R1910 – Brabant – What’s it like?

In my last two posts, R1910 – There’s a hole in my bucket! and R1910 – Homecoming!, I described how an incident which resulted in damage to the hull of our ship/boat Brabant caused our cruise to be curtailed 4 days early, how we were looked after in the aftermath of the incident, and details of the long, tiring and at times unbelievable journey back home. The curtailment of our cruise obviously meant that we missed out on several expected port calls, so I will be writing fewer posts about our long river cruise than I expected. Before I hang up my keyboard as it were, and resume my shore life for the summer months, I thought I would write one last post to include the long promised photographs of the inside of Brabant, and to say more about what we thought on reflection about cruising on her, especially compared to ocean cruising with Fred. Olsen.

Before I do so, there is one little detail that I forgot to include in my last two posts. When we were told that we had to leave the ship/boat, we were told to put on warm clothing and take essentials with us. Carol went to grab the bulging carrier bag of chocolate that she had bought in the Lindt shop a couple of days previously, and I had to point out that this was not an essential. Her indignant reply was that it may not be essential to me, but it certainly was to her! We compromised on her taking a bar of chocolate from the bag, which disappeared rapidly for stress relief during the eventful coach journey to Frankfurt Airport.

 

Photographs of the ship/boat

Top (sun) deck.  This deck can be out of bounds when the ship/boat is passing stretches of the river or canal with low bridges. Note the previous name of the vessel on the bell (Amadeus Princess).

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Deck 3. The long, long corridor between cabins leading to the Amadeus Club at the ‘blunt end’ (stern). Here you can get hot drinks 24/7, there are books, games and computers to borrow, and there is a small open deck with just a few seats at the very back of the ship (mainly for smokers).

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Deck 3. The Panorama Bar, located at the ‘pointy end’ (bow) – although on Brabant that end is pretty blunt too! Here drinks are served, as well as a ‘light lunch’ and afternoon tea each day, the port talks are given, Captains welcome and leaving events are held and there is music in the evenings. Outside there is a slightly larger open deck.

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Deck 2. The Panorama Restaurant, also located at the ‘pointy end’, directly underneath the Panorama Bar.  Here breakfast, lunch and dinner are served.

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Deck 2. The Atrium, with the Reception Desk, a small shop, the Cruise Services Manager’s desk (tours and future cruises) and stairs to access all decks.

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Deck 2. Our cabin. Note the extensive use of magnetic hooks to provide more storage options, and the chocolate hanging below the air conditioning vent to keep it cool!

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Deck 1. It was only when we got home that I realised I never took any photographs on deck 1 – to be honest I never even went down there! Here there are a few more cabins, but with small and very high windows instead of the picture windows / juliette balcony that you get on decks 2 and 3. There is also a fitness room, massage room and hair salon on this deck.

 

Life on board

To illustrate what life is like on board Brabant, Carol and I thought we would put together a fairly light-hearted A to Z ….

A – All inclusive.  Not the same as ocean cruises – for £15 per person per night, the Drinks Upgrade Package gives you as much red and white house wines, European lager, bitter and branded soft drinks with your lunch and with your dinner as you like (but not at other times of the day or evening).

B – Boat.  The vessel you sail on. Or is it a ship? (see S – Ship)

C –  Cabin.  Quite spacious, and storage space would be ok for a week or two – but very limited if your are on for a month like we were. See H – magnetic Hooks and J – Juliette balcony)

D – lifeboat Drill.  There isn’t one as there are no lifeboats! There is a safety drill on the first day, where you learn how to put on your lifejacket.

E – Entertainment.  Very limited! Nothing by day, but there again you don’t have ‘sea days’ on a river cruise. Most evenings after dinner it’s a duo performing in the Panorama Bar, occasionally replaced by a quiz, and occasionally they show a film in the Amadeus Club.

F – Food.  Good quality, but very limited choice (for example 1 meat, 1 fish and 1 vegetarian main course choice at dinner), and the same menus come around again after about a week.

G  – Going ashore.  To get ashore, you need to be quite mobile as it quite often entails climbing over other vessels between yours and the shore. There are shore tours – usually one but sometimes two per port – if you can find out about them – the tours books are almost impossible to get hold of, and the website for weeks before the cruise just lists the tour package they seem to want to sell – a tour of their choice in every port. Most tours are walking tours, again you need to be mobile to do them.

H – magnetic Hooks.  We found our magnetic hooks invaluable in the cabin – in fact we used about 12 of them to hang up storage bags, coats, hats and other essentials like chocolate.

I – ID card.  There isn’t one. When going ashore, you trade in your room key at Reception for a boarding card with your name and cabin written on, and on return you swap this back for your room key. Don’t forget to do this, or the ship/boat might sail without you as they will incorrectly think you are on board! If you are buying things on board (drinks or in the shop) you sign a paper chitty and it gets added to your on board account.

J – Juliette balcony.  The cabins on decks 2 and 3 have large picture windows and a juliette balcony which was fab! Lovely for fresh air in the cabin, to sit in front of and watch the scenery slip by, and for drying laundry in front of (using a line slung between the door catch and a magnetic hook on the nearby wall). Infinitely better than standing on a chair to look out of the window on deck 1! (see C – Cabin)

K – Knocks and bumps.  One of the big consequences of passing through all the narrow locks on the rivers and canals, just inches wider than the ship/boat, are the knocks and bumps as the vessel enters and leaves each lock. These are much louder and more disturbing at night, and can keep you awake and/or disturb your slumbers, especially when you pass through 16 in one night! (see L – Locks and Z – ZZZ sleep)

L – Locks.  The magic which allows the ship/boat to go up and down hill. The vessel enters a long thin channel between two stone walls, with wooden or metal gates at either end. The gate is closed behind the vessel, and water pumped in or out to make the water level the same as it is the other side of the gate in front of the ship. Once level the front gate is opened and the vessel sails on it’s way. A source of much banging and crashing especially at night, or worse if they forget to undo a rope! Interesting to watch for the first once or twice, then rather tedious especially if the ship/boat has to wait for ages to enter the lock. (see K – Knocks and bumps and Z – ZZZ sleep)

M – Mealtimes.  Inflexible. While breakfast can be taken anytime in a two hour period (usually 7:00-9:00 or 7:30 to 9:30), all other meals are at a strict set time – usually 12:30 for lunch, 4:00 for afternoon tea and 7:00 for dinner. Don’t think about wandering in much later than that, as they start clearing unused tables after around 25 minutes. With no café on board (unlike the ocean vessels), it’s eat at the proscribed time or go without!

N – Nudists.  Keep your eyes peeled for people on the shore who have peeled!

O – Observing the scenery.  Best done from the top (sun) deck where there are lots of sun-loungers and chairs, but this can be closed for several days in a row if the ship/boat is sailing under low bridges. Then it’s best done from the front of the Panorama Bar, or the small deck outside it (except that it can be closed too when they are going through locks!); or alternatively from your cabin if you are content to only see one of the banks. (see J – Juliette balcony)

P – Ports.  At many ports the ship/boat moors up very close to the town centre, and you can just walk into town if you are not on a tour. If the ship/boat moors further out, then a shuttle bus will be provided. This is a bit of a lottery – in some places the service was good, in others the timings of the shuttle bus meant you either got much too short or much too long a time in town, meaning we had to use a taxi (which Reception will arrange for you). (See G – Going ashore)

Q – Quizzes.  A rare form of entertainment, only seen on the occasional evening after dinner. The one they did where they showed unusual photographs of cities around the world to identify was a bit different and quite good. (see E – Entertainment).

R  – Relentless.  You don’t get ‘sea days’ on a river cruise, so you are in a new port (or occasionally two new ports) every single day, so after a while it all gets rather relentless with little time to switch off and relax. Probably not a problem on one or two week river cruises, but something we were very aware of on our month long marathon.

S – Ship.  The vessel you sail on. Or is it a boat? (see B – Boat)

T – Trees.  Don’t do a river cruise if you don’t like looking at trees! They line the banks of the rivers and canals for most of the way (except in Germany where campsites seem to run them a close second!)  (see Y – Yawn)

U – Umbrellas.  These can be borrowed from Reception.

V – Velocipedes.  Bicycles can also be borrowed for free in each port. They are stored on the top deck, but the crew will take them ashore for you.

W – WiFi.  Unlike on the ocean vessels, the WiFi on Brabant is free and it works well! It was a little slower and less reliable in the wilds of Romania and Bulgaria, but further west it was great. You sign at reception for a chitty with a username and password which lasts a week, note that only two devices can be connected using them at any one time.

X – border crossing.  Transparent when travelling within the EU. When you cross into the EU, for example from Serbia into Hungary, you have to queue up in reception so that an official can take a couple of seconds to compare your face to your passport photo. Not so fun when this is at 5:00 in the morning, as happened for us.

Y – Yawn.  At times there are more interesting things to view as you sail along, such as castles, hills, towns and villages. At other times there are lots and lots of trees, which some people may find a little less inspiring. (see T – Trees)

Z – ZZZ (sleep).  I found the bed very comfortable, and slept better on board than I do at home. Carol however struggled with the noises of passing lots of locks on many of the nights – the bangs and crashes, and also the sound of the bow thrusters. The curtains are very thin, so the bright lights outside at the locks might also disturb some.

