Olivia Cruise – Our Adventures

10-26/27/28-2022: At Sea and Santorini

We spent 3 great days on the ship, 2 of them we practically had the place to ourselves as everyone else went off on excursion. On Wednesday, after our long Jerusalem excursion, we decided to not do another Jerusalem excursion. And the logistics of doing something on our own from Ashdod didn’t seem practical, requiring a shuttle bus to central Ashdod and then figuring out how to get someplace by public transport. So we relaxed and enjoyed simply being lazy and hanging out on the ship. The evening’s entertainment was singer Michele Moten and she was really wonderful. She sang mostly standards from the Great American Songbook and was very good. She’s had a 30-year music career, reinventing herself many time over. The story of her journey was inspirational.

Thursday was a scheduled day at sea as we departed Ashdod, Israel for the Greek Isle of Santorini. We spent time talking with women with whom we’ve enjoyed meeting. It’s nice to sit and chat during and after breakfast or lunch or just hang out and watch what everyone else is doing.

Thursday evening we had a reservation at one of the two specialty restaurants on the ship. We went to Aquilina, an Italian restaurant. We enjoyed our meal, especially the surprise tiramisu that arrived before the dessert course as an extra, not that we needed two desserts, but it was out of this world.

We arrived in Santorini early Friday morning. We were one of 7 ships anchored just off the island, two of the ships were huge, having over 5,000 passengers each. With that many tourists taking the cable car up to the town of Fira, we decided to skip the crowds and spend another day on the ship, again, practically on our own. We visited Santorini on our Venice to Athens cruise in 2018, so we didn’t feel it necessary to go up to the town again.

We enjoyed marveling at the scenery. You can’t quite believe your eyes seeing all the white buildings across the tops of the mountain peaks and hanging off the sides of the mountains. Our anchorage was between Santorini and another small island that was a national park. It did not appear to be inhabited, at least not on the side we saw, but we enjoyed seeing and hearing all the birds swooping along the shoreline. And off in the distance there is another island having a mountaintop village with a winding white road down the mountain to the sea. I remember it so distinctly from our visit in 2018.

We lazed the day away, soaking in the hot tub and lying out on the pool deck. There was a very strong wind so the ship’s flags were snapping in the breeze and we had to coverup while lying on the loungers by the pool. One of the things we watched was a bunch of crew members working on the string of lights that goes across the ship from forward to aft. They had the string down on the deck and were replacing bulbs and mending the electrical cord. Then guys climbed up the antennae stack aft and the chimney stack forward and hoisted up the string of lights. The guys up high were in precarious positions trying to get the string positioned correctly. But job well done and we applauded the crew when the job was finished. The crew is mostly Southeast Asian and we’ve been impressed by how cheerful they are. Service staff in the restaurants are anxious to chat with you, I think because they are practicing their English. I imagine, the better their English, the more opportunities they have for advancement. Most of the staff we spoke with like working for Azamara, which was nice to hear.

For dinner we went to the main restaurant with women from the Lifeboat group. We hadn’t made it to the main restaurant all week, preferring the buffet meals in the cafe. It was a really good dinner and an enjoyable way to end the week. After dinner we went to the show, Roxanna Ward. We’ve seen her several times as she’s been doing Olivia tours for 30 years. Although she never has much new material in the way of songs, her constant chattering is very entertaining. We enjoyed her very much, especially the song she does about 18 wheels on a big rig, which she gets the audience to sing in different languages, counting to 18. The part that totally cracks we up is when she says let’s sing it in Roman numerals, counting to 18.

So at the end of Friday, we had to pack and get our luggage out the door by 11:00 p.m. for pickup. It’s always a job to plan well enough to have what you need for the morning but not have too much stuff that you can’t pack it in your carry on. I think we did okay with that.

Saturday, it’s disembarkation from the ship, an airport transfer by bus, and then our flight from Athens to JFK. Makes for a very long day. Then Saturday night well stay at a Hampton at JFK Airport, and then Sunday we’ll go to Roosevelt Island and spend a night there at the Graduate Hotel. We’ll be meeting up with another college friend of Christine’s, Joe Aboulafia. Should be fun to catch up with him and tell him all about our visit with Carol, who he also knows.

Then it’s home, sweet home on Monday, October 31, taking the bus from Port Authority. I think we’re both looking forward to being home. It’s been a wonderful trip, but there’s no place like home.

