post journal entries, I was finally able to do it, and also post a parallel entry to Airy Persiflage. At least I knew I could do that much and continue to post entries.

It was a quiet morning. The ship held a history quiz.

It asked things like "who invented the electric lightbulb" and "how many castles are there in Germany?" Mike and Char did fairly well on it, but did not win the prize (a cocktail credit).

The rest of the morning was a leisurely crusing morning. We watched scenery pass by...

.

..napped...

...and watched for turtles on the rocks (found lots of rocks, no turtles).

At noontime, we took a break from all this strenuous lounging and went up to the Aquivit Terrace to have some lunch.

(on today's menu was duck!).

We eventually arrived at our day's excursion destination: Bamberg. Char and I decided to skip this day's off shore trip. It was another old town with an old town section, medieval history, a cathedral, a view and a town square. It sounded like the last two days and we knew that we had Rothenburg coming up tomorrow and decided to give our feet a rest. Mike, Kitch and Walt went off for the day; Char, Joyce and I stayed on board. I took a shower, watched a movie, and tried again to get on Facebook, this time successfully. I now knew that I could do everything important on the internet, but I also had a reason NOT to be on it all the time, and that knowledge gave me a nice sense of peace and...tranquility.

While the gang was in Bamberg, the ship was sailing through a few more locks to Hassfert, where we were going to pick them up. We passed through more picturesque towns...

...fields..

.

...and locks.

Char and I met in the lounge after our quiet afternoon in our respective rooms (she napping, me watching a movie). We ordered a cocktail and were joined by Ron, whose wife Joyce had also gone on the afternoon excursion. We watched out the window as the ship slowly sailed into Hassfurt and we saw the crew standing on the banks waiting for us.

They were just in time for dinner.

There was some sort of trout on toast for an appetizer, borcht for soup (disappointed to find so little sour cream...I remember a big dollup of it when we had the soup in Russia), The main course was orange and soy scented grilled pork tenderloin, and for dessert creme caramel with whipped cream and fruit.

After dinner, I came back to the room and, feeling tranquil, sat on our balcony watching the sun go down. Char was doing the same on her balcony.

I was so tranquil, I took a nap before getting to this entry. While I was napping, Walt went upstairs to check out "The Liars' Game," they were playing in the lounge, which, he reported later, was like a Says You bluffing round...guessing which of four people had the correct definition for an obscure word (like "gardeeloo"). Turns out Walt won and brought a bottle of champagne back to the room.

Now it's 1 a.m. and I have to decide if I'm going to go upstairs and post this or take another nap first.

Decisions, decisions.

Judgment at Nuremberg

Well, I'm frustrated tonight and apparently am going to be frustrated for the rest of this trip. The computer suddenly won't recognize the ship's wireless connection. I've done everything I know how to do to rectify this situation, starting with rebooting (always a scary thing to do since my problems recently!), running diagnostics, etc. Everyone else with a wireless device is connected (including Walt with his iPhone), but somehow my computer has lost the ability to recognize the connection. I am going to continue writing daily entries and HOPE I can post them upstairs in the computer lounge. Something to do when I have insomnia, as I did last night. Posting this journal takes about an hour, so I don't want to tie up the ship's 2 computers when normal people are awake and wanting to use them.

There was excitement this morning as we hit Wasserscheide, 1,299 feet above sea level. This is the highest point on the Main-Danube canal and from here on, as Mike puts it, "it's all downhill." I missed the first lock, but the second one was pretty spectacular too. I said at one point that waiting to go through a lock is just slightly more exciting than watching paint dry, but once you have actually gotten into the lock and descended, it's pretty neat.

We started at the very top and have come down the length of these walls and will soon be floating out through that little opening I have outlined in red at the bottom.

While we were all watching the ship approach the lock, we saw this guy in a suit and tie standing on the side of the road like he was waiting for a bus...or a boat, which seemed strange because there is NOTHING around there--no road for a car, no other buildings, no nothing. He was also overdressed for this walking/biking trail along the river. We joked about this being a scene out of North by Northwest and thought maybe crop dusters should be flying over head.

(I took this through a plastic partition, so it looks bad)

But no, our ship pulled over and put out the gangplank so he could come aboard. Turns out he's an historian who was coming to give us what turned out to be a fascinating lecture on the European Union, its foundation, its member countries and why they joined, who benefits, who doesn't, etc.