 

The verdict

Neither Carol or I had done a river cruise before, so it is kind of hard to say whether what we experienced with Fred. Olsen on Brabant was any better or worse than we would have experienced with any other river cruise company.

It is too easy to try and compare our experience to what we are very, very used to on Fred’s ocean cruises, but this would be a mistake as they are very different products. The vessel is so much smaller than the ocean ships, which makes things like the limited food choices & times, and there only being one restaurant and no café inevitable.

I have read comments from several people to say that they could not do a river cruise because of the lack of entertainment. I realise we are all different, and have different priorities, but in our case we did not find the limited entertainment a problem at all. As I said earlier, there are no ‘sea days‘, which are the times on an ocean cruise when we would be looking for lectures, quizzes and games to help pass the time. In the evenings the dinner is a much more leisurely event than on the ocean ships, not least because there is only one sitting, and with often the ship/boat arriving in a brand new port around 8:00 the next morning, we did not want to stay up late being entertained.

I very much enjoyed travelling across so much of Europe, and seeing how the villages, towns, cities and countryside changed as we sailed from east to west. We both loved exploring most of the ports we visited, especially the stunning half-timbered towns and villages in Austria and Germany.

There is one area that I think Fred. Olsen really need to get their act together – shore tours, and if anyone at head office is still reading this blog, I implore them to sort things out if they want their river cruise product to be a success, especially with talk of one or possibly two more boats in the offing. In the weeks before we sailed we sent countless emails and made countless phone calls to head office asking for the tour books for all four of the cruises we were doing back-to-back. At times we were told they would but them in the post, only for nothing to arrive, and when we phoned to query why we were told that the previous person should not have said that as they had not even been printed yet. We eventually got first online versions then the printed versions of the tour books for our first three cruises just before we left, and we were told they would post the book for the last cruise out to us. When we pointed out that we wouldn’t be at home as we would already be on Brabant, they just said they would post it anyway!

For weeks before we left all that was listed on the Fred. Olsen website was the tour package, where for £200 you buy a tour in every single port – of their choice. These were almost all walking tours of the local town, and we much prefer to look around on our own. There were also tours in the packages to former Nazi locations and wine tasting tours, which again were of no interest to us. When we did finally get to see the other tours on offer there were a few that did interest us, and in particular one that travelled along The Romantic Road, a particularly scenic route in Germany. However we got a letter once we were on the ship/boat to say this tour was cancelled due to lack of numbers, hardly surprising if no one can find out that the tour exists or book it!

As for tours on the fateful last cruise of our four, the Cruise Services Manager who looks after tours bookings on board was tearing her hair out as she never received any printed copies of the tour book for that cruise – she had to print out one copy of the online version on her printer and leave that on her desk for passengers to share and look at – hardly professional!

So to the 50,000 dollar question, would we do another river cruise, and would it be with Fred. Olsen? Here I think the answers that Carol and I would give would differ. For me, if I am travelling and exploring new places I am as happy as Larry, and really enjoyed the whole experience, give or take the incident at the end and the way the cruise ended. Even before the incident, Carol was getting fed up with her disturbed nights from the locks, and would have been happier with doing just say 2 or 3 weeks in a row, rather than the month we had booked. For Carol the incident was the final straw – especially after the incident in Budapest a few days earlier when a river boat sank so quickly with loss of several lives. After our incident she could not wait to get back home, and I think it is very unlikely she will want to do another river cruise.

So, what next for us, and of course this blog? Don’t worry, we have loads more nights of ocean cruising booked over the next year or two, starting with a long cruise on Boudicca in the Autumn (completing the sequence of sailing on all five of Fred. Olsen’s ships in a row). Thank you to everyone who has read my posts during our long river cruise, and especially thank you for all the kind comments and words of appreciation – it really makes it all worthwhile. So as I say, my next post is likely to be later in the year about our next cruise on Boudicca, but until then, au revoir!

R1910 – Homecoming!

I my last post, R1910 – There’s a hole in my bucket!, I described our second visit to the city of Cologne and our first to the village of Remagen on our four back-to-back river cruises on Brabant. The post ended with a rather dramatic Postscript, which described how the ship/boat had been damaged and taken on water that night, how it had moored up unexpectedly back in Cochem for the emergency services to deal with the problem, and how as a result all the passengers had been evacuated to a nearby hotel to await developments – which is where I wrote that post.

As I write this new post it is over 48 hours later, and I am surprised to see that some 384 people have viewed my last one since I wrote it, so I am sure there are plenty of people who are anxious to know how the story developed and what became of both the ship/boat and the passengers – so here we go….

Just to slightly recap, before we were actually evacuated from the ship/boat, we were given a very basic continental breakfast in the Panorama Bar. We left the ship/boat in batches, and were led across to one of three mini-busses parked up on the road close by, and driven quite a short distance up the same road to the Hotel Brixiade. Here there were quite a number of Red Cross people who directed us into the hotel, and gave each of us a small card – a Begleitkarte or Transfer Card – to fill in with our names, dates of birth, nationality etc.

The hotel had put on another breakfast for us, which I understand was a good spread, but having had one already I did not investigate it for myself. We were told we could leave the hotel to explore Cochem if we wished, but needed to be back at the hotel by 11:30 for an update. Carol and I had seen the town before on an earlier visit (see R1909 – Castles, Cable-car & Cochem), so we elected to stay at the hotel while I wrote and posted my last post on this blog.

The update was just to tell us that we would be remaining at the hotel for the time being, which would put on a lunch for us, and we would get a further update around 3:30 that afternoon. We watched the hotel staff start to lay tables for our lunch, and soon they were joined by the very familiar waiters and waitresses from our ship/boat – someone obviously had had the brilliant idea of using them to help out. We were served a very good lunch – asparagus soup, chicken and veg, and a glass of fruit and mousse.

After lunch Carol and I decided we would take a walk into the town centre as we wanted to buy another souvenir of Germany before we left, which we guessed might be happening sooner rather than later. As we crossed the bridge over the river I could not help looking across to Brabant to see what was still going on.

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We knew that it was another Public Holiday weekend in Germany, but even so both Carol and I were shocked at just how busy and crowded the town centre was compared to how it had been just a few days ago. On our first visit we really enjoyed wandering around the empty narrow quaint streets, now it was quite the opposite as we struggled to make progress through the crowds. We managed to find something to buy – it wasn’t quite what we wanted, but in the circumstances we thought it would be fine – and beat our retreat away from the crowds and back to the sanctuary of the hotel.

The next update was pretty much what I by then was expecting to hear. We were going to be allowed to return to the ship/boat to do our packing, and after dinner at the hotel we could return once more to sleep one last night on board. We would be given another basic breakfast on board, and be told by morning when and how we would be flown home the next day, almost certainly from Frankfurt Airport.

Although there was a minibus doing a shuttle service between the hotel and the ship/boat, we decided we were fine to do the walk, and made our way back to our vessel. Here there were still a few emergency vehicles in attendance, but everything seemed much quieter and calmer than when we had left it that morning.

It did not take too long to do our packing, and then we just rested in our cabin until it was time to walk back to the hotel for our dinner. By then it was a lovely sunny evening, and I took some photographs looking across the River Moselle towards the Reichsburg Castle and the town centre, which were both looking serene in the evening light.

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Once again the waiting staff from the ship/boat were helping out, and we thoroughly enjoyed a really good buffet-style meal put on by the hotel. There was a variety of hot meals as well as salads to choose from, plus tomato soup and a range of desserts too. We could not fault the way the hotel had looked after us and fed us so well at such short notice.

During the meal the ship/boat’s Hotel Manager came around to each table in turn, and we took the opportunity to thank him for the way he and his staff had looked after us so well since the incident had occurred. He told us that while the holes on the vessel’s hull had been patched up, when the vessel took on the water it flooded some of the vessel’s electrics, losing power to a lot of the front part including the galley area. He said before the German authorities would permit the ship/boat to carry passengers again, the electrics would need to be inspected and recertified, and to that end they had a team of electricians coming on board that night to commence work. This was the reason that the current cruise had to be abandoned and all the passengers flown back home.

Tired after a very long and emotional day, after walking back to our ship/boat we retired to our cabin and were soon asleep. However when I visited the bathroom around 2am I noticed a letter had been put under our cabin door, and I could not resist taking a look. It said that although we had to put our cases out between 7 and 8 in the morning, we would not be leaving the vessel until 1pm, for a flight home on one of two flights in the late afternoon. Attached were two orange ribbons, which were to be tied onto our cases so that the crew knew which departure we were on – other passengers would be leaving the ship/boat at other times of the day for other flights. By this time Carol was also awake and wanted to know what was happening, and we were both disappointed to read that our fights were so late in the day that it would mean it would be late evening before we finally reached our home and bed. Thoughts of this, and everything that had been going on went through both our minds, and we were both awake for quite some time before eventually getting back to a fitful sleep.

We awoke quite early the following morning, still very bleary-eyed and far from fully rested after our broken night’s sleep. We tied the ribbons to our cases and put them outside the cabin as requested, then made our way into the dining room for our breakfast. Despite the very limited power in the galley they managed to rustle up some scrambled eggs, which we enjoyed on some toast. We then retired to the bar to sit out the morning waiting for our departure time.