10-25-2022: Bethlehem and Jerusalem

We were due to arrive in Ashdod, Israel at about 7:00 a.m., but we were greeted early by an announcement from the captain. During the night, we had to stop our movement in the sea because we would have entered an area where the Israeli Navy was conducting live fire exercises (yikes!), so we were delayed by about 2 hours getting into port. Of course, that messed up the scheduling for all the excursions that were to have left between 8:30 and 9:00 this morning. Our excursion left at 11:00, which was 90 minutes late.

Ashdod is a very large industrial port and it was very active with the huge cranes unloading and loading shipping containers. Ashdod is about an hour from Jerusalem so all the excursions to Jerusalem started with a long bus ride.

I had been looking forward to our excursion titled, “Let’s talk: 1 state, 2 views.” Our guides were an Israeli Jew and a Palestinian Arab. I expected that we would hear information about Jews and Arabs living in Israel, but none of that was presented. Our Palestinian guide didn’t arrive and we had to change our planned itinerary and find a way to pick up the other guide. Our Jewish guide, a tiny woman named Mozel Tov, was actually very informative and we both enjoyed hearing what she had to say.

We started our trip by going to Bethlehem. What a zoo that place is! It’s a little daunting because Bethlehem is controlled by the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank territory, and entering the city looks like going into a prison as there were high, razor wire covered walls with guard turrets. Mozel Tov prepared us for the possibility of being questioned by guards, but our entry went smoothly with no guards entering the bus.

Bethlehem, like most Israeli cities, is spread across hills, so you either go uphill or downhill. The traffic was horrible and we crept along steep streets. Today was very murky and so the views across the valley were hazy and you couldn’t really see much. The big draw in Bethlehem is the Basilica of the Holy Nativity, which is the site of Jesus’s birth. The bus parked in an underground parking garage with about 200 other buses. All along the walls of the parking garage were shops with hawkers practically in your face trying to get you to buy whatever they were selling. It was crowded, noisy, smelly from the bus fumes, and very confusing. We did meet up with our Palestinian guide, but he was a big zero in terms of any information. He really didn’t have much to say.

We walked out of the parking garage and uphill in the street to the Church of the Holy Nativity along with hundreds of other tourists. At the top of the hill was a very large limestone church having many newer additions (still centuries old). Right around the main entrance area were two minarets from neighboring mosques. Everything in the Holy Land section of Israel is a mishmash of religions and this is part of the struggles amongst the peoples. Who should control?

I remember Carol telling us about a visit she made to this church many years ago, but all she remembers is that she banged her head either going in or coming out of the church entrance. I’m glad she told us that because you do have to crouch down and enter the church by a very small opening where you could easily bang your head. The entrance is called the “Door of Humility” because you do have to stoop low to enter.

Inside the church is a long central space bordered by columns. There’s a big lineup to one side for those wishing to go down to the grotto where they think the site of the manger stood. We didn’t have time to do that. The areas above the columns had beautiful golden mosaics. The chancel area was covered with gold and there was a group of women polishing all the gold, which was a big job for sure.

On the way out, we stopped to look at a sculpture of St. George killing the dragon, apparently a very famous piece of art.

Back in the parking garage, we couldn’t find our bus among the 200+ buses and Mozel Tov took off trying to find our driver. The driver had a habit of disappearing and not being where he was supposed to be. Back on the bus, we stopped at St Michael’s store, which I guess was a required part of the tour, but I don’t think anyone from our group actually bought anything.

We then drove to our lunch stop which was at the Olive Tree Hotel in Jerusalem. That took an hour and with all the Jerusalem traffic, we didn’t arrive at the gate into the Old City until about 4:00. We did go by very familiar territory where David and Carol took us. We saw Gethsemane Basilica and St. Mary Magdalene Church on Mt. Olive, the Tomb of Absalom, and the very large Jewish cemetery. We then left the bus and entered the Old City via the Dung Gate.

Our first stop was at the plaza in front of the Western Wall, also known as the Wailing Wall. The Western Wall has been the center of Jewish yearning and memory for more than 2,000 years. It is the only fragment of the great Temple that survived the Roman destruction. It is said that the Divine Presence has never departed from the Western Wall. It is the most sacred structure of the Jewish people. The approach to the wall is divided, men on one side and women on the other. The women’s side is smaller and much more crowded. As you get closer to the wall there are loads of Jews reading their bible, rocking, praying, some crying. Many people are inserting small scraps of paper with prayers or messages written on the paper into the cracks between the stones in the Wall. Once you place the message into the Wall you are supposed to place both palms on the Wall and “feel” whether your prayer will be answered. I must say it was an amazing experience to be in the middle of this sacred space.

