This morning we had an early breakfast as the boat docked in Braubach, Germany. We then took a bus to the start of a walking tour in Historic Koblenz. One of the many sites we saw was the Deutsches Eck (German Corner), which is located where the Moselle River joins the Rhine River. It features a monument to Kaiser Wilhelm I, shown below. The original statue was destroyed during WWII and in 1993 a copy of the statue, donated by a local couple, was reinstalled.
In the building in the photo above, the windows are used as an advent calendar at Christmas time, featuring lit up numbers. There were so many sites and statues to see in Koblenz and it was a very interesting walking tour even though it rained the entire three hours we were in the city. We were pretty damp by the time we got back on the bus. The last thing our tour guide took us to was a women’s clothing shop in the old town built around a continuous 2,000 year old city wall from the time when the Roman’s ruled the area (below). Interesting combination of very old and very new!
After we got back to the ship at lunchtime, it cast off to head to Rudesheim just as the skies began to clear, a little. Below is one of the many towns we passed along the river today. We got to use our room’s balcony quite a bit today especially after the rains and winds slowed down.
After lunch we went up to the top “Sun Deck”. The sun wasn’t shining but at least it was no longer raining. For the next two hours we listened as our ship’s program director told us over the loudspeaker about all the towns and castles we were slowly passing. The crew handed out blankets and hot chocolate to keep us warm (some hot chocolate spiked with rum). It was a very comfortable and informative afternoon.
We saw a total of 20 castles as our ship sailed 40 miles this afternoon through the Rhine River Gorge, so Jack got a lot of great pictures. It’s just too bad the skies weren’t blue and sunny. After the castle tour, several in our group attended a demonstration on board about the steps to make Rudesheim Coffee (coffee, brandy, sugar, whipped cream and dark chocolate!). That was followed by a Port Talk about tomorrow and we learned we would set sail again tonight at midnight.
At around 5:30 p.m. our boat arrived in Rudesheim. We weren’t doing any of the add-on excursions, so we walked into the city (very close by) and explored. We did a little shopping and had dinner (schnitzel and mushrooms) before heading back to the boat for some cocktails before bed. We get to sleep in tomorrow and are very excited about that!