Carol conferred with Joanne Oates, the Cruise Services Manager and the one Fred. Olsen employee on board, to establish which of the two possible flights we were booked on – and of course it was the later flight, with the unfortunate flight number BA911 and late departure time of 18:40 that we would be on.

We spent most of the morning in the bar chatting with our friends Darian and Brian, who were also returning on the same flight, but we did venture up on the top deck for a short while to get some fresh air. It was a lovely sunny morning, and once again the camera came out for the now very familiar views across the river to the town and the castle.

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Part way through the morning the air conditioning suddenly sprung into life, showing that the electricians were making progress with their work.

We watched a couple of coaches at different times approach the ship/boat from the left, pick up their batch of cases and passengers, and head off towards the town to the right – and of course we could not help wishing that we were setting off like them earlier in the day, while we understood the staff had done an amazing job getting us booked up on any flights at all at such short notice.

At midday, shortly after one of the coaches had departed, we were very surprised when there was a familiar ‘bing-bong’ on the tannoy and the voice of our Cruise Director Amalia Dumitru came on to announce that lunch was being served in the dining room – in our information letter nothing had been said about our getting a lunch that day. More power had obviously been restored to the galley, as we were offered a nice warm meal of kebabs or chicken together with vegetables, as well as a couple of desserts.

Not long after finishing our lunch we noticed that all our cases had been taken out near the road, so we went outside too to await our coach. And wait for our coach. And wait some more. Soon Joanne, Amalia, and a lady who was to escort us to the airport were all busy on their phones, and they managed to arrange for a minibus to come and take those on the earlier flight on to the airport.

Eventually our coach did turn up at around 1:45, but unlike the coaches earlier in the day, it arrived from the right which would prove rather significant. All our cases were loaded into the luggage bays on the coach, and we boarded ready for it to depart. The rather mature driver of the coach both by his appearance and his actions did not exactly instill us with confidence – we got off to a bad start when he started up the coach ready to drive off with the door to one of the luggage bays still open! That corrected, he tried again, and having told us he could not drive on up the road going to the left, he started to reverse back down the narrow road to the right in order to find a place he could turn the coach around. We had barely gone any distance when there was frantic beeping from a car behind. We quickly stopped, and the lady who was escorting us got out of the coach to investigate.

She returned to say that the coach had reversed into a car behind us, and the driver of the car was insisting that the police be called before the coach could leave. We were instructed to disembark the coach, while the ship/boat’s crew unloaded all our luggage, and we were told they would order a fleet of taxis to take us to the airport.

We all milled around saying to each other that you could not make this up! Fortunately a police car soon arrived, and one officer inspected the coach and spoke to it’s driver while the other inspected the car. After a few minutes the order came to reboard the coach – we were being allowed to use it to leave for the airport after all! So once more all the cases and passengers were loaded onto the coach, and this time the police car gave us an escort up the forbidden road to the left, and then back until we were almost through the town, which was chock-a-block with the holiday traffic. As we slowly drove through the town we noticed that Brabant had slipped her moorings and was already on her way back down the river. We half joked that the Captain had probably wanted to get away as quickly as possible in case our coach came back again!

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It was quite a long drive to the airport, first climbing and then descending quite steep hills on an ordinary road, before joining a motorway for the majority of the journey. Soon after we joined the motorway the driver pulled into a parking area so that he could check that all the luggage bay doors were securely fastened – not exactly enhancing our confidence in him or whether we would reach the airport in time.

Finally, and just in time, at around 4:40 we arrived at Frankfurt Airport, and we joined quite a long queue at the single check-in desk. There was just time to check in and make our way directly through security to the boarding gate. As it turned out the flight was around 25 minutes late leaving, but it was all a bit too tight for comfort.

The flight was full, and Carol and I were sat in the next-to-last row of seats. Of course it was a much shorter flight time than when we had flown out to Romania four weeks earlier, and it didn’t seem too long before we were descending over London.

We were impressed that at the luggage carousel there was a young lady holding a familiar Fred. Olsen tours ‘table tennis bat’, who came up to us and explained that she was there to check how we were and whether she could do anything to help us. We told her that we were fine, and that we had been very impressed how everything had been arranged and organised to look after us and get us home following the incident – and especially how tirelessly the Cruise Services Manager Joanne had worked and how well she had kept everyone informed.

Carol’s son had so kindly offered to drive up to the airport to collect us, for which we were so very, very grateful as it meant we reached home and our bed so much quicker and easier than if we had been on a coach. After some toast and a quick scan though the mountain of mail it was off to bed for some much needed sleep.

The most important thing is that we are home, and that we are safe and well. Incidents and accidents happen, and we cannot praise and thank everyone involved in sorting out the aftermath, looking after us so well and arranging to get us back home so efficiently and quickly (well everyone except perhaps one coach driver!). We cannot help but think though how lucky we were that it happened where and how it did, not least because of that oh so tragic incident in Budapest a few days ago when a holed ship/boat left so many lives lost. We have been thinking too about all the very remote countryside we passed particularly in Romania and Bulgaria, where emergency services would have had a much longer and harder job to reach us, and where the river was running so much stronger. Have the events put us off cruising? – definitely not, although Carol is not convinced that river cruising is for her with all the locks to negotiate particularly at night disturbing her sleep. We still have lots and lots of ocean cruising booked though!

As for the Brabant, news stories now appearing on the internet report that her hull had a crack some 40 centimeters long as well as some smaller holes, and that her propeller was also damaged. As I described above, her electrics also needed to be repaired and certified. She is currently sailing down the Rhine towards Cologne, where I understand she will enter dry docks for repairs.

Well this almost concludes my posts about our back-to-back river cruises on Brabant. I plan to do one more post in the coming days, which will be some reflections on what we think of river cruising and how it compares to ocean cruising with Fred. Olsen, and it will also include those long promised photographs of what the inside is like on the vessel.

R1910 – There’s a hole in my bucket!

In my last post, R1909 – Chocolate heaven!, I described consecutive days spent in Cologne and Düsseldorf, Germany. We left Düsseldorf at around 2am, sailing back upstream to Cologne, where we were due to make our next port call. We visited Cologne on the third of our four back-to-back cruises, now we were visiting again as the first port on the final cruise.

We moored up back in Cologne around 7am, a little nearer the Hohenzollern Bridge than we did just a couple of days ago. We were due to be in port until 12:30, giving us just the morning to explore the city once more. Carol decided that having unexpectedly stocked up on her beloved Lindt chocolate in Düsseldorf, and since we would visit a second port later in the day, she would remain on the ship/boat and conserve her energy.

On our previous visit to the city we found it very busy and rather too modern compared to the lovely little towns we had been visiting earlier on the cruise, so I decided that I would head for somewhere that should be more relaxing and peaceful – the Flora und Botanischer Garten or Botanical Gardens.

It was about a 25 minute walk to the gardens, mostly alongside the river, and then a slow bit waiting for the pedestrian crossings on several busy roads to reach my destination. I did take one wrong turning at the zoo, but I did get to see the pictures of various animals painted on the outside wall of it. By the river the breeze was quite fresh, especially as it was still quite early and the sun was yet to heat the day, but once away from the river I soon warmed up and was glad I didn’t bother to bring a jacket.

Once into the gardens I was greeted by the sight of some lovely formal beds around a huge fountain, all in front of a large pavilion that is used for entertainment events.

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I then slowly walked around the gardens, which as I hoped were very quiet and peaceful, just loving all the flowers, plants and trees, as well as the birdsong filling the air. At one point I reached a palm house filled with more exotic plants, and then the first of two large lakes.

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Walking on I eventually came to a second lake, this one was three-quarters covered in beautiful water-lilies, this and the willow tree alongside brought back great memories of exploring Monet’s Garden in France on an earlier cruise (see M1623 – Take the Monet…).

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Eventually I had walked a complete circuit around the gardens, and found myself back at the pavilion and fountain.

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I retraced my steps back to the river then along the riverbank to our ship/boat. By now the sun was really beating down, and I was glad to get back to the cool of the ship and rest up.

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We set sail while we were at lunch, and we could watch by now very familiar landmarks pass by as we ate our meal.

That afternoon I sat up in the Panorama Bar while I wrote my blog, watching the river scenery slip past as I did so. We were sailing upstream past Bonn, and around 5pm we reached our second port of the day, Remagen, where we would stay until around 8pm.

Remagen is of course most known for the bridge there, one of the key locations and incidents in the Second World War. The Ludendorff Bridge was originally built during the First World War by the Germans as a means of moving troops and logistics over the Rhine to reinforce their Western Front. In the closing stages of the Second World War the retreating Germans failed to demolish the bridge, and the U.S. forces were able to capture it and cross the Rhine, possibly shortening the war in Europe. The Allies got six divisions across the river before it collapsed ten days after it was captured.

We went ashore dressed as we were expecting sunshine, but no sooner had we stepped ashore than a short sharp rain shower passed over, and we had to take shelter under an awning. A little further along the waterfront we had a second short shower, this time a tree gave us shelter. A bit further along we reached the site of the bridge, where just the pillars and one arch of the bridge remain as a memorial.

