Rhine River Cruise

Okey dokey! Now we are going to see some photos from the day cruise we took on the Rhine. You can take all kinds of cruises on the Rhine, but we were in the most picturesque part for the time we were there. There were castles all over as control of the Rhine was an important strategic move. Some of the castles had been controlled by robber barons. They would put a chain up across the river and rob folks going by or make them pay a hefty toll. One of the first photos is of the "mouse tower". Supposedly this bad bishop was put in there and was consequently eaten by mice. There is another castle that is on an island in the river and looks like a ship. Most of them are up on the hills along the Rhine. Some are ruins, some have been made into hotels, some are restored and open for tours. We got off in Bacharach (just like Burt)! and St. Goar. It was sort of a hop on, hop off tour by boat. I'll let you enjoy the photos....

Mouse tower above

Gus Koernig's photo web site

Hi All!
I just wanted to post a link to a new website. Gus Koernig, who used to be my home teacher, is also a photographer. He has just started a web site with some of his photos. Enjoy!
http://www.alloutdoorsphotography.com/gallery.php?gallery=10

Heidelberg

The first place Robin took us was to Heidelberg, to see the old town and castle. It was all very beautiful. There is a river through the middle of town with some lovely bridges over it. We took the cog railway up the hill to the castle. Robin had always walked up, she was getting some new experiences having us along with her!

It isn't so easy to tell in this photo, but this is the cog railway coming down to get us and it was very steep.

Here are several photos from Heidelberg castle.

This is Robin and I at Heidelberg Castle. Edith was taking the photo.

This is one of the giant wine kegs they had in the castle. They are famous for these. They had another one even bigger, but the photo is even darker. The bigger one had a platform on top and they would have dances there sometimes.

This is one of the "ruined" towers where they used to have the ammunition and all. It was ruined back during the 100 years war between the Catholics and protestants. Look at how unbelievably thick the walls are.

Neptune fountain.

View from Castle grounds. Is it green or what?

This is where we had lunch. We shopped for souvenirs and toured the church. It was a great day! And of course we had to check out the German bakeries!

Italy to Germany

Ok, I know I haven't finished Spain, but I am going to put on a few photos from our port in Italy to arriving in Germany. When we got into port in Savona, we thought we had prepaid for a transfer from the ship to our hotel. Well, I was dumb and didn't reserve our hotel through the ship. Somehow I thought I could get us a better deal on line. So because of that, I think, they were only willing to take us to the airport or the train station in Genoa. So we ended up being taken to the train station and then having to catch a taxi to our hotel. We found out that first, the enterprising Italian cab driver vastly overcharged us. The girl at the hotel, just shrugged her shoulders and said "that's Italy." It was very frustrating.

Our hotel, while beautiful, was not in an area of town where there was anything for tourists to do or any place to eat dinner except at the hotel which was very overpriced. We had an amazing bathroom that was ENTIRELY covered in a beautiful dark green marble.

I know I should have had the toilet closed when I took this photo, but I didn't. But look at the marble. It was amazing. The room was all done in a very modern style, with warm woods and frosted glass.

So, we were kind of stranded in a suburb of Genoa. We decided to try and find somewhere else to eat dinner. The girl at the front desk told us to take a city bus to another area (I don't remember the name of it). She said there were lots of shops there. We had to buy a bus ticket first in some kind of shop. We weren't able to locate the shop the had directed us to. So we go up to people at the bus stop to ask them. Well since we weren't in a tourist area, no one spoke English. I can sometimes understand a little Italian because of the little Spanish I know, but we didn't seem to be getting very far. We went into some shops, where no one spoke English either, but finally figured out enough to be able to locate a place to buy bus tickets. We were very proud of ourselves. So we get on this city bus and then realize that we don't know when we are supposed to get off. We keep looking carefully and manage to get off in what I think was the right place. The shops there weren't like anything I was expecting, little places that were hardware stores, a nursery, a flower shop, some high end designer stores mixed in. Not much in the way of resturants. We did manage to find an Italian bakery. Edith and I make it a point of always going in an Italian bakery and we managed to find some little cookies and treats for later. Language isn't much of a barrier there, you can just point.