We then walked through some of the Jewish quarter of the Old City and then into the Muslim quarter. The market shops were all in full swing with lots of efforts being made to talk us into buying something. It was quite a hodgepodge of food shops, souvenir shops, household goods shops and everything imaginable that you’d want to buy.

We joined up with Via Dolorosa, the route that Jesus walked carrying his cross on his way to his crucifixion. There are 14 stations of the cross, nine along the route and five within the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. We passed several stations of the cross on our way to the church.

Via Dolorosa goes from the Muslim quarter to the Christian Quarter and ends at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, which is the site where Jesus was crucified and once dead, was taken down from the cross and laid on a stone and prepared for burial in the tomb. Some of the church is from Crusader times and within are multiple chapels and churches and religious processions of Orthodox, Coptic, Franciscan, Catholic, and other sects engaged in religious activities. There are many rooms carved into the rock that have significance to Jesus’s crucifixion and entombment, and the stone of anointing, where he was laid down from the cross and prepared for burial is quite central to a lot of worshipers who were touching and kissing the stone. There is a large rotunda in the main church and under the rotunda is a freestanding chapel that is quite sacred to Eastern Orthodox sects. Again, it was quite an experience to be in such a sacred space. But as with all of the Holy Land, all of the important sites are mobbed with people and it’s difficult to really see and take in all that is there to see.

After the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, we continued on through the market streets in the Christian quarter and ended up departing through the Jaffa Gate, where David and Carol had taken us. We walked down to the parking garage where our bus was supposed to be, but once again, the bus was nowhere to be found and Mozel Tov had to go in search of the driver. We eventually found the bus and driver. By now it was dark and about 7:00p so we had been in the Old City about 3 hours. Everyone was tired after having climbed a lot of stairs and gone up and down alleyways in the Old City. One annoying thing was on the ride back to Ashdod, the bus driver talked nearly the entire time on his phone in a very loud voice. Of course, he was speaking Hebrew so we didn’t know what he was saying, but it was rather rude, I thought, of him talking so loudly and for nearly an hour.

At any rate, we got back to the ship at about 8:00p which made for a long day. Although I was disappointed in terms of what I expected from the tour, we did get to see several really important sites and experience a lot of the Old City.

We’ve decided to not do a tour tomorrow and we’ll be staying on the ship. Thursday is a day at sea which means no Internet connection so I won’t be doing any blogging for a few days. Friday is a stop in Santorini but we don’t have anything planned. And Saturday is back to Piraeus, disembarkation, and a long flight to JFK. This week is going by quickly!

10-24-2022: Cyprus

Our first port of call was Limassol, Cyprus. I didn’t know anything about Cyprus, other than it is an island in the eastern Mediterranean. The Greeks and Turks have been fighting over Cyprus for centuries. Currently, half of Cyprus is an independent republic and the other half is occupied by Turkey. Just like in Israel, there is a ”green line” that divides the country. No other country, other than Turkey, recognizes the occupied territory, but the Republic of Cyprus is recognized by the rest of the world. There are two official languages, Greek and Turkish, but these languages are spoken in their respective halves of the country. Cypriots are independent, but very heavily Greek oriented, at least in the Republic of Cyprus.

The history of the island is so very similar to Malta, including an important visit by St. Paul and later occupation by the Crusaders. Early in the 1800s, Cyprus came under British rule until some time in the 1970s. Our tour guide, Olga, an immigrant from Belarus who has made Cyprus her home, said that Cypriots are grateful to the Brits because the country was modernized and developed. The Brits left a solid infrastructure of roads, electrical grid, water systems, etc., and so Cyprus has continued to develop as a modern country.

Our tour was from Limassol to another city, Pafos, which was an ancient capital and important seaport. We like the look of Cyprus. The part we saw, the southwestern area, was not overdeveloped. It was agricultural with rolling hills. What struck me the most was how neat, clean and tidy everything was, homes, roadways, villages, and archaeological sites. That was refreshing to see.

