Nuremburg

Day 8 - Nuremburg (September 6)

Another beautiful morning with the sun shining through broken clouds and a temperature in the mid 50’s. We decided that today's adventure, a walking tour of old town Nuremburg and another castle, would be similar to yesterday so we decided to take a break and give our legs a rest. So we stayed on board and marveled at the number of locks and low bridges we passed. We made a brief stop to let everyone off for the bus ride to town for the walking tour, then continued on down (actually up) the river (canal).

The captain has closed the sun deck and lowered the canopies in order to clear some of the lowest bridges. At the same time he has lowered the pilot house. For some of the bridges, the captain has the pilot house lowered even with the sun deck only a small plexi-glass bubble sticks up above the pilot house where the captain is able to put the upper half of his head to see out.

Most of the locks we are passing through are very narrow. By this I mean that there is only about four inches of clearance on each side of the ship. We have been stair-stepping up the Rhine/Main/Danube Canal about ten to twelve feet at a time as we head for the Danube. The ship is equipped with bow and stern side thrusters, hydraulically powered water jets that can swivel 360 degrees. As we near the lock openings the main engines are disengaged and the ship is pulled forward into the lock with both bow thrusters, each pointed aft and angled slightly outward. It’s pretty slick as it allows the captain to control our position relative to the lock walls fairly precisely.

After lunch, Tina, Denise, Shanda and I went up to the lounge and played two games of “Hand and Foot” which lasted slightly over four hours with Tina and I taking both games. The countryside we are passing through is widely varied with farms predominating. Since we are on a river, most farmlands are on sloping fields running up to steeper hillsides forested with a wide variety of deciduous trees. Some of the hills come right down to the river and have many ruined castles perched atop large outcroppings of granite. A very beautiful day for a restful cruise.

Just about 7:00 PM, the tours returned to the boat just outside Nuremburg and we all went into dinner. Most dinners run around two plus hours. We always have a choice of seating, sometimes at a table for six, sometimes a table for eight. So we are usually dining with different people every night (mornings too). This is nice since we get to meet many of our fellow travelers and learn about them. It makes the trip so much more enjoyable. The dinners have been very well prepared though not everything has been to our taste - heh, heh.

The dinners start with a choice of (two) appetizer, choice of salad, choice of soup, choice of main course, choice of desert and a plate of cheese along with your choice of beverage. Needless to say, when serving two hundred people at one time, it takes awhile for orders to be taken, to bring out a course, remove the plates (or bowls), bring out the next course, remove the plates (or bowls), etc., in order to serve a complete meal. So there is lots of time for conversations between courses.

After dinner we decided not to stay for music in the lounge and retired to our rooms to read a little before going to bed.