River Cruise - Oct 9/14 - Rudesheim - last post!

On October 9, after a full morning cruising the Rhine Gorge, we arrived at "Rudesheim am Rhein", another great little town to explore.  We first went to the "Siegfrieds Mechanisches Musikkabinett", a museum for data-storage musical instruments, an exhibition of self-playing music and its instruments.  Here we saw and heard a cross-section from 4 centuries of self-playing instruments.  Very intriguing!

Those of us who chose to walk to the museum followed Jeremy Van Dyke, one of our journey managers, through the town.  Others chose to take the little tour train.

 

Paul, of course, had to stop and examine this old car outside the museum.

Webers Maestro, the orchestrion, weighing tons, features a Feurich piano, violin, solo pipes, cello, flute, clarinet, trumpet, saxophone, lotus flutes, jazz trumpet, xylophone, and percussion instruments.  It was amazing!  You would think the whole orchestra was playing for you!

 The Hupfeld Violina Orchestra, only known original in the world, featured 6 violins as well as the player piano.

This was another fascinating piece - all of the figures were moving and either singing or playing instruments at the same time.

The Drosselgasse is the heart of Rudesheim's old town, a 144 metre long  pedestrian, cobblestone street.  It was built in the 15th century, and is lined with taverns and restaurants, and in summer there is always live music and entertainment and wall-to-wall people.  Now, it's late in the season and raining.  Not so busy!

Paul and I decided to take the cable cars to "Niederwaldennkmal", a monument overlooking the Rhine.  The cable cars ascended low over some grapevines to get to the park at the top of the hill.

 

A lovely view of the Rhine from the cable car.

Niederwaldennkmal, also known as Germania, was built to commemorate the foundation of the German Empire after the 30 year war. The first stone was laid in 1871 by Wilhelm I. The 125 foot high monument represents the union of all Germans. The peace statue is on the left, and the war statue is on the right, and the large relief beneath Germania is Wilhelm I on a horse, surrounded by nobility, army commanders, and soldiers.  It's an amazing piece of work, and I'm glad we went up to see it!

View from Germania.

One of the pretty flowers in the park.

A very good use of an old cable car!

 
And that, my friends is the end of a very long saga.
Until next time.......

River Cruise Oct 9/14 - cruising the Rhine Gorge.

Last day on the boat, and it rained - a lot!  But it was so nice anyway.  I still stayed on the "sun" deck, under the roof, and the scenery in the Rhine Gorge was absolutely wonderful!  I LOVE river cruising!

There was castle after castle, and one of the cruise managers gave a running commentary on the castles and towns we passed.  Too bad I can't remember any of it.  :-(

I can't imagine how they got the materials up there to build this one!

 Lots of grape vines below this one among the rocks!

The Rhine Gorge is about a 65 km stretch of river with a very fast-moving current, and a lot of rock, which makes it difficult for the boats to negotiate.  But VERY beautiful!

This huge rock formation is known as the Loreley Rock.  It soars 120 metres above the river, and is at the narrowest point in the gorge.  Folklore says that Loreley, a charming female, was betrayed by her sweetheart, and is accused of bewitching men and causing their death.  Instead of being put to death for her actions, she was sentenced to live in a nunnery.  On her way there, accompanied by 3 knights, she asked to climb the rock to view the Rhine once more.  She does so, and falls to her death.  Hence, the Loreley Rock.  That's just one of the legends.  :-)

Switzerland is known for its many tunnels, but Germany has a lot as well.  This is a railway tunnel.

 These appear to be cormorants, but some of them have a lot of white on them - immature ones maybe?

We saw quite a lot of herons, some in flocks.  This rocky area was in the middle of the river.

The navigable portion of the river was quite narrow here, and we had to wait our turn to pass through.

There were 2 railway tunnels here, one going each way, and this train was loaded with new cars.

Always the cathedrals in the towns, and usually a castle above the town.