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We walked back towards the ship/boat through the little village, but there was little to see apart from some old photographs of the village and we were soon back on board.

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Before dinner that evening we had the Captain’s welcome party, when the Captain gave a little speech. Once again he told us that we would be passing through locks in the night, there may be some bumps, but this is to be expected and the ship was built to take it. Little did we know what was to happen that night….
Postscript

During the night both Carol and I woke at the sound of a loud bang, but following Captain’s orders we went back to sleep.

I woke up around 6am to hear quite a commotion going on outside of the ship. Puzzled, I got out of bed bleary-eyed and looked out of the window, to see that we were moored up in familiar Cochem, but that there were a number of fire engines and other emergency vehicles on the bank alongside us, and firemen coming on board, some carrying hoses!

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I watched bemused for a few minutes, and then woke Carol so that she had a chance to wake up properly should we have to evacuate. Quite some time passed by – more and more emergency vehicles arrived and later some left – I counted at least 14 at any one time.
Eventually a good hour and a half later a member of the crew knocked the cabin doors, telling everyone to put warm clothes on as we had to leave the ship. Walking out into reception we were instead directed up to the Bar where we were given a basic breakfast, and a letter telling us that a store room on the ship/boat had taken on water and we had to leave the ship/boat for a hotel while they assessed the situation.

So here we are sitting in a nearby hotel waiting to hear what will happen next. Watch this space….

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P.S. While we are sat here waiting for news, on the background music came the Titanic theme song…  you couldn’t make it up!

R1909 – Chocolate heaven!

In my last post, R1909 – Castles, Cable-car & Cochem, I described our scenic sailing down the River Rhine past many castles, our first visit to Koblenz where we took a ride on a cable-car, and our first visit to Cochem where we walked around the attractive little town. We left Cochem early in the afternoon, and sailed back down the River Moselle to Koblenz, where we turned back into the Rhine, and sailed overnight to our next port of call, Cologne, in Germany.

Cologne is the last of the three ports that we will be visiting twice, once on the penultimate cruise of the four we are doing back-to-back, and again on the last of the cruises.

Regular readers might be aware that Carol is very much a confirmed chocoholic, and our visits to Cologne became a highspot of this holiday once she heard about the Lindt Chocolate Museum, which includes a factory and a shop, in the city. She had been told that the ship/boat usually docks close to the museum, and she had been anticipating heading straight there, especially when she heard about the 3 meter high chocolate fountain!

During the voyage we found out more information, that you have to pay 11 euros as a senior to enter the museum, and there was doubt as to whether you could visit the shop without paying to enter the museum.

Come the morning of our first visit to Cologne there was a change of plan – our friends Darian and Brian, who are also doing the same cruises, would visit the Chocolate Museum and stock up on chocolate, leaving Carol and I to explore the city centre on foot. Carol of course left it open as to whether she would want to visit the museum or shop later in the day or on our second visit!

The weather forecast was for a sunny and hot day, so we decided to leave the ship/boat straight after an early breakfast, so that we would be walking around in the coolest part of the day. Our vessel was not moored close to the Chocolate Museum, instead it was the other side of the famous Hohenzollernbrücke or Hohenzollern Bridge which carries multiple railway lines over the Rhine and into the city’s main station.

Knowing our first target, Kölner Dom or Cologne Cathedral, was located on the far side of the railway station, we set off along the footpath that runs alongside the river. As we walked along the path we passed some bright roses looking lovely in the early morning sunshine.

Just before we passed under the rail bridge I took a photo of one of the large statues which are to be found on each corner of the bridge. Once through to the other side we turned inland and climbed lots of steps to reach the Cathedral itself. The combination of the huge size of the Cathedral and how hemmed in it was between other buildings made it difficult to get a good photograph of it all.

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We walked around the Cathedral to the main entrance, and entered into the huge space within. We were both instantly struck not just by the volume of the space, but also the wonderful huge stained glass windows, featuring lovely intense colours. I tried very hard, but it was impossible to take photographs which did the building, especially its height, justice.

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Leaving the Cathedral, we walked around outside for a while marvelling at its size and scale, but also thinking how much it needed a really good clean, and boggling at the thought of what that might cost.

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We then headed for Der Fischmarkt or Fish Market area close to the river, where there are a number of colourful old buildings and cafés. While it was attractive, it was only a small area amongst a sea of modern buildings, and the latter and the bustle of the city was rather grating with us after all the delightful pretty little towns we had been seeing over the previous few days.

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At this point it was still only 9:30 in the morning, so we decided to carry on walking beside the river towards the Chocolate Museum, which is located in a building that sort of resembles a ship or boat. Reaching the museum there was already quite a crowd of mainly young people gathered outside waiting to enter. We walked around the building to see if there was a different entrance to the shop, but did not find anything other than the main entrance. We did find though a number of models of the Cathedral towers, each painted up in different ways, which reminded me of the rhinos, zebras and other animals I have seen before in other towns and cities to raise money for charity.

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To my suprise Carol decided not to wait for the Museum to open, which was due to happen at 10am, and instead we started to walk back towards our ship/boat. When we reached the Fish Market area Carol sat on a bench in the shade, while I explored the area a little more as always in search of the quirky or unusual.

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Reunited once more, we continued our walk beside the river back to our ship/boat, where we were content to rest up for the remainder of the day.

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Around 4pm we set sail for our next port of call, Düsseldorf (which would be the endpoint of our third cruise), and I went up onto the top deck to watch and photograph our departure through the city. We sailed under the railway bridge (famed for all the padlocks attached to it by lovers) and upstream as far as the Chocolate Factory, before turning around and sailing downstream once more towards our destination.

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We arrived in Düsseldorf while we were at dinner that evening, and remained in port overnight. The following day all the passengers on board departed for home except for our friends Darian and Brian and ourselves, and a new set of passengers boarded.

We did not have the benefit of a port talk to guide us, only a very basic map, so I had to do some basic research on the internet to decide what Carol and I would do that day. It turned out that the ‘old town’ (mostly rebuilt after the Second World War) was less than half an hours walk away, so that is the direction we headed in after breakfast.

Just as in Cologne, we walked along a pathway which ran alongside the river, but in this case it was paved with strange ‘wavy’ slabs, which were rather disconcerting as from some angles it definitely looked like the path had a series of ripples across it. We walked as far as a long line of cafés and bars that we had seen from the ship/boat the previous evening, before heading inland into the old town.

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Before long we came to a church, which was lovely and very peaceful inside.

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Carol had been waiting outside, and when I came back out to meet her she was very excited, for totally unexpectedly ahead of us was a Lindt chocolate shop! Once inside she told me she was in chocolate heaven – so much to choose from and some good prices too! Unlike the shop at the museum this one was virtually empty of other customers, and the nice lady in charge offered us each a free chocolate to taste while we looked. Needless to say our basket was quite full, and having packed it all into a smart carrier bag, the lady added a few ‘freebies’ too! To say Carol was delighted was a big understatement – I’m sure she floated around for the rest of our exploration on her own little cloud! Meanwhile I of course was well weighed down by that bulging bag of chocolate.

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We next found ourselves at a rather nice market, with stalls laden with fruit and with flowers. In the window of one of the stalls was a small dog, prompting a quick chorus of ‘how much is that doggy in the window’!

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Next to the market was a multi-storey car park, with curiously necklaces and bracelets threaded around its walls.

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We then continued to meander around the old town, looking as always for those interesting and quirky things to photograph.

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One of the things we did find were some rather well-done statues depicting ordinary looking people. I later found out on the internet that they were part of a series of 10 Säulenheiligen Statues created by the artist, Christoph Pöggeler, who wanted to create life-sized statues that represented everyday normal people, rather than the famous people that are usually depicted. Had I realised at the time that there were more to be found in that area I would have sought them out.

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As we walked back alongside the river towards our ship/boat Carol spotted a pole at a strange angle set into the grass. She pointed this out to me, and I guessed what it was, and went closer to confirm my suspicions. I was correct, it was one huge sundial, there were a number of markers also set into the grass to mark the hours. But this was not all, there was also a metal strip set into the grass with dates marked alongside, to indicate the approximate date. During the year the shadow of the pole will extend different distances along the strip depending on how high the sun is in the sky, thus allowing the date to be judged. It was a great find and well done Carol for spotting it!

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We returned to the ship/boat to enjoy relaxing in a quiet and almost empty vessel for once (we were given a light lunch of soup and sandwiches in the bar). I also took the chance to take some photographs around the ship/boat while it was quiet which I will feature in a future post.

In the late afternoon our new passengers arrived, and sitting in a very noisy dining room that evening the peace of earlier in the day was soon forgotten.

We were not due to sail until 2am, so just after it got dark I went up onto the top deck to take some photographs of the lit-up bridges around us.

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During the night we sailed back upstream to Cologne, where we would spend the next morning. Our adventures there and in another port of call visited later in the day are likely to be the subject of my next post.

