Rhine River Cruise 3rd
Report
Today is Wednesday June 5th
and we went on a long walk in Cologne that ended in an extreme down pour of
rain. Needed a shower afterwards. We did the classic walk, which included
multi-see sights, including the Old City and its soaring twin-steeped gothic
cathedral. We visited a restaurant for
lasses, a brewery for beer and sausage and lastly the gothic cathedral. Lisa, our guide told us that Cologne is the 4th
largest city in Germany with a population of over 1 million. 20,000 people a day visit the cathedral. The cathedral is 525 feet high. This city was 90% bombed in WWII. Lisa showed us a picture during WWII and it
appears totally devoid of buildings except the cathedral. The church took 633 years to build and is
made of Sand Stone. Constant work needs
to be made on it to keep it in repair. I
learned that “post” is the German word for “toast” while drinking. We were glad to get out of the rain. Linda discovered her raincoat did not keep
out the rain.
I need to write some about
the boat we are on for this trip. It is
called the Avalon Waterways Panorama. It
is owned by Globus. It has a capacity of
164 passengers. It has a four decks and
a crew of 47. It was constructed in
2011. It is 443 feet long and its suites
are 66,200 square feet. The food is very
good and with two of the meals as buffets.
The evening meal is ordered and served similar to a sea going cruise
line. Water is provided daily in the
room included. Most of the tours Linda and I went on are included in the price
of the cruise. We have liked our accommodations here and the staff. We needed to change rooms in Tuesday June 11th
in Dusseldorf because of a gasoline smell in our room that made us both
sick. There was some resistance to our
room change and we worked through this by very direct forceful communication.
In the evening, at 9PM I
attended a musical performance by a violinist
Elisabeth Gebhardt and pianist Oksana Andriyenkoin a Villa Musica at
Schloss Engers. The boat merely pulled
up to the side of the river, we ate and those that were interested walked a
short distance and attended the top concert level performance. The performance
was made in an ancient building that was wonderfully decorated in very old
style. The performance was greatly
appreciated by those of us who attended and lots of applauding took place. I had walked 13,603 steps today.
June 13, 2019
Today we are to by pass 31
castles on this Stretch of the Rhine River.
In the morning, we took a leisurely-guided walk of ancient Koblenz,
including a cable-car ride to Ehrenbreitstein Fortress for a spectacular
panoramic view. Our guide, Heike gave
detailed information on the area. All
the guides have been good, Heike was especially good. Like the other cities we have visited in
Germany, this one was 90% destroyed in WWII.
They have done a very good job of rebuilding it. She showed us a monument to the reunification
of Germany and commented that East Germany has still not achieved the family
income of western German families. They
are at a 2/3rd level of the westerners. The Romans, French, and Russians have
conquered this area of Germany over the years.
We took a cable car to the
Fortress across the river. The Fortress was built for WWI and is highly
fortified. It was never attacked and not
use tactically during WWII.
Please see the pictures at
binghamevent.blogspot.com
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