"I'm the king of the castle....."  I wonder if they really appreciated the view?

The cathedrals always tower over the rest of the buildings in the towns.

Always mid-morning, we were served coffee and biscuits.  It felt really good that day, as some of us die-hards spent the morning in the cold and the rain up on the deck.  I for one didn't want to miss anything!

I don't think I have ever seen white goats with totally brown heads, but we saw lots of them that morning.

Much of the 30 year war (1618-1648) took place in this area, and  there was much destruction, leaving many castles in ruin.  Some have been revived, and are now used as museums, hotels, etc.

This building is on an island, and is where taxes were collected from the boats using the river.  There was a chain which was pulled up so no-one could get by un-noticed.

Such a pretty little town!

Another town - with grapevines growing behind it on very steep slopes.

A very colourful town - and the castle is pretty close to the river in this one.

I liked the look of this one, and the flag tells us that it is in use for something.

I'm guessing this one is a hotel, and the structure attached to it on the left is an exit stairway.   

"The wise man built his house upon the rock....."  I love this one!   

This is an indication of how fast the current was, and we were moving upstream, which means the RED should be on the right, not the GREEN.  At least that's the way it is on our waterways.

 


This is one of the ruins, with lots of grapes growing around it.

River Cruise Oct 8/14

On Oct. 8, we left the boat at 8 a.m. to take the buses to Trier, Germany, a very ancient city, probably the oldest in Germany, dating to about 16 BC.  It was a lovely ride, though overcast and sometimes drizzly, and when we arrived in Trier, there were 3 local guides waiting to give us a walking tour.  A highlight of the tour was the ruins of the ancient Roman baths, the largest Roman baths north of the Alps.

 This gigantic bathing facility, known as the Imperial Baths, was  very elaborate about 1600 years ago.

This is a model of what it probably looked like then.

Not quite so impressive now, but lots of interesting stories abound concerning them.

Some of the underground tunnels were service tunnels, some were for run-off, which took the used water in a tunnel to the Moselle River.             

This huge foot, standing 1.5 metres tall and 2 metres long, is a replica of the marble foot of the 12 metre high statue of the seated Constantine.  The original foot, head, and other fragments have been housed in Rome for centuries.

 This is the Palace of Trier, dating back a few centuries, and attached to it at the back is a building called the Constantine Basilica, dating to the 4th century.

 This amazing structure, once the Constantine Basilica, built around 305 AD, is now a Protestant Church,  owned by a congregation within the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland.

By this time it was 11 a.m., and all three groups gathered in zum domstein, a restaurant in the market, for coffee and 3 kinds of cake.  It was pretty much a meal!  This old winepress was one of many antiquities to fascinate in this underground, very old building.

 When we went back out, it was POURING rain, and we made a bee-line for this cathedral across the square.  It is known as Trier Cathedral, or St. Peter's Dom.  The building in the next picture seemed to be attached, but they also seemed to be totally different buildings, and I do not remember what all we were told about them.

 
Possibly St Gangolf Church, a Roman Catholic Church, the city's market church, which rivaled the Trier Cathedral. 

 
A beautiful ceiling in the cathedral.

Another beautiful ceiling in the other church.

There were amazing stained glass windows in both churches.

By now it was raining so hard, we kind of lost interest in the walking tour, went to a Claires store to buy 2 umbrellas, then went to a McDonalds to put in some time and have a hot chocolate.

Easy to see that it has been raining hard!

We met the buses at the Porta Nigra (Black Gate), a city gate built in the 2nd century of gray sandstone.  In the middle ages, because of its blackened stone, it began to be called  the Black Gate.  It is known to be the best preserved Roman gate north of the Alps.

 

A lovely view from the bus window.

 


And yet another lovely view.

 

I think these are like cousin Sid's cows.

 

A huge castle near where our boat was docked.

 


And the castle at night.

That night we had dessert in the lounge, and the crew entertained us.  It was lots of fun!