This morning our ship is docked in Breisach, Germany. We did an optional tour this a.m. of the medieval village of Colmar, France. It was a 40 minute bus ride to Colmar, with narration about the area given by our tour guide. That was followed by an hour walking tour and then we had time to explore the area by ourselves and shop a little. Below is a picture of the smallest house in Colmar, which our guide said is the size of about two of our staterooms on the ship.
Above is a 14th century farmhouse tucked away in the streets of Colmar. Below is one of the statues by Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi who was born here in 1834. He was the artist who sculpted the Statue of Liberty and on the bus drive this morning we saw a smaller replica of the Liberty statue in the middle of a round-about! We saw two other statues by Bartholdi around town and the statue below is outside a museum featuring more of his works. The three people holding up the world represent justice, work, and patriotism.
We headed back to the ship for lunch and decided we didn’t want to do the afternoon included tour of the Black Forest. It would have been a lot of time on a bus and we are about toured out. Since the boat was right in Breisach, it was an easy walk to tour that city which was really cute. There was a lot of shopping and restaurants but not nearly the crowds we found in other port cities. Pictured below is the Hagenbach Tower, which used to be a prison. The tower is found along the steep walk up to St. Stephan’s church which overlooks Breisach and the river.
Above you can see how sometimes ships must be docked right next to each other. It didn’t happen a lot on this trip, but when it does you may have very close neighbors and to exit you cross through another ship. Our ship the Sigyn left Breisach at around 6:30 p.m. headed overnight to Basel, Switzerland. We have to have our luggage in the hallway by 7:30 a.m., ready for Viking to transport them to our hotel in Basel so it’s going to be an early morning.