R1909 – Castles, Cable-car & Cochem

In my last post, R1909 – Magical Miltenberg, I described a lovely day we spend in magical Miltenberg, on the banks of the River Main in Germany. We sailed late that afternoon continuing our voyage along the Main towards the River Rhine, which we entered early the following morning. The rest of the day was spent scenic cruising down the Rhine until we moored up in Koblenz around 3.30 in the afternoon.
Castles

Early that morning we made our way through the last two locks on the River Main, much to everyone’s relief, and shortly afterwards sailed out into the River Rhine. Our voyage from there to our next port of call, Koblenz, was to take us through perhaps the most scenic part of the Rhine, where the river twists and turns between steep hillsides mostly planted with grape vines. Every now and then there were pretty little towns and villages down by the waterside, while up on the hillside where a large number of castles, some in good order and some in ruins. We were given a handout listing some 24 castles to be seen, the sheet listing the castle name, it’s age and the nearest kilometer marker and town name. At one point we passed the statue of Loreley, the siren who was reputed to have lured passing sailors to crash their boats on the rocks.

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The river itself was quite busy, with well laden barges as well as other pleasure craft passing us in either direction. Finally a couple of very large bridges across the river marked our imminent arrival at our next port of call, Koblenz.
Cable-car

Just past the second bridge we passed Schloss Koblenz or Electoral Palace, an 18th century palace on the port bank; while opposite was Festung Ehrenbreitstein, or Ehrenbreitstein Fortress in a commanding position high on the hillside. We sailed under the cable car system that connected Koblenz to the fortress before reaching Deutsches Eck or German Corner, at the confluence of the Rhine and Moselle Rivers. Here we turned hard to port into the Moselle, and moored up just a short distance up the river.

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Koblenz is the first of three ports of call which we will make both on this cruise – cruise three of the four we are doing back-to-back, and on the final cruise – the others being Cochem and Cologne. When we return to Koblenz in a few days time we will be in port for much longer, so we decided on this visit just to take the cable-car over to the Fortress to get the views from there, and wait for our second visit to explore the city itself.

Regular readers will know that Carol is not very good with heights, so it was very brave of her to agree to travel on the cable-car with me. It was a short walk across a little park to the cable-car station, on the way we passed three white concrete slabs set into the ground. These are actual sections of the old Berlin Wall which have been moved here – apparently sections have been moved to various cities around Germany. We were both surprised to see how thin the sections were – we expected them to be much thicker and therefore more robust.

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Purchasing our tickets for the cable-car from the ticket office, Carol was impressed how delicately the ticket seller enquired whether we might be of pension age! You can either buy a ticket just for the cable-car (which we did), or buy a combined ticket with viewing the Fortress itself. It was a good time to take the ride as it was very quiet, and we were able to secure a cabin to ourselves – they were quite large and would accommodate around 15 people. The cabin rapidly rose into the air and then we began the steady ascent over the River Rhine and up to the height of the Fortress.

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Alighting from the cable-car we consulted a large map of the site, and then walked across an open park area towards the look-out point. Alongside the paths there were attractive wild-flower beds which was so lovely to see.

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Once she saw the viewing platform Carol decided she had been brave enough for one day, and elected to sit on a bench and enjoy the wild flowers while I climbed the platform with my camera. The platform was triangular in shape, and you could either spiral around the triangle to reach the highest viewing point, or take a very steep staircase which had open metal mesh steps. I decided to spiral around the triangle on the way up, but did brave the staircase on the way down.

The views from the top were amazing – right over the Rhine and across to Koblenz and the Moselle – well worth the modest cost of the cable-car ride.

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We walked back to the cable-car station to begin our descent back to the city. Once again we had a cabin to ourselves and the views on the way down were even better as we were looking across to the rivers and the city.

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We walked back across the park to our ship/boat in time to change for dinner.

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After dinner we had something different by way of entertainment – a local German group called the Michael Fischer Group came on board to perform for us. Our Cruise Director Amalia Dumitru was dressed in the local dirndl for the occasion, as were the two ladies in the group. As well as a tuba, accordion and drum, the group also had a very striking barrel organ, which one of the ladies played by turning the wheel connected to the bellows having set the appropriate stops, the melody being set by which punched paper tape she pre-loaded.

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It was a very rousing at at times humorous concert, much enjoyed by all. The group left the ship/boat just before we sailed for our next port of call, Cochem, at around 10pm.

 

Cochem

We sailed up the River Moselle overnight, arriving at Cochem before breakfast. We were due to stay there until around 2pm, giving us the morning to explore the quaint town. The tour in Cochem was to visit the striking Reichsburg Castle, which stands high above the town dominating the landscape, to be guided around the castle and then enjoy some local wine. As so often on this cruise, Carol and I had decided not to book the cruise, and instead just explore the local town by ourselves on foot. It was another lovely warm sunny day, so we decided to set out as early as possible before it got too hot.

It was a short walk along the path to the town bridge, and crossing that gave us lovely views across the river to the town and the castle above. At the far end of the bridge was a spiral staircase leading down to the town, which had been decorated with pictures of animals.

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The town was a maze of narrow cobbled streets, just the kind of place that we both love to explore. There seemed to be lots of clothing stores, as well as the usual souvenir shops and cafés. We did find a lovely shop selling linen, where we bought a very colourful cushion cover for our lounge at home.

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As usual I was on the lookout for the quirky or unusual to photograph, here are some of the things I found:

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After a couple of hours it was getting very hot, so we were quite content to make our way back to the ship/boat and rest in the cool of our cabin, not least because once again we would be returning to the town in a few days.

In the early afternoon we set sail back down the Moselle – initially in reverse until the river was wide enough for us to turn around safely. By dinner time we reached Koblenz, where we turned to port and sailed on down the River Rhine towards our next two ports, Cologne and Düsseldorf. Our adventures there are likely to be the subject of my next post.

R1909 – Magical Miltenberg

In my last post, R1909 – A bumpy Road to Romance, I described the private tour along the Romantic Road that we eventually managed to do from Würzburg in Germany, and my look around the city centre later in the day. We sailed from Würzburg that evening heading further along the River Main towards our next port, Miltenberg, where we would arrive late the following morning.

While we have been sailing the Rhine-Main-Danube canal and now the River Main, we have been passing through dozens and dozens of locks. The novelty soon wore off – often they are a source of delay while we wait for ages for our turn to use the lock, and at night the bumps and bangs and judders seem extra loud and have been giving Carol some disturbed nights.

This night however everyone on the ship/boat must have been disturbed by one particular incident. Around 3:30 in the morning Carol and I awoke to find the ship/boat was tilting to one side – unlike on the ocean cruise ships this has never happened before on the river ship/boat. Suddenly there was an extremely loud noise and a big jolt that send things flying – in the morning we found water bottles and a flower vase on the floor, and the door of our shower had come off it’s rails. The story we heard at breakfast was that someone had forgotten to slacken off a mooring rope in a lock – if so it could have been an even worse incident.

We awoke a little bleary-eyed the following morning to find it was another lovely sunny day. The river outside our cabin looked calm and idyllic, and checking the weather forecast it said we were in for an even hotter day than the day before.

We spent the early morning in the big armchairs that look out of the front of the Panorama Bar, watching the lovely scenery slip by, and trying to cut out the sounds from the wine tasting talk going on in the main part of the bar. I was also trying to sort out my photographs, choosing the best ones for future posts in this blog.

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We arrived at our destination, Miltenberg, soon after 11am. As the weather was already very sunny and warm, and was forecast to go even hotter in the afternoon, we decided it would be best to forego our lunch, and go out into the town exploring straight away.

In Miltenberg there is one very long main street full of beautiful old buildings, which we walked all the way along and then back again. We were amazed & delighted how quiet it was – especially to me after how busy it was the previous day in Würzburg. There were a few other ships/boats in port as well as ours so we had expected to see many more people around – it really must be a magical place!

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As we gradually made our way up and down the main street Carol was content to sit on a seat in shade from time to time while I darted about with my camera taking loads of photographs – occasionally deviating down side streets or alleyways, for example to take photographs of and from the town bridge.

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There is a famous shop in the town, Käthe Wohlfahrt, which sells Christmas decorations all year around. The main shop was closed – it being Sunday – but we did find a second store that sold both the Christmas decorations and other souvenirs, and of course we could not resist buying a decoration for our Christmas tree.

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As always I was on the lookout for the different or quirky things to photograph, for example in one shop window I was surprised to see a sign saying ‘Made in Germany for you‘ sign – and the text was in English!

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Further down I saw an old building decorated with antlers – I innocently thought nothing of it and was just taking photos of it from a distance when Carol pointed out what was in the upstairs windows – very well endowed ladies wearing next to nothing – so of course I had to take some photos closer too for our friend Brian!

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We made our way back to our ship/boat feeling very happy and contented with all we had seen, but both of us were very hot & tired – we later found out it was 31 degrees so no wonder! As we approached the mooring place, we were somewhat confused and concerned to see a completely different ship/boat moored in our place, and no sign of our ship/boat. We had to stand for ages while the new ship/boat first unloaded some stores, which were being transferred onto ours, and then a large number of passengers who were going out on tour, before it finally moved away and our ship/boat reappeared from behind some trees and moored up once more. We later found out that at this point on the river it was only wide enough for one ship/boat to moor up at a time – usually they moor up alongside each other and you often have to cross from ship/boat to ship/boat to reach the shore.