Our first stop was a seaside site where Aphrodite was born. Olga gave us a very thorough Greek mythology lesson. We noticed that lots of businesses and places have Aphrodite in their name and she is quite an important figure in Cyprus. Pafos became a center of the worship of the goddess Aphrodite.

It was a beautiful location.

We then traveled on to an archeological site near Pafos called Tomb of the Kings. This is an underground necropolis from the 4th century BC that is carved out of solid rock. The name came from the extravagance of the tombs, although no kings were buried here. This was a rich peoples’ burial ground. It was quite amazing to go underground and see such large chambers containing niches and small rooms that held the dead. There were tunnels connecting many of the chambers which seemed to go quite a distance underground, all carved out of solid rock.

Our final stop was the Pafos Archeological Park right at the harbor in Pafos. This dig site is a pretty big one and several ancient Greek and Roman villas were uncovered. As I mentioned, Pafos was a very important port city in ancient times. Wealthy merchants settled near the port and built elaborate villas. A particularly important excavation was of Roman mosaics. We saw very similar mosaics when we visited a Roman villa in Sicily. The detail, especially in the hunt scenes with animals, was amazing.

There was also a lovely lighthouse nearby and nice views of the coast and harbor.

Back on board the ship we rested a bit and then went to the early show which was a one woman play by Deborah Eliezer. The story was about her father, an Arab Jew born in a once cosmopolitan Iraq, who became a member of the Zionist underground in the aftermath of WWII, who then emigrated to America. In telling her father’s story she comes to a fuller understanding of her own identity, American, Arab, Jew. I thought it was a good story and in the background contained projected photographs of life in Iraq during her father’s childhood, and some of the underground activity going on after the war.

After the show we had dinner and then went for a stroll on deck. We met a lovely couple from Capetown, South Africa, Mem and Amanda. We really enjoyed talking with them.

And that brought the end of a nice day in Cyprus.

10-22/23-2022: At Sea

We checked out of our Pireaus hotel at about 11:30 and took a cab to the cruise terminal. We knew we would be very early and would have to wait to board. However, when we arrived, a whole bunch of Azamara staff welcomed us to the terminal, gave us a number (1!), asked us to be seated, and await further instructions. We didn’t have to wait very long, and we were on our way through check in and security. By about 12:45, we would be walking up the gangplank to the Azamara Quest. We were one of the first groups of people on the ship. It was kind of weird walking around a nearly empty ship.

Our stateroom wasn’t ready, but we found our way up to the Windows Cafe for lunch. After lunch, we wandered around familiarizing ourselves with the ship. We have been on this ship in the past. Our 2018 Venice to Athens cruise was on the Azamara Quest, so seeing the areas around the ship jogged memories.

Our luggage was delivered to our stateroom at about 4:00. We unpacked, and then it was time for the sail away party on the pool deck.

And before we knew it, we were on our way.

Olivia brings all of the entertainment onboard. There are two shows, one at 6:30 and one at 8:30, so the big decision is show first, then dinner, or the other way around. We’ve decided to see the first show. The first night was comedienne Michele Balen. I think we saw her once before. Some of her stuff was funny, but not as funny as I wanted her to be.

We had dinner and then settled in the for the night. It’s fun being on the ship and we’re meeting some new folks and Christine is getting reconnected with members of the Lifeboat group.

Sunday was a day at sea, so it’s a laid back day. We attended the Olivia presentation about upcoming trips. They raffled off a number of 2 for the price of 1 certificates, but we didn’t win any (darn!).

Later in the day we attended a panel talk about LBGTQ+ life in Israel. In some ways, Israel is ahead of the U.S. in terms of gay rights, especially services to gays and lesbians. Unfortunately, gay marriage has not yet been legalized, although partnerships and couple rights are recognized. Adoption and surrogacy is also allowed.

The evening show was someone named Mikalah Gordon, having become famous from her stint on American Idol.

We were sitting with new friends Shirl and Bette. What’s really funny is, unplanned, after the second song, Christine and I got up and exited via the right aisle, and Shirl and Bette quietly exited via the left aisle. We met outside the Cabaret and laughed seeing each other. Not our cup of tea, obviously, and one of the awful things about the performance was how loud it was. We all had ringing ears. But then we went to dinner and had a thoroughly enjoyable time with Shirl and Bette, lovely women from Florida.

So that ended our day at sea. Tomorrow we’re in Cyprus.