After lunch it was time for excursions. Mike, Char and Walt went off on the "war excursion," which visited the Documentation Center, and the courtroom where the Nuremberg trials were held to get a full background on the Nazis. I opted for the city tour and went off on my own excursion. The city tour goes around the old town and you get a sense of the city as it was in the 1000s and 1100s. As our daily guide puts it, "Perhaps more than any other city in the country, Nuremberg traces both the fortunes and the misfortunes of German history--from being the treasure chest of the German Empire to hosting Nazi Party rallies."

Our first stop was the coliseum, which Hitler was in the middle of building when he had to stop to overtake a country or two. It resembles the one in Rome, but much larger. It was going to be even larger yet, as there was another level planned to be added to it.

(I should add parenthetically here that I was sitting on the left side of the bus and there wasn't ONE place or thing that was on the tour that was on that side. It was always "if you look to your right you'll see...." Consequently I got horrible photos)

We drove inside the uncompleted building to get an idea of the size it was supposed to be and to have our guide (who looks eerily like Ann MacNab) show us photos of the plans for the building, which were halted because of the time and money needed to be spent on the war.

It was interesting to hear about how the children in Germany today are taught about the Nazi party and what happened in Germany during World War II. Walt said that their tour guide was only 30 and his great grandparents had been children in the 40s, so it's somewhat difficult for him to relate, and will be more difficult for his children.

From here we drove up the hill to Kaiserburg, the castle that towers over the city. It is first mentioned in a document from 1050, which concerned a petition by a nobleman to change the class of his maid so he could marry her, since it was then not allowed to marry outside of your own class. Apparently the petition was granted.

In the 15th and 16th centuries, Nuremberg became the center of the German Renaissance. It was an early center of humanism, science, printing and mechanical invention. There are stones in the castle grounds which date from that period.

We did a lot of walking on those cobblestones I love so much.

When we had finished at the castle, it was time to walk to town, a fairly short walk down a fairly steep hill. I am used to hanging on to Walt under such conditions and I was feeling very unsteady with just my cane, until I spied one of the Viking staff, Branislav, and asked if I could use his arm. He very nicely guided me down to where I could walk with just my cane again. Later, I had program director Henrieta take our picture so I could remember how helpful he was.

We ended our official tour at the fancy fountain in the center of the town square. I'm afraid I missed the story about this place, but Char says that n their tour guide told them that it was built with funds Germany received from the Marshall Plan. I must research this when/if I ever have an internet connection again.

Kitch (whose wife had remained on the ship, still nursing her cold) and I went off to do some exploring and photo taking. I found a McDonald's and took a not at all exciting photo (so I won't even post it) and we walked through the very busy marketplace (I thought those places had wonderful open air biergartens with guys in Tyrolean hats playing oom pah pah music. Lots of beer. No hats. Rock music. Not at all what I hoped from Germany!) On the other side of the market place was Our Lady of Nuremberg church.

It was a lovely place, devoid of all that frou frou that has been making me angry with Catholic hierarchy all week. Just a church dedicated to devotion. And I was taken with this pieta, which I found in a little room at the back of the church.

I felt her pain. Literally.

I wandered into a crepe shop nearby and discovered Ron and Barbara having a snack, so I joined them and got an iced coffee (which it turns out is coffee with ice cream in it and whipped cream on top). Then I bought a few post cards and by then it was time to get back on the bus.

The crew were passing out cups of delicious hot chocolate as we arrived back on board.

Enough to tide us over for 30 minutes until dinner.

Started off with some cheesy breadsticks with a nice dip, then segued to white asparagus veloute (another word for soup!) with ham and croutons. Then came Provencal herb crusted rack of lamb with red wine glace and goat cheese pesto. The guy at the table next to me was very surprised when I grabbed his dessert to photograph it, because I'd forgotten to photograph mine! This was Bavarian style vanilla cream with fresh strawberry sauce (at least 1/4 tsp of the sauce on mine!)

After dinner there were entertainers, 3 opera singers to sing Mozart, Puccini, Rossini, and "Sound of Music"! They were great fun and got the audience involved as well.

They received an enthusiastic standing ovation at the end, with Dirk the first one on his feet!

And now I'm going to try posting this upstairs, though Walt said he went and tried and couldn't get a connection there either, so I am going to hope that this is an internet problem and not a computer problem. Who knows when this will get posted, but at least it's ready when I can do it.