It was such a relief to finally get back on board, and we immediately headed for the Panorama Bar so that we could drink several glasses of lovely ice cold water.

We retired to our cabin to rest until afternoon tea was served at 4pm. One thing about this ship/boat is that you have to be there on the dot for lunch, afternoon tea or dinner – about 25 minutes later they start clearing everything – even in this case when lots of passengers were just coming back off tour.

We had both absolutely loved Miltenburg – it was so attractive with so many half-timbered buildings, and surprisingly very peaceful and quiet too.

Around 6pm I went up on deck to watch as we set sail from Miltenberg, continuing our voyage down the River Main towards the River Rhine.

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The following morning we would sail out of the Main into the Rhine, and have several hours of scenic cruising past lots of castles and small towns, before reaching our next port of call, Koblenz in the middle of the afternoon. Our adventures that day are likely to be the subject of my next post.

R1909 – A bumpy Road to Romance

In my last post, R1909 – Wham Bam-berg!, I described our short visit to Bamberg, and how the shuttle bus timings allowed us every little time to see the old town there. At midday we set sail for our next port of call, Würzburg, which we reached around 9am the following morning.

One of the biggest problems we have had with river cruising on Fred. Olsen occurred before we even left home – trying to get information about the shore tours and book them. For the ocean cruises, we get a large tours book several weeks before we sail, and also the tours are fully listed online and can be booked there. On the river cruises they offer a package of tours – one in each port, or there are mostly two (sometimes only one) tour that you can book on an individual basis for each port. For weeks the only thing listed on the Fred. Olsen website was the tour package for each of four cruises we are doing back-to-back. We sent numerous emails and made numerous phone calls to Fred. Olsen head office in Ipswich, where various excuses and promises were made, but no tour books appeared. Finally we managed to have the books for the first three cruises emailed to us, and a few days later they were finally listed online for us to book, but only a week or so before we sailed. They offered to post the book for the final cruise out to us when it became available, but Carol had to point out to them that it would be too late as we would already be on Brabant by then. Incidentally they still do not have the books for the final cruise on board, although it starts in three days time!

Once we had the tours information for the first three cruises, we picked out two particular tours that we particularly wanted to do. One was to visit Salzburg in Austria, but we found that one was not listed online. When we queried this with head office they told us that due to timings in port it was not possible to run that tour, and that it had been a mistake including it in the tour book. The other tour was from Würzburg, and was to do a coach tour along The Romantic Road, a scenic drive along some of the loveliest small towns in the area. One of Carol’s relatives, who knows Germany well, told us that if we did any tour in Germany we should do that one.

We were therefore bitterly disappointed to receive a letter a few days ago telling us that this tour had also been cancelled – this time due to lack of numbers – no wonder when passengers can’t find out what the tours are! Our friends Darian and Brian had also booked this tour and were equally disappointed not to be able to do it.

We spoke to Joanne Oates, the Cruise Services Manager on board about this – she is the one Fred. Olsen employee on board, who does both tours and future cruise bookings. She very kindly offered to investigate whether we could book the tour privately, either from a tour provider or from a local taxi company.

Joanne did an amazing job making numerous phone calls and exchanging countless emails trying to get us an affordable replacement tour, for which we are very, very grateful and for which we would publically like to give a big, big thank you. In the end she enlisted the help of the First Captain, Reinier Dekkers, who spoke to a local taxi firm for her in German and managed to make a booking to take us out on an agreed route for a fixed price, with a rate per hour of where we wanted to extend the tour. Brilliant!

That morning we woke to another lovely sunny day, and out of the cabin window we saw the river was looking idyllic – the water still and the sunlight dappling through the trees. Every so often we passed another campsite – there are so many of those in Germany.

I popped back to our cabin from the breakfast table to fetch something, and heard squeals coming through the open window. Looking out I saw three young ladies clearly enjoying a ‘skinny dip’ in the river, hastily turning their backs as our boat passed. Unfortunately for my friend Brian I was unable to grab my camera in time!!

We had sailed through the centre of Würzburg while we were at breakfast, and moored up a little way out of town – a shuttle bus was being provided, and this time once an hour throughout the day! There was a nice view across the river from our cabin, to a village with an attractive church.

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Our taxi arrived at the quayside just before 10am, and both Joanne and the First Captain came out to make sure all was well – the First Captain even spoke at length with the taxi drive in German to make sure he knew what we wanted to do.

We drove directly to the town at the end point of our tour – Rothenburg ob der Tauber. We drove through lovely open countryside and very pretty villages on the way, including lots of vineyards.

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Expecting to be stopping at several towns on our way back, we decided just to spend 30 minutes in Rothenburg ob der Tauber. Our taxi dropped us close to a town gate, and walking though it into the main street we were soon struck just how attractive and interesting it was. We walked down the street as far as we could in half our time, and then very reluctantly made our way back to our taxi, we could so easily have spent much, much longer exploring such a lovely town.

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The plan was to then make our way back towards Würzburg following The Romantic Road, stopping at several of the other lovely small towns on the way – Creglingen, Bad Mergentheim and Lauda, but for various reasons we just ended up driving around them, or in one case not even that as the roads in the town centre were all closed.

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Nevertheless we all very much enjoyed the tour – it was so interesting to get out into the open German countryside and see the lovely little villages and towns, quite a change from the tree-lined river banks and large town and city centres that we had been seeing from our ship/boat. We particularly noted how immaculate everywhere looked – no litter and virtually no graffiti – and how lovely it was to see the verges and hedgerows full of a mix of wild flowers.

When we got back to to the quayside we found that the taxi driver actually charged us the price that had clocked up on his meter, but as this did not work out too much more than the cancelled coach tour would have cost us, we were happy to just pay up.

Once again we would all like to express our thanks and say how grateful we were to the First Captain and especially to Joanne for their hard work in making our delightful tour happen.

We got back to the ship/boat too late for lunch, so it was a good job that we had made up some rolls at breakfast time to put by for our lunch.

I decided that I would like to use the shuttle bus to go into Würzburg that afternoon, but Carol decided to remain on board and catch up on her emails. Checking my watch I was just in time to catch the 2pm bus, which would allow me a reasonable time to look around before the last shuttle bus back from town at 4:30.

By now the weather was getting very hot, and I was glad of my sun cream and hat as I set off on foot to explore the city centre. To reach there I needed to cross The Old Main Bridge, a pedestrian bridge across the River Main which was built between 1473 and 1543, and which features 12 large statues added in 1730. The bridge was very busy, especially at the city end, where there was a bar serving drinks to throngs of people gathered there.

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I walked up a decorated side street and across a marketplace busy with dozens of food stalls and row upon row of bench tables to Marienkapelle Catholic Church, which I was able to enter.

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Leaving the church I then headed towards the Würzburg Residenz, or Würzburg Residence, a huge palace commissioned 1720, and completed in 1744. On the way I stumbled upon the amazing St. Michael Catholic Church with it’s crisp white interior which was like a cool oasis from the hot sunshine outside.

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The gardens around the Residence were huge and lovely – fountains, formal planting, and climbing some steep steps to a raised part I could get good views back over the gardens towards the palace.

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I then walked back towards the city centre, heading towards Würzburg Cathedral. Outside the cathedral there was a girl on stilts entertaining the crowd doing ballet, and various statues and artwork.

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Alas the Cathedral was closed, so instead I headed for a chocolate shop I noticed on the way to the Residence, to stock up on essential supplies for Carol! I still had some time before the shuttle bus was due, so I carried on walking around the city centre area, passing the Rathaus (town hall), and plenty more statues and artwork.

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Walking back over the Old Main Bridge it was even more crowded than before, but I was still able to see the lock that we had passed through early that morning. I arrived at the bus stop very early for the shuttle bus, and it was very hot waiting in the sun for it to arrive and take me back for a much needed rest on our ship/boat.

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Around 6pm we set sail for our next port of call, the stunning town of Miltenberg, where we would arrive late the following morning. Our adventures there are likely to be the subject of my next post.

R1909 – Wham Bam-berg!

In my last post, R1908 – No ginger snaps, I described our overnight stay in Nuremberg, Germany, and how we had to resort to using a taxi to visit the old town due to the unhelpful timings of the shuttle bus provided by the ship/boat.

Our new passengers came onboard in Nuremberg in good time, so we were able to sail away a little earlier than the planned 9pm, continuing our journey up the Rhine-Main-Danube Canal towards our next port of call, Bamberg, which is also in Germany.

When we returned to our cabin after dinner that evening, we were shocked and horrified to see the shuttle bus times for Bamberg the next day. We were due to arrive in port at 8:30, and sail away at midday. The shuttle times given were:
from ship to town:     9:45 and 10:30
from town to ship:   10:10 and 10:50
It was immediately obvious that there was no point in going in on the first bus and returning on the first bus, or in on the second and back on the second, as you would have to just remain on the bus and come straight back. The only combination that worked at all was to go in on the first bus and come back on the second, but even that only gave you around 45 minutes or so to see the town!

When we asked about this we were told a similar story to yesterday – it was a bank holiday and they could only get one bus, which was taking the tour people first before they started the shuttle service.