04/22/2022: Braisach, Germany

We docked at the lovely little village of Braisach, Germany. Although there were several excursion options today, we decided to relax, take our time to pack, and not be overly tired for the start of the next leg of our journey. It was nice to have the ship nearly all to ourselves.

After we laid low for the morning, we strolled into Braisach, which is a very old town having (of course) a cathedral. The town was established before the Romans came, but the Romans were responsible for establishing the town as a trading post on the Rhine.

Braisach is really lovely, Everything is so clean and neat. The market square was large and had a section of fountains where children were running through the water jets coming up from the pavement. There were lots of cafes with outdoor seating.

St. Stevens’s Cathedral, high atop a volcanic rock, was originally built in the 12th century. It’s not a very ornate church, but it is stately.

This is a photo of a drawing of how Braisach looked in the Middle Ages.

The inside of the church was not terribly glitzy, as many Catholic churches.

The amazing thing was the faint murals painted on the walls. Martin Schongauer painted The Last Judgment on the back wall in the late 1400s. There were other paintings on the side walls as well. What a shame that the paintings were ruined during a restoration attempt that used varnish. The varnish dried and peeled and took the original paint off during peeling. Fortunately, some of the paint was saved and the images are faintly visible. It must have been amazing.

It was a very nice, low key couple of hours, strolling at our own pace and doing what we wanted to do on no schedule. We spent the afternoon back on the ship getting ready for our departure tomorrow, where we’ll be totally on our own navigating through Switzerland, Italy and Malta. Should be a great adventure.

I promised a few photos of the ship, so here they are.

04/21/2022: Strasbourg, France

Today’s excursion was to Strasbourg where we visited the cathedral and had a walking tour around Le Petite France, a quaint district that dates back centuries. I didn’t know much about Strasbourg, but it has quite a storied history. Amazingly, in 1988 it celebrated its 2,000th anniversary! So it existed long before the Romans arrived. Strasbourg is home to the European Human Rights Council and the parliament of the European Union.

Strasbourg is in the Alsace district of France and it has a very distinctive collective culture of both French and German. After the Middle Ages, this region was controlled by either France, Austria, or Germany over and over again. And astonishingly, between the end of WWI and the end of WWII it was French, German, French, German, and then finally French, as it remains today. Strasbourg has a large historic German section that was built in the late 1988s and early 1900s. The German emperor was trying to convince everyone that they should stay German, so he went on a building campaign to impress everyone. All the buildings being built were grand, they added electricity, public transportation, good sewer systems, and great public spaces. We bused through the German section and it looked very nice.

The cathedral in Strasbourg is quite old, having been started in the late 1200s. It’s hard to get one’s head wrapped out just how old things in Europe are. What we call antiques in the U.S. are nothing compared to what antiques are here in Europe. While some parts of this cathedral are Romanesque, it really is considered one of the greatest Gothic cathedrals. Until 1874, the cathedral was the tallest building in the word. It remains the highest still standing extant structure built entirely in the Middle Ages. It’s spire, however, is actually see-through, which is very unusual. I know you’re probably sick of looking at cathedral pictures, but I’m going to post a bunch. Here are external shots.

Here are internal shots.

A big attraction in the cathedral is the astronomical clock. The clock shows much more than the official time; it also indicates solar time, the day of the week (each represented by a god of mythology), the month, the year, the sign of the zodiac, the phase of the moon and the position of several planets.

After visiting the cathedral we walked around some of the Le Petite France section. This area also has a storied past. At one point it was the section where tanneries were located and so people didn’t live near it because of the smell from the tanning process. Because no one wanted to live there, it became an area where the undesirables in society were forced to locate. It had a bad reputation, and of course, it was an area of ill-repute. Now it is a very fashionable and desirable area and the wealthy and well-to-do want to live there.

On our way back to the ship our tour guide pointed out a very small, unassuming building displaying the American flag. It was the U.S. consulate to the European parliament.

So that was our day in Strasbourg, a very diverse and interesting city. With the parliament of the EU in Strasbourg, France and the Headquarters of the EU in Brussels, Belgium, there is some talk of locating all EU administrative organizations in one city to reduce the travel of the representatives and the administrative expense of running two large organization components of the EU. France votes no, and Belgium votes no. Strasbourg wants very much to remain an important center of the EU. However, with the French election this Sunday, EU participation by the French may be in jeopardy. We’ll see what happens.

