River Cruise Oct 4/12 Dusseldorf, Germany

The Rembrandt traveled overnight from Arnhem and we awoke this morning to the lovely city of Dusseldorf, Germany.  After breakfast, we were able to take part in a walking tour of the Alstadt (old town), the historic district.

Among the several elaborate statues we saw, this one was commemorating a battle fought in 1288.

Very near the beautiful statues was this scene, which moved, so I'm pretty sure it was real and alive.  :-)

We thought these were sycamore trees, but someone told us they had them on their street, and that they are London Plane trees.  We saw them a lot, and their leaves are a lot like maple leaves. 

 
This statue was huge, and apparently commissioned by the man himself.  :-)

I understand that any building in this town that had flowers all over the front of it, like this one, is a public building.  I believe this was the city hall.

I've seen lots of McDonalds, but somehow, I was shocked to see a Dunkin' Donuts coffee shop!  So where's Tim Horton's?

This beautiful gazebo/band shell was in a square in the old town.

After the tour, we walked quite a ways beside this lovely canal, which ran through the middle of town.

Such a pretty picture!  I was lovin' the beautiful flowers!

This little girl was having a good look at these statues.  She was taking care of her doll while Mom took care of her bike.

 


Organ grinder?  Busker?  Not sure.

This church was rebuilt after the war, and they were in a hurry, I guess, because they used green wood for the steeple, which twisted as it dried.  It's quite obvious!

As we walked back to the boat, we walked by the river, where there were many restaurants and bars.  This one was decorated for fall, I guess.

This is our boat, Rembrandt van Rign  on the right, and we had 61 guests.  The boat on the river next to ours is another river cruise boat, and you can see the difference in size.  The bigger boats carry a LOT more passengers - we liked ours better. The smaller ones are 2 decks plus the sun deck, which allows them to go under bridges without folding down the top, so we could stay on the sun deck all the time.

 

.....like this.

Leaving Dusseldorf, heading to "Koln" (Cologne).  The 2 towns are known to be rivals, kind of like Port Hope and Cobourg.  This cargo ship is carrying cars - probably Fords.

We met a LOT of rowers on the river that day - there was a race from somewhere upstream.  One of them was taking advantage of the wind with an umbrella!

These Canadian geese were a long ways from home!

The cargo ships on the river are owned and operated by families, who live on the back. The crew quarters are on the front. This is a German family (flag), who like to garden.  There is usually a car (sometimes 2), with a crane to lift them on and off, on the back as well, and sometimes a jet ski or other boat.  The children go to private schools, and come home to the boat for vacations.  Interesting way to live.

 
These signs are all along the Rhine, and indicate the # of kms from the beginning of the river in Switzerland.

Between the km signs are these markers for the "points" between the kms - point 8.  There are roads and biking/walking tails on both sides of the river.

There is a lot of corn grown in Germany - looks like a pretty good crop compared to the people beside it!

The Rhine is a very windy river as you can see in this picture - as in lots of bends in the river.  :-)

This Imperial Oil boat was either getting filled or just emptied - it's sitting pretty high in the water!

You might be able to see the bikers high in the picture on the trail, some others sitting on a bench.  These horses don't seem to be fenced in.

Not sure if they are wild horses or not, but this one seems to have a lot of burs in his mane and tail.

We saw a LOT of swans on the rivers - this is by a car ferry loading area.

This boat is sitting pretty low in the water - it's load is getting removed.  It is salt for the "Bayer" factory.

And the salt is being dumped.

I never knew Bayer products were made in Germany.  Apparently they use a lot of salt, which is mined in Germany as well.

And the Ford plant.


And we are arriving in Cologne, which will be for another blog.