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Monday, September 10, 2018.
I flew from Corpus Christi to LAX to meet Marilou. Together we flew back to Houston and on to Amsterdam for the start of our river cruise on the
Ama Stella. We were met at the airport and transferred to the ship by Ama. Having had slept pretty well on the plane I was ready to visit
the Maritine Museum. Marilou wasn't as alert as me, but she accompanied me there. Apparently I wasn't so alert either as it appears I deleted
all my pictures of this visit when I was trying to remove some of the less focused ones.
The exhibits were awsome! There were numerous displays having to do with the whale industry. Lots of displays having to do with the development
of the shipping industry. Paintings of various ship battles were very realistic. Unfortunately I accidentally deleted all the pictures from this stop
when I was trying to delete some not so good shots.
Tuesday, September 11, 2018.
Today we did an Amsterdam Canal Cruise, followed by a bus tour. We met up with the Ama Stella in Cologne, Germany, after the bus tour.
On the Amsterdam scenic canal cruise, the guide pointed out various architecture along the canal, history of area, different designs of door
arches. I had noticed the houses had lift beams. The guide said this is because the stairways are so narrow. The houses have narrow design
in order to minimize the taxes which are based on the area of the foundations.
That evening entertainment was a 3 person group with two violins and a guitar, La Strada.
It was termed the "Classics" which I interpreted to mean
Sinatra and such, but they were really classics and they were pretty good. We bought their two CD package.
Wednesday September 12.
The Cathedral contains the Shrine of the Three Kings, Three Magi, of Christmas fame.
The shrine is a large gilded and decorated triple sarcophagus placed above and behind the high altar of Cologne Cathedral.
The "relics of the Magi" were originally situated at Constantinople, but brought to Milan in an oxcart by Eustorgius I and later given
to the Archbishop of Cologne.
Several of our other passengers did the climb up the steps to the tower of the cathedral.
That evening we were entertained by the group Poppyfield. They were pretty good with a mixture of Country Music and other old time
songs. Earlier we heard a Computer Joke by our cruise manager, Cesario.
Thursday, September 13th 2018.
Throughout the morning the ship cruises past numerous castles and castle ruins. On the way we saw the Lorely rock cliff and
a statue made by some Japanese tourist to mark the spot. The cliff is located in an area of the Rhine where a lot of accidents have
occurred. So the story of the Lorely songs made the captains lose concentration and led to ship wrecks.
We had some Rudesheimer coffee on deck.
In the afternoon I did the Ehrenfels Castle hike. It was 3 miles each way and not as difficult as they implied.
We walked along the grape vines. Apparently the grapes a way ahead of normal ripeness for this time of year due to hot summer.
The hike wasn't as hard as described. Marilou did the wine tasting
and I was able to meet her back in Rudesheim at the conclusion of the walk. She took the choo-choo train both ways.
That evening we visited the Siegfried's Music Cabinet Museum. They have plenty of restored old player instruments. It was different and quite interesting. They are like a player piano, but they play real instruments. I specially liked how the one played only one string on numerous violins in order to play them all.
Friday, September 14th 2018.
Our ship landed at Speyer, so we didn't need the bus ride to get there. Our shuttle for easy walkers didn't show up
so we walked to he cathedral which wasn't very far. Our tour guide dubbed me King Kurd while we waited. We passed by the
Technical Museum on our wat there. I had considered passing up the Speyer tour and spending the day at this museum.
It has airplanes, submarine, Russian version of our Space Shuttle, etc.
Instead I accompanied the gentle walking group to the Speyer Cathedral. It was touted as a Romanesce style which apparently means plain
with rounded arch windows. We saw where several Kings and Bishops are buried there.
The French burned down the city, so most of buildings are from the 1700s. We also toured a Lutheran church that our tour guide may be associated
with, since he had a key to get in. That church is from the time of Luther but apparently Luther never visited it.
Saturday, September 15th 2018.
The Cathedral has massive stained glass windows and is known for its astronomical clock. We got to see some figured march around at 11:30, but didn't stand in line to see the 12:30 prcession that we had the tickets for. Marilou wanted some ice cream. We found an interesting place where they made a nice presentation out of the snack. The evening entertainment was a local entertainer, Armand, an accordian player accompanied by Sabrina who sand some French Chansons. The two worked well together which was more interesting than I would have thought.
Sunday, September 16th 2018. The ship arrived in Breisach, and we saw lots of swans in the waters around our ship and the one parked next door. After breakfast, we boarded a bus to Riquewihr. Riquewihr is a small Alsatian town in France. This town was spared bombing in WWII due to its having nothing of military value there, so many of the buildings are from the sixteenth century. On the bus ride we could occasionally see some castles in the distant hills. We could also see some large corn fields and storage cages. Apparently a lot of corn is grown to be converted to alcohol for fuel. Riquewihr is proud of their stork nests. They mount baskets on their roofs for the migrating storks to use during their breeding season. After the bus tour we had a short walk to the center of the town. Our local tour guide pointed out what was where, then let us explore on our own. We had walked past the tents set up for an early wine festival. On my way back to the bus, I tried their Riesling. It tastes the same as it does in the USA. Cesario, the tour manager told a joke about a stork that related to Riquewihr's tradition.
Monday, September 17th 2018. Our ship docked in Basel, Switzerland. We had a leisurely breakfast, then caught a taxi to the train station in order to meet Geneviv and Cerita to start our Alpenwild planned hiking trip in Switzerland.
Links: Siegfrieds Music Cabinet Museum Cathedral of Our Lady of Strasbourg
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