04/20/2022: Heidelberg, Germany

Our mooring location today was in Mainz, Germany. It is the capital city of Rhineland-Palatinate, a western state in Germany and it has an old town, as do most of the major cities on the Rhine.

However, our excursion today was to Heidelberg to visit Heidelberg Castle.

We had a 90 minute bus trip to Heidelberg. I like traveling through the countryside. To me, it’s interesting to see how people live away from city centers, especially in agricultural areas and farmland. And, just like in Amsterdam, farms are exceptionally tidy and picturesque. We saw loads of large farms whose main crop is white asparagus, which is a huge business. The rows and rows of plants are covered over with white foil to keep the plant from growing above ground. White asparagus grows below the ground, but as soon as it grows above ground it turns green. So the foil helps to prevent that from happening. Apparently, white asparagus is a very, very popular dish in Germany.

White asparagus field (blurry, as the bus sped by)

Heidelberg is an ancient city going back to earlier than the 4th century BC. Not surprisingly, the Romans were responsible for establishing a trading post here in 40 AD along the Neckar River. The city’s founding date is considered to be 1196. Heidelberg University was founded in 1386. Then the The Middle Ages were a turbulent time with lots of wars and various rulers taking charge of the area.

The earliest castle structure was built before 1214 and has been occupied by many various nobility members and royalty, each adding his own building and/or renovating some part.

Photo of a photo showing most of the layout of the castle

The castle is a combination of several buildings surrounding an inner courtyard, put together with a haphazard look. Each building highlights a different period of German architecture.

There are numerous architectural styles from many different periods, from very ornate, to very basic and rather plain. It was interesting to learn that the fanciest parts of the castle faced inward to the courtyard. The parts of the castle facing the river valley and viewed by potential raiding armies, we built very plainly without adornment, so as not to give anyone the impression that the castle was opulent.

There were fabulous views from the terrace.

One of the unique items in the castle is an enormous wine barrel, referred to as the Heidelberg Tun. The current barrel, built in 1751, has a capacity of 58,574 gallons. One hundred and thirty oak trees were reputedly used in its construction. It has only rarely been used as a wine barrel, and in fact presently enjoys more use as a tourist attraction.

More castle photos.

These two houses were just outside of the castle grounds. The first is of a fraternity house (I kid you not!) and the second is owned by a famous architect.

We did not enter the castle, but given sufficient time, tours are available to see some of the internal rooms. What we did do was go down to the Old Town of Heidelberg for a quick walking tour. What’s great about Heidelberg is that it is one of the few cities that didn’t get bombed during WWII, so most of the buildings in old town are original to the 1600s, and a few even go back to the late 1200s. The view of the castle 300 feet above the town is wonderful to see.

We had lunch at a recommended typical German restaurant. I thought I knew what I was ordering, but it wasn’t what came to the table. Nevertheless, we enjoyed our lunch sitting outside along the main street in old town.

We had lunch outside at this cute little restaurant

We did take a quick look inside The Church of the Holy Spirit, which was constructed between 1398 and 1515 in the Romanesque and Gothic styles. One item the stands out in this church is the stained glass. Much of the original and older glass was destroyed over the years. Within the last 50 years, there have been competitions for a commission to do several windows. So many of the windows are modern and very unique.

The other thing that jumped right out was the flag on the altar. Seeing a rainbow flag in a church is always surprising, but this is a Protestant church, so we’re assuming that they know what the flag means.

We had a 30 minute bus ride back to the ship, however, the ship hadn’t arrived yet from Mainz. I think the ship was delayed in leaving Mainz, and we heard that there was a lot of traffic on the Rhine which slowed the ship. But it did arrive on time as per the schedule. The problem was our bus actually arrived over an hour earlier than expected. The bus riders all trooped off to a shopping mall along the wharf to await the arrival of the Avalon Vista.

All’s well that ends well and we were safely back on board in time for dinner. We had another great day touring. The weather has been absolutely spectacular all week so far – sunshine and temperatures in the upper 50s. The cruise director says that we are so very lucky to have this weather as apparently the spring weather in this part of the world is often cold and rainy.

Here’s my parting photo for the day.

