Wine Tasting

At some point around Heidelberg we went wine tasting and visited a small town, not sure which, but as another of our favorite passengers, a self-described Dan Brown-esque author, commented later that day at lunch, "I don't want to sound like a philistine, but these small medieval towns are all the same: a church, a square around the church, and then a quaint old quarter with small streets.  And it's raining, plus I felt so inspired I just had to go to my room and write all morning"  Sounding quite philistine, the pudgy author missed out on a lovely two hours, some wine that was better than the stuff the Viking Sun's staff kept filling our glasses with, and very little rain.

Castles!

Our departure from Heidelberg marks the beginning of a new phase of the trip, we were now traveling in the part of the Rhine river that has Germany as the country on each side of the banks, whereas before the river made up the border between France and Germany.

It is in this stretch of the river that some of the most beautiful and celebrate scenery can be found.  Because of this we did the river cruising during the day and had some beer and roast suckling pig while we were trapped aboard the vessel.

The Rhine River is also the largest wine producing region of Germany, as the river valley creates a milder climate that the grapes need.  Much of this part of the trip had steeply terraced vineyards along the banks of the river.

Heidelberg

Passing over Stasbourg, a wonderful small city that I forgot to bring my camera to, we turned up the Neckar river and visited the sleepy, old university town of Heidelberg.

Most of the pictures here are of the castle which is on the hill overlooking the town, it is marked on the map as Königstuhl, I believe.

Part of the castle was destroyed by Napoleon or something, but the city liked it that way and/or had not money at the time to repair it, because by that period cannons and population sizes had caused castles to be obsolete as defenses for a city.  Today, according to our guide, it costs the city more to maintain it as a ruin than to restore it.  

Here's an example though of how the ruins look:

On the far side of the palace which had been restored, their was a view of the city.

Afterwards we had "freetime" which is a funny word for it since we were all adults and could do whatever we wanted, keeping in mind that the boat would not wait for us.  Mom and I ditched the tour early since it was raining and coffee sounded better.  The weather cleared a little and we found this plaza where I barely captured two tourists taking a jumping picture, an Education Abroad Program (EAP) photo winning favorite genre of picture.

At this point you should be able to find the wikipedia article if you are interested, but to continue to facilitate it, I will include it as a link at the bottom of each article without any explanation:

Heidelberg

The Black Forest

Much of our boat traveling occurred in the night; we would go to bed in one place and wake up in another.  The first place we woke up was a small town, Breisach am Rhein west of the Black Forest, our tour sight for the morning.  Breisach am Rhein (first picture) is so small that they did not even bother showing us, but just allowed us to explore on foot on our own.  Guiltily I write that this picture was taken from the boat, I did not bother exploring the town but chose to explore the boat instead as I was thoroughly jarred by the morning bus ride, in particular the volume the tour guide chose to use on the bus' audio system, and her need to fill every minute of the trip with drivel.

Our first stop was a small town I can't remember, but it has a church made out of the red sand stone which has a rather rich interior.  It was a pretty foggy day so we could not see most of the "nature" we were supposed to see from the bus.  Hiking is only worth it for churches.

Giant chess board and the Townhall (Rathaus)

Our next stop at a 200 year old roadhouse/tavern/resort in the black forest (Goethe was here!) where they sell and might also make cuckoo clocks, a much prettier looking word in German, Kuckucksuhr.  Photocredit: Phyllis

Picture: I want to lie and say it's a Roman aqueduct but I think it is only train tracks.  Still a novelty for Americans though.

And once again, the wikipedia article:

Black Forest

Basel

This being a cruise, we spent less than 24 hours in nearly every place we were docked, and spent even less time in the places we visited with a guided tour, usually 2-5 hours for areas with less than 400,000 inhabitants.


Basel was one of the cities where we were docked in the same city we were visiting and it was the only city that we also flew into. We were docked in the port that accommodated passengers, and took a fifteen minute (tour) bus ride into the old core of the city where we had a guided walking tour and "free time." These two points are marked on the map below, if interested, I encourage you to explore the map for each post and to familiarize yourself with google maps if you are not already. It's an uncanny, but fun and unique way of exploring and imagining places.



View Basel in a larger map


Our view from the boat could be a beautiful church, nature, or a quiet residential neighborhood

Or an industrial port, power power plant, factories, and (sub)urban decay

In this case, while docked in Basel Switzerland, we had a bit of both, but the sunset helped mask the differences between chimneys and church towers

The old town is marked by the pink-red Cathedral, which, as every tour guide from Basel to around Cologne pointed out, is a unique regional feature of the sandstone of the area, not realizing that their regional neighbors' local guides had already pointed this out for each of the thousands of pink sandstone buildings we had seen in the region.

The laughing figures pictured below were meant to scare sinners who were having too much fun by depicting light-hearted, sensual, and carefree figures who were covered with frogs, serpents, spiders, and demons on their back. The church-goers (everyone) would see it on their way out of the church and feel guilty.  They're pretty funny statues and also made out of pink sandstone.

For each walking tour we were assigned a group and number, which was our company on the bus ride (if the distance to the tour site was too far to comfortably walk or in anther city) and would be displayed on a sign, we were number 4. The cruise company has its own headsets that (outdatedly) plug into a radio receiver that picks up the speech of the guide who has a Britney Spear's style microphone that, since they are not doing as much physical activity like dancing, choose to hold in their hands.  


One of my favorite moments of the trip occurred just before this picture was taken, as 30 minutes into the audio tour, after they explained how the headsets synch and that if one is not physically standing near enough to their tour guide they may be hearing one of the other tours, a cruiser said, "I think I'm hearing another guide-lady."  How it had taken her that long to figure out she was hearing the wrong person the entire time shows how oblivious she was to her surroundings.  She was an old woman with an intense New York accent and inability to perceive how loudly she was talking, and since she often had either rude or stupid comments or questions this event taking place early on in the trip cemented our avoidance of her as well as hinted at our inability to avoid her, since she was in our group and the boat was only so big.  (Woman not pictured below)

The old city of Basel is covered in holes where excavations, publicly and privately sponsored, have uncovering both medieval and roman ruins.  In the picture below the sight had been sealed off to preserve it and to allow people to see into the past of the city, with signs that explained what the viewer was seeing.  In this case there is a pile of bones and I believe I remember that the sign is saying is, "Medieval Childs Grave" in German.

For more information on the city of Basel the wikipedia entry provides a concise and visually stimulating overview:


Basel