The other difficulty we had was that we did not get a port talk for Bamberg, as the majority of passengers on board only boarded late yesterday, and there was no time to do it in the evening as usual. This meant we had less than an hour to explore the old town, without really knowing where to go or what to see for the best.

We did see in the tours book an area that had the nickname Klein Venedig, or Little Venice, which was a pretty row of 19th century fishing houses with wooden balconies right by the river, and it turned out that this was not far from where the shuttle bus dropped us in town, so this was our first target.

Leaving the shuttle bus we crossed the river on a little pedestrian bridge, and then turned left and followed a pathway along the river bank. It passed a large building with some interesting decorations on its side, I later found out this was just part of a huge four star hotel. A little further along we came across a small garage with a Harley-Davidson sign across the top, while across the river the lovely old fishing houses soon came into view.

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Eventually the footpath ended, and we needed to turn inland down a small street and work our way “around the block” to rejoin the river once more.

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It was here that we found the most famous and dramatic part of Bamberg, the Altes Rathaus or Old Town Hall, which was built in 1386 in the middle of the River Regnitz, accessible by two bridges. The story goes that the Bishop of Bamberg would not grant the citizens any land for the construction of a town hall, so they rammed stakes into the river to create an artificial island, on which they built the town hall that they wanted.

The building is covered in lovely frescos, and looked absolutely amazing, as did a blue-painted old building closeby.

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At the end of the bridge connecting the artificial island to the far bank of the river was a strange statue of an incomplete head, and nearby an attractive water feature outside a restaurant.

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We walked back along the far bank for a short while in the hope that I could get a view back to show how the Old Town Hall is built on the island, but was unable to get one – so instead I have “borrowed” a picture from the tours book instead.

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By now the clock was ticking against us, so we started to retrace our steps back over the two bridges past the Old Town Hall once more. As we did so my wonderful wife and amazing photographer’s assistant Carol spotted something special on the wall of the Town Hall – at one point the fresco had been extended out into 3D by a leg and part of the scroll!

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We just had time to view the other end of the Town Hall, with it’s archway and carvings, and we would have so liked to have had time to walk through there and explore more of the area.

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Instead we stepped it out on the same route we took earlier to make sure we were back in good time for the last shuttle bus.

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We got back to the bus stop with just a few minutes to spare, so I grabbed a couple of shots of the adjacent park while we waited for the shuttle bus to arrive.

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Walking back from the shuttle bus to our ship/boat I was able to get some shots of the lovely poppies, which seemed to be growing everywhere in Bamberg. I could not help thinking how beautiful they looked in the sunshine, and how appropriate to be seeing them so close in time to the D-Day anniversary.

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What we saw of Bamberg was so lovely it only added to our frustrations that we had so little time to see the town. Even though we were setting sail again at midday, we are sure that with some thought and tighter management of time, passengers could have been given longer to explore the town. We docked at around 8:30, but the tours bus did not depart until around 9:25, nearly a full hour later – we are sure that this could have been done sooner. In addition our shuttle bus got us back close to our ship/boat at around 11am, a full three quarters of an hour before the final cut off time to be back on-board. Between these two we think an extra 45 minutes of time in the old town could have been found, which would have made such a big difference to our experience and enjoyment – instead of the wham bam Bamberg we experienced.

At midday we set sail as planned, heading on up the River Main towards our next port of call, Würzburg, also in Germany. Our adventures there are likely to be the subject of my next post.

R1908 – No ginger snaps

In my last post, R1908 – Sausage organ, I described our visit to our first two German ports of call, Passau and Regensburg. We set sail from Regensburg late in the afternoon sailing up the Danube, and later that night we entered the Rhine-Main-Danube Canal, in order to reach our next port of call, Nuremberg.

The Rhine-Main-Danube Canal is 171 km long, and connects the River Main (a tributary of the River Rhine) and the River Danube across the European Watershed, running from Bamberg via Nuremberg to Kelheim. Along the course of the canal there are 16 locks with lifting heights of up to 25 metres. There are 115 bridges along its route, and it cost some 2.3 billion Euros to construct.

Progress through all the locks is of course hard to predict, sometimes if traffic is heavy there can be a considerable wait before a ship or boat can enter a lock. I was therefore not altogether surprised when a tannoy announcement after breakfast called us to a special meeting in the Panorama Bar, where the Cruise Director told us that instead of reaching Nuremberg at lunchtime as planned, we would not arrive there until between 4 and 5pm that afternoon. She told us that they had arranged a brief stop at Roth, where coaches would pick up people who were booked on the afternoon tour of Nuremberg, and also provide a shuttle service into the city. Meanwhile the ship/boat would continue her voyage through the canal to her moorings in Nuremberg, and the coaches would return passengers to the the ship/boat there at around 5:30pm.

We were due to remain in Nuremberg all the next day, which was the change-over day between the second and third cruises of the four we are doing back-to-back. After a discussion Carol and I, and our friends Darian and Brian, all decided we would remain on board for the sail up to Nuremberg, and be content to go and view the city the next day. To be honest we were all quite glad to have the equivalent of “a day at sea” – one thing about river cruising is that it is quite relentless with new ports to explore day after day after day, and we were starting to get a bit of old building overload! Of course it also gave me a chance to sit and compose another blog post, and to actually get up to date for once.

The point near Roth at which the passengers were transferred to the coaches looked as if it was in the middle of nowhere. It was not long before we were on our way once more.

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Our moorings turned out to be on a slight bend in the canal, with motorway bridges close to us, and also curiously a Mississippi Riverboat moored up across the other side. Once we were safely moored up and we could access the decks once more, Carol and I went outside to get some fresh air. We stood on the canal side of the ship/boat for a while, and had only just moved around to the bank side when we witnessed a traffic accident on the motorway slip road that runs very close to our ship/boat. A van braked sharply due to a queue of traffic ahead, but the car behind failed to react in time, and slammed with a load crash into the back of the van, spinning them both around, and almost blocking the road. We were very relieved when the two occupants of the car and the occupant of the van got out of their vehicles uninjured. Members of the crew who were busy loading stores onto our ship/boat ran to see if help was needed, but they were not required.

We thought we would stay and watch for a while to see what happened – for example would the police get involved. After a while I put up a deckchair for Carol to sit on while she waited. A couple of minutes later the Captain came past, and pointed out that I had not put it up correctly, corrected my mistake, then got and put up a second chair for me to use! Once again another example of the great service we get on this ship/boat.

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When we got the Daily Times for the next day we were surprised and disappointed to see the shuttle bus times to go into Nuremberg the next day. Allowing for the time to walk from the drop-off point into the old town and back, they meant that if we took the only morning shuttle bus into town, we either had around an hour to see the sights (too short), or around 6 hours (way too long). We later found out that this was all due to it being a Public Holiday in Nuremberg, and it was difficult for them to arrange any shuttle busses at all.

In the end Darian, Brian, Carol and I decided it would be best if we all shared a taxi into the old town, and took another one back to the ship/boat when we were ready, this also had the advantage of cutting out the long walks from the coach drop-off point to the old town and back.

Before we caught our taxi there was just time to pop up onto the sun deck and take some photographs of the still canal water reflecting the nearby buildings and the Mississippi Riverboat.

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The traffic was very light as we drove into Nuremberg, and our taxi dropped us right in the Market Square, and we took the driver’s phone number so that we could call him back when we were ready to return to the ship/boat. At this time the town was very quiet (just as we like it) – presumably because of the public holiday, and the fact that virtually all the shops where shut for the day.

Our first stop was the Catholic Church right beside where we were dropped. We particularly liked the unusual ribbons above the altar.

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Carol and I then set off independently from Darian and Brian – we learned later that they were able to take a road-train around to see the sights without having to walk very far. At first we went to see if the gingerbread shop was open as Carol was keen to buy some – but alas it was closed – so no ginger for her today! Instead we walked back the way the taxi had approached the Market Square, as I wanted to photograph an old timbered building that I had seen from the taxi.

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We then walked along a path alongside a river, which was very pretty with the old buildings reflected in the water. We had stopped at a viewpoint to look out over the river, when a lady from an American couple asked us if she could use my camera to take a photograph of the two of us, as she thought we looked so romantic together there!

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Reaching the next road we turned left following the sound of the loud bells filling the air – the source of which turned out to be St. Lorenz Church. Opposite the church I noticed two different sundial designs on the side of a lovely old building.

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As we walked back towards the Market Square we came across a Steiff Bear shop with a very cute window display. I then captured various statues, a fountain and some more river scenes before we returned to the Market Square, where they were busy setting up for a beach volleyball tournament, which alas was not starting until the next day!

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Crossing the Square we walked past the Old Town Hall to St. Sebald Lutheran church, which we were able to enter.

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Our final stop was a very nice souvenir shop on the corner of the Square, where we bought one of those ornaments that have concentric offset squares, which spin on the breeze and make lovely patterns.

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By now the Square was much busier than when we had arrived – we were so glad that we had got there early when it was still quiet. We met up with our friends there, and phoned the taxi for our ride back to the ship/boat.