04/19/2022: Rhine River Gorge

Today’s travel down 40 miles of the Rhine River from Koblenz to Rudesheim is the reason to do a riverboat cruise on this magnificent river. Referred to as the Rhine River Valley and the Rhine River Gorge, this stretch of the river flows through an area that the Germanic people of the world feel is their spiritual center and a mystical connection to their history. This section of the river epitomizes the romantic notion of the river in most people’s minds. It is an incredibly gorgeous area with beautiful wine villages, lots of very steep vineyards, and of course many castles.

The history of wine in this area is from Roman times. As the Romans used the river for transportation of goods, it became clear to them that the river was becoming polluted and the water was not fit to drink. The fermentation of grapes was well known to the Romans and so to provide a suitable drink, they started importing wine, which became very expensive, so they imported the vines, began growing grapes, and made wine. The river provides a very good environment for grape-growing and the steep hills along the river are covered in vineyards. You can’t imagine how the grapes are harvested because the terrain is so steep. One wrong step and I could see a poor harvester tumbling down the hill into the river. Eighty percent of the grapes grown in this area are white grapes and the most prevalent variety of wine here is Riesling. Also, apparently, ice wine was invented here and ice wines are very popular as well. Every mile or two along the river is a quaint village whose livelihood is entirely wrapped up in growing grapes and making wine.

Koblenz is where this middle Rhine section begins.

There is a castle every few miles along this stretch of the river. Castles started popping up everywhere during the period where nobility and religious leaders were forming their city-states. And the function of the castle was twofold; one as a security measure to protect the inhabitants in the castle and, two, as toll stations along the river. Because each section was its own city-state in the 12th century, each nobleman wanted to cash in and required tolls to pass through “their” section of the river. Then during the Middle Ages castles were constructed mostly as fortresses. When the French arrived in the late 1600s to early 1700s, they ransacked most of the castles and nearly all fell into disrepair. Of the castles we saw today, only one is an original in entirety. All the others have either been renovated or remain in a dilapidated state. Nevertheless, each is thrilling to see.

Marksburg Castle is one of the few originals and has preserved in its original state from the 14th century.

As I mentioned, wine is a big product in this region. We passed by Bopparder Hamm, the largest vineyard in the area. It’s vineyards cover 75 hectares, about 185 acres, all on very steep hills.

The very popular town of Boppard attracts loads of tourists and is a spa resort area as well as the place to drink world-class Riesling wine.

Here are two castles, referred to as The Two Hostile Brothers castles. Their feud led them to build their own castles with a large stone wall in between.

The villages near each of the castles are very charming and picturesque and all have at least one beautiful church.

Rheinfels Castle was once the largest fortress on the Rhine.

Katz Castle is just across the river and the rivals are watching each other. The little village is St. Goar.

We next came to the area of the river where it gets narrow and the current becomes swifter and more difficult to navigate. This is the setting for the famous story about Lorelei, the German maiden who sat naked on the rocks combing her long blonde hair. The sailors would be distracted looking at her and perish on the rocks and in the current.

Lorelei sat at the top of the large rock on the left

Next came Oberwesel where you can still see the walls of protection below and above the houses in the village.

The castle at Oberwesel is Schonburg Castle.

And if you haven’t seen enough castles, there are a few more, but now I’ve forgotten most of their names.

I mentioned toll collecting. This one you can clearly understand was built as a toll booth. It’s right on an island in the river.

This one is really incredible up there on the steep hillside in the middle of a large vineyard.

After passing through the Rhine River Gorge and seeing all the castles and beautiful little villages, we docked in the small town of Rudesheim. We visited a mechanical instrument museum, sampled a special coffee that’s made with the local wine and brandy, flambeed, covered in whipped cream and served in these interesting cups. I had mine without the alcohol and it was still delicious. We wandered around the little village for a while and then returned to the ship. Here’s a few photos of Rudesheim.

The music museum contains the largest collection of self-playing musical instruments covering 3 centuries. Unfortunately, our tour through the museum was very brief and it would have been nicer if we had more time. We just got a flavor for some of the instruments. The violin one was amazing. Each violin had only one string. The mechanism twirled around the violins and the “bow” touched each violin’s string with the “fingers,” the mechanical levers that touched the string to make the tone of the note. Amazing!

One of the things that seemed so weird was the heavy-handed use of pollarding of trees. Everywhere there were trees, a lot of Linden and Sycamore, that were pruned back severely. At this time of the year, before leafing out, the trees all look very gnarled and knobby.