We kept walking and finally found a couple of restuants but they wouldn't be open for dinner for until 7pm and it was 5:30. Edith was concerned about finding our way back in the dark, getting a bus and all in an unfamiliar place and so we decided not to wait. There really wasn't anyplace to wait anyway. So walking back, we came to an Italian grocery store and decided to see what we could get in there. We were able to get some sliced meat, cheese, foccacia, fruit, etc. When we got to the check out though, the young man who was the clerk kept saying something and gesturing to the fruit. We weren't sure what was wrong and he finally took our fruit in disgust and when over to the produce department. Apparently we were supposed to get it weighed somewhere over there and an official price tag put on the bag. So we were the people in line you didn't want to be behind. You also had to buy your plastic bags. So we put the bags we thought we needed in with our stuff on the belt. There was an older woman in line in front of us, who stole our bags while the clerk was gone. She looked right at me, grabbed our bag and stuffed it inside of her sack. I couldn't believe it! I guess that is more evidence of the Italian entrepeneurship, taking advantage whenever possible.

We made the bus back to our hotel and had a little picnic in our room. Edith tried to watch tv in Italian, but it wasn't very satisfying for her.

The next morning we had to take a taxi back to the airport. I checked with the desk clerk how much it should cost for the trip and tried to establish this with the cabbie before we left. We pretty much got ripped off again.

While we enjoyed our trip to Italy 4 years ago, this time we were pretty glad to be leaving after our experiences.

We flew to Paris and hung around in the airport for about 4 hours before our flight to Frankfurt. I bought a nice Swatch watch at a duty free shop while we were waiting and we both bought some perfume.

When we got to Germany, my friend Robin was there waiting for us! It was such a nice feeling to feel like we had some order and simplicity back in our lives after the chaos of Italy. Robin and I had been roommates back in college and had maintained a friendship over the years. She is a Lt. Colonel in the miltary, a veterinarian and a commander over a food safety lab. She and her husband live off base in Kaiserslautern. Their house is huge, 14 rooms and up many flights of stairs just to get to the house and a big hill garden up behind the house. Here is her dog Kiwi.

Kiwi is an Australian Cattle Dog and is pretty high energy and intense. This is the second one Robin has had and she really likes the breed. She takes Kiwi pretty much everywhere with her. Even to work. Pretty nice having a job where you can take your dog with you, huh?

Barcelona Part 2 Gaudi

Gaudi was an architect who lived and worked in Barcelona from around the late 1880's to the 1920's. There was quite a lot of modernism going on then and a trend to build some rather wild homes. Gaudi is very famous for a couple of them. One is all about St. George the dragon slayer. If you look at the balconies on the house, you can see the dragon skulls. He is also famous for his moasic work, flowing lines and whimsical shapes. In this photo, you can see some of the pillars look like dragon bones.

This second house looks like waves from the ocean, seaweed balconies and the chimneys look like swirls of ice cream. Remember how long ago these were built. Then there is the the Sagrada Familia, the sacred family cathedral. It's really amazing. Gaudi did a design for the whole thing, but died before it could be completed. He finished one side of it. They have had other architects work on other sides and in some ways it looks like 4 different buildings depending on which side you are looking at. Gaudi's side is fabulous though. There is an incredible amount of detail. His side is all about the birth of Christ. There is a nativity scence, the announciation, etc, all in a very original style. The Cathedral has really tall spires, 8 so far, but will have 12, one for each apostle when it is finished. Yes they are still working on it.

After the cathedral we went to another area where Gaudi was supposed to build a subdivision for rich people. Only a few houses were ever built, but there were some drives, a plaza and other public areas included. He is famous for this huge serpentine mosaic bench that goes all the way around the plaza. He made it wavy so people would be facing each other when they talked. He also had an area that was supposed to be a market. There are big mosaics on the ceiling of the sun, moon and sun and moon together. I got a reproduction of one of them. It was all pretty cool.

I'll write one more installment on Barcelona later. This is the back of the famous bench. It's on in the plaza which is located over the market area.

Barcelona, Spain

Barcelona was our last stop before returning to port in Savona, Italy. I really liked Barcelona. It's a really big city. There is lots of interesting Art, Architecture, Cathedral's, Museums, Olympic Stadium, etc. I could easily go back and spend a fun week. Our tour was a little cursory, we went through the old cathedral and by a lot of other things. Here are some photos. This first one is sunrise on Barcelona from our window on the ship.="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_The next photo is an outside of the old cathedral. It was dedicated to this saint,I've forgotten her name, who was crucifed at 13 years old by the Romans for being Christian. She was crucifed in an X. The cloister there keeps 13 white geese in honor of every year of her life.

There are scooters everywhere in Europe, but we especially saw a lot of them in Spain and Italy. Here is a bunch all parked together.