Well, we have met many nice people so far on our trip. We have about 37 people on our tour so it
makes for a very comfortable ride. Most
of the folks on the trip are indeed living in the States. Some are citizens and others are transplants
from Canada. We also have an Australian
couple on the tour – they are the only ones not residing in the U.S. There is a family of four with two daughters
who appear to be in middle school and high school and both are behaving as you
would expect them to at their ages…very quiet amongst a group of “old
people”. But for the most part it is
married couples that appear to be or close to being retired.
Today we traveled from Frankfurt to the Rheine River just
north of the city. I noticed a very
large difference in the traffic today.
It’s amazing that here when there is a holiday the traffic is truly near
non-existent. In the states, it is
lighter but not even close to here. I
was reminded by my dear Aunt Blanche that Sunday was the first Sunday of Pentecost
– hence the holiday. Seems very strange
to me that the government recognizes church holidays and so many things are not
open. Separation of church and state
never seemed more obvious to me.
Anyway, after getting lost and stopping to ask for directions
3 times, we made it to the boat dock with only a few minutes to spare. The boat pulled up right on schedule and
loaded the approximately 50 people waiting and off we went cruising down the
Rheine. Along the river we
saw an amazing amount of castles and little towns dotted all along the
river. Unlike the rivers at home, there
are very few recreational boats out on the river, but there are many tourist
cruises and barges that travel up and down the river. In addition to the small towns and castles, it
was amazing to see the number of grape vines dotting – more like lining – the
sides of the hills. Germany does make
wine as well as the beer, although it does tend to be more white than red. We hve been told that the red German wines
are “not so good” and the whites “better, but Germans drink beer”. Our cruise lasted an hour and a half, but it
flew by as we watched castle after castle and town after town pass us.
After getting off the boat, we were headed to Cologne (Köln)
to see the largest cathedral west of Constantinople. But wouldn’t you know it, we lost our two
Australian friends at the dock. Mishko
went back to look for them (after we returned to the bus) but came back
empty-handed. So we all went back to the
city center to find the two Aussies and have a bit of lunch. We stopped in a local “hotel” to have lunch
only to find very little on the menu that didn’t appear to be a full
dinner. (By the way, Mom, Dad and I are
still trying to figure out if they eat their large meal at lunch time or at
dinner/supper.) After lunch we got back
on the bus and headed to Köln.
Big cannot even begin to describe this cathedral. How about monstrous, larger than life,
incredibly tall…you get the idea. It
stands over 150 meters tall and its footprint must be 60 meters long by 40
meters wide. Describing it just doesn’t
do it justice so I will have to share the pictures later. I am still working on getting my old CF card
to work in an adapter so I can get the pics onto my computer. We left Köln and went on to Dusseldorff where
we had dinner – at 8:00 p.m. That’s
another thing I can’t get used to – eating dinner so late. We are off to Berlin in the morning via ICE
train – that’s the international cities express. His train can travel up to 320 km/hr which equates
to about 200 mph, but after an accident last summer, they lowered the speed a
little. I believe I heard that we will
be traveling at the snail’s pace of 290 km/hr, but hey who’s counting – I sure
hope my motion sickness doesn’t kick in.
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