Castles & More Castles

Partly cloudy with sunshine

During the night, we traveled down the Rhine and
came to the convergence of the Rhine and Mosel Rivers. Here the town of Koblenz, Germany lies.  This was a strategic attack point for the allied troops due to the population and position.  80% of the town was bomb with over 1000 deaths.  During the walking tour we were privileged to meet a gentleman who was seven years old during the war. He visited and expressed his gratefulness for the allied troops and the chocolate they gave him.

Koblenz has a glockenspiel who watches carefully everyone that enters the city. 



Gentleman who was 7 yrs old during WWII



Memorial to the people of Koblenz and the trials of the war.

 

Cheryl can always make friends with the locals.

We came all the way to Germany to find a TJ Max to buy Cheryl a good pair of walking shoes. The cobblestone roadways caused much distress to her sore feet. Now she claims to have Happy Feet. Ahhh...

 From Koblenz, we continued down the Rhine through the Rhine Valley.  With the sun shining, for the first time we were able to sit on the sun deck and see the wonderful Rhine Valley with its villages folklore, churches and castles.  Further up the river we stopped at Ruedesheim for a dinner.

Dinner was a true German experience as we entered the restaurant with authenticly dressed German waitresses and waiters.  A live German band playing um-pah-pah music in the background.  We would sit a visit and then they would bring out bowl of soup and we would eat and visit some more.  The dinner lasted over two hours as there was no rush to fill orders and sweep customers out to sit new customers.  Of course the drinking games, dancing and singing was the hit of the party.  There was the Chicken Dance, the YMCA and a Congo line led by the tuba, bass drum and symbols throughout the estaurant.  Needless to say, we all had fun and a few maybe too much wine for our friends!

Boarded the ship about 10:30 pm and we set up river around 1:00 am for Frankfurt.