On the way back our friendly and helpful driver asked if we would like to make a small detour in order to see the “Colosseum”, and stopping closeby, I was able to step out of the taxi for a minute in order to catch a snap of it. This building is actually the Kongresshalle (Congress Hall) which is the biggest preserved Nazi monumental building, located on the Nazi Party Rally Grounds. The outside of the building was modelled on the Colosseum in Rome. A little further on the taxi driver also pointed out a huge chair outside a warehouse.

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We returned to our ship/boat in time for the light lunch being served in the Panorama Bar for those of us staying on between the cruises – there are 21 of us doing so once again, and around 80 new passengers will be boarding later in the day. Around 9pm we are due to set sail for our next port of call, Bamberg, which is also in Germany. Our adventures there are likely to be the subject of my next post.

Despite the trials and tribulations of first reaching Nuremberg and then getting to and from the old town, we both very much enjoyed our time there – despite no ginger(bread), I took plenty of snaps!
Postscript

It is only natural that we sit up and take more notice when a place we have recently been to comes up in the news, and in the last day or so this has happened twice, both for sad reasons. First of all the funeral of the Formula 1 legend Niki Lauda was held at Vienna Cathedral, which Carol and I had visited only a couple of days earlier. Then last night came the news of the tragedy in Budapest, where so many lives were lost from a pleasure craft viewing the lights of the city in the late evening, just as we had done two nights in a row when we were there a week or so ago. We know only too well just how high and fast the River Danube is flowing at the moment, and it doesn’t bear thinking about being suddenly plunged into that torrent in the pitch darkness. Obviously our thoughts and prayers go out to all those affected by this tragic event.

R1908 – Sausage organ

In my last post, R1908 – Nearly quackers in Wachau, I described our visit to two villages in the scenic Wachau Valley in Austria. We left the second of those villages around 6pm that evening, setting sail for our next pair of ports, Passau and Regensburg, both over the border in Germany, which we would visit on consecutive days.

We were due to arrive in the first of these ports, Passau, around lunchtime the next day. Immediately after breakfast I saw that we were approaching a lock, and went up on deck to watch us transit through it. In my previous post I described how we had passed some nudists sunbathing on one of the banks of the river, and how our friend Brian’s eyes nearly popped out when he saw them. He put me on secret orders to photograph any more that I saw, but I am not sure whether the statue that I saw close to the lock entrance qualifies! There were also two more sedate ones on the opposite bank, which I also managed to snap as we passed by. The bridge across the lock was the first of a series of very low bridges that we will have to negotiate before we reach the River Rhine (but very much not the lowest), and so the sun deck fixtures and fittings had been flattened, and the wheelhouse lowered so that the ship/boat could safely pass underneath – of course passengers are banned from using the sundeck during this time. While I waited for the lock water to lift our ship/boat up to the next level, I noticed the young children watching our progress from another bridge, an unusual bicycle rack, and a large tanker lorry being lifted up on a crane and across the lock.

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Our new Cruise Director, Amalia Dumitru, announced that there would be scenic cruising during the morning before we arrived in Passau, but for most of the way it was the usual tree-lined banks to watch, so it gave me another chance to catch up with writing my blog. Things got more interesting just as we approached Passau, so I put down my work and went on deck to watch our approach to the city.

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Passau is also known as the City of Three Rivers as it is where the River Danube is met by the River Inn from the south and the River Ilz from the north. The old town, where we docked, is located on a narrow promontory of land between the rivers Danube and Inn. As usual on this cruise, Carol and I were not booked on a tour, instead we just wanted to explore on foot by ourselves. We set off after lunch, and at first made our way through the old town to St. Stephens Cathedral, which our port notes told us houses the world’s largest cathedral organ, with 17,974 organ pipes, 233 stops and 4 carillons. What we weren’t prepared for was just how absolutely stunning the inside of the cathedral would be. As we entered the cathedral the first thing that struck me were the wonderful paintings all over the ceilings, but very quickly I also spotted all the amazing carvings and statues. We were both completely blown away by the whole building, despite the renovation work still in progress in parts of it. It was such a contrast to the Cathedral that had disappointed us so much in Vienna a couple of days earlier.

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Once we reluctantly dragged ourselves out of the Cathedral we wandered back down the main street, looking inside a number of the little shops along the way. At one point my well-trained photography assistant Carol spotted a very unusual bicycle, with integral shopping trolley! One of the shops we stopped at was a bakery, where Carol bought a slice of sacher torte, something she had hoped to have tried in Vienna. By now the thought of eating her very chocolatey cake was overwhelming Carol’s thoughts, so she decided to return to the ship/boat for a cup of tea and her cake while I carried on exploring the town on my own.

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Initially I went up onto the bridge close to where our ship/boat was moored, so that I could get a view down onto the cleared sundeck. I then walked to the end of the promontory where there was a little park overlooking where the three rivers actually met.

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I thought it would be interesting to continue my walk along the shoreline on the other side of the promontory to where our ship/boat was moored, but I soon found this was only just possible. We had been seeing how very high the water level in the River Danube was over the previous few days, and also how fast the water flow was and how many tree trunks, branches and other debris were being swept downstream. Here the water level was almost up to a building, and the path between it and the river was very wet and silty, meaning I had to walk very carefully along that part.

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After a while I headed back inland up a steep cobbled pathway which brought me back out onto the main street. Here I walked on past the Cathedral and some more little shops until I reached a large Catholic Church, which curiously had a small road tunnel running under it. Inside the Church was completely different to the Cathedral, but still quite striking to see.

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Time was ticking on by now, so I thought I had better start making my way back to the ship/boat so that I got there well before we were due to sail. I walked back along by the water towards the ship/boat, and as I passed the Rathaus (City hall) I remembered that at the port talk we were told about markings that had been painted on the wall of the building to mark the depth of various floods over the years, so paused briefly to photograph those.

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Returning to the ship/boat, I rejoined Carol, and we decided to go out onto the foredeck to watch us sail away – the sundeck was still closed, but we did briefly pop up there before we actually set sail so that I could take a couple of photographs of the flattened deck. As we sailed out we could see more of the lovely pastel painted buildings and also a hotel which was intriguingly in the shape of a person lying down in bed!

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We continued our voyage up the River Danube overnight, reaching our next port of call, Regensburg around 9am the following morning, where we were due to stay until around 5pm. Here there was not the usual metal landing stage to moor against, instead we were just moored against a stone quayside.

When Carol and I opened our curtains that morning we saw that the weather had changed, and that quite heavy rain was streaming down. By the time we had finished our breakfast it was still raining quite steadily, so we decided to bide our time on board in the hope that the weather would improve. Around an hour later the rain had stopped, so we decided to head out for our exploration of the old town. We walked along the riverside for a while, past several other large cruise ships/boats, before striking inland. Once again our first target was the Cathedral, and having been so blown away by the one the previous day in Passau, it was probably not surprising that we were not that impressed by this one. The main feature this time was its stained glass windows, and probably if the sun had been out and shining through the glass then we would have been more impressed.

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Leaving the Cathedral we found a maze of narrow little streets, just what we love to explore. A lot of the buildings were very tall with 4, 5 or 6 floors, and they reminded me of buildings I have seen previously in various places around the Baltic.

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After a while we made our way back down to the river, and I went up onto a modern footbridge to get a view downstream to the Steinerne Brücke or Old Stone Bridge. This was built in the 12th century and is Germany’s oldest arched stone bridge, and has 16 arches. I noticed that the modern bridge I was standing on had loads of padlocks attached to it, and as always I wondered how many of the couples that had faithfully attached a padlock were actually still together. We walked downstream to the Old Stone Bridge, and closeby found the Wurstkuchl, or Sausage Kitchen. This is said to be the oldest sausage kitchen in the world, built originally to feed the construction workers for both the Old Stone Bridge and the Cathedral. On the wall of the Sausage Kitchen were several marks depicting the height of floods there. Still full from my breakfast I managed to resist the temptation of trying the sausages. Instead we continued our walk downstream to where our ship/boat was moored, where we rested for the remainder of the day, and I continued to catch up with these blog posts. In the afternoon the rain set back in, so we were glad that we chose the time we did for our exploration of the city.

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One feature I did notice as we walked around the old town were several examples of the old pictorial shop signs.

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It was still raining intermittently when we set sail from Regensburg. Cruise ships/boats like ours are far too big to pass under the Old Stone Bridge, so instead we had to reverse downstream (I was surprised how fast) to where another part of the river went the other side of two islands before recombining to form one river once more, on the far side of the Old Stone Bridge.

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From Regensburg our voyage continued via the River Danube and then the Main-Danube Canal towards our next port of call, Nuremberg, which is also in Germany. Our adventures there are likely to be the subject of my next post.

It had been interesting to compare and contrast the first two of the many stops we will be making in Germany on this extended cruise – the first with its fabulous cathedral with its huge organ, and the second with the famous and historic sausage kitchen.

 

Postscript

A couple of days ago we decided it was time the clothes we had been wearing so far were laundered. Unlink Fred. Olsen’s ocean cruise ships, there is not self-service laundry on board Brabant, so any laundry has to be bagged up and sent to the ship’s laundry.  We were absolutely amazed when that very same evening there was a knock on our cabin door, and there was our laundry returned, all beautifully washed, pressed, and hanging on individual hangers. First class service!!