As we were having dinner later, another two riverboats came to moor near our ship. And a big surprise for Christine was where one of the ships was registered.

We ended our day in Rudesheim with some beautiful night views of Bingen, the home of Hildegard von Bingen (for you music fans). I learned that Hildegard was an entrepreneur as well and made salves and lotions using all the medicinal flora. Her brand is still being manufactured today using the recipes she developed.

04/17/2022: Canals and Palace

Happy Easter! It is a gorgeous sunny day in Amsterdam We’ve settled in to our stateroom on the riverboat. We’ve never been on a small ship like this and it is a whole lot easier getting around than on those big, ocean cruise liners, that’s for sure. Our room is at the end of the hallway from reception on the 3rd floor. There are just 3 levels, plus the roof deck, called the sky deck. The main lounge/bar/and entertainment area is towards the front of the ship on level two. The restaurant is down a level toward the back of the ship. Before the end of the week I’ll walk around and take some photos. Our stateroom is small but comfortable and we have floor to ceiling windows looking out the starboard side of the ship. The window is actually a sliding glass door so we can open the sliding door (with a railing gate outside) to enjoy fresh air and scenery. The bed faces out the windows and we were warned to be sure to close curtains at bedtime because early in the morning there is likely to be another riverboat moored right next to our ship. You can reach out and touch the next boat. At these port docks up and down the Rhine, the riverboats stack together and you even have to sometimes walk through another ship to get to your ship. That seems pretty weird, but yesterday while we were lined up waiting for our COVID tests upon boarding, about 100 people from the ship moored right beside our ship walked up our gangplank, climbed the outside stairs to our sky deck and crossed over the sky deck to board their ship.

I haven’t quite acclimated to the timezone yet, and besides, I’ve been stressed out by our cellphonee and portable wifi device issues. I purchased European SIM cards before the trip thinking that we’d be ready to roll with full coverage. That didn’t happen because I am unable to get anything to work. The ship’s internet wifi coverage, with 160 passengers all trying to connect and download information, get maps, text home, etc., makes for an incredibly slow, unreliable wifi. My issue will be uploading photos for the blog. That takes up a lot of bandwidth. Hopefully tomorrow, when we have a bit of time in Cologne I’ll find a reliable service provider and see what kind of SIM cards we can get. Right now, if Christine and I get separated during a tour, or somewhere, we wouldn’t have any way to get in touch with one another. I’ve got to fix that, and so part of my no sleep issue has been thinking (worrying) about all that.

However, we had a wonderful morning, our last in Amsterdam. The excursion for us this morning was a canal boat tour. You’ve seen photos from above the canals, so now you’ll see what it’s like to be down in the canal.

The canal boats have to be very low and not too wide so they can get under and through the many bridges. We toured around mostly the western canal area where we had much of our walking tour on Thursday, so things looked familiar. We did see many house boats moored along the canal. These are expensive homes that don’t move. If the canal, for some reason, has be to closed for repairs, it’s apparently a big deal to have your house towed somewhere else. Some of these canal boats look quite dilapidated while others have sculpture gardens on them or fancy outdoor furniture. The tour guide said the rental of the canal section, not to mention the price of the boat itself, was incredibly expensive.

For me the best part of the canal tour was being able to look down all the connecting canals as we passed by bridges. All around the canal districts is either a river or a main waterway canal. The river and waterway canals are very wide, but all the district canals are narrow and very charming.

I mentioned the gables of the house and the 3 types in an earlier post. I called one of them a neck gable, and I learned today that the correct term is “bottleneck,” which makes a whole lot more sense. These bottleneck gables are much simpler than step and bell gables; they are just kind of like a rectangle on end sitting on the top of your house. You might have noticed that at the top of many of the gables is a bean that sticks out and has a hook dangling from the bean. Because the houses are narrow and generally have narrow and steep interior stairs getting materials, goods and furniture up to the upper levels is quite challenging so all these house had a pulley attached to the hook at the top of the gable and that’s how materials were lifted up. These pulleys are still used today to especially lift furniture up to the upper levels.

After the hour-long canal tour, Christine and I broke free from the group and headed off on our own little excursion. Christine wanted to go in to the Royal Palace. The guide Marieke told us that the inside was quite exquisite and worth seeing. I didn’t think it would be open on Easter Sunday, but it was. We ordered tickets on line the previous evening, a good thing, because without a reservation, you couldn’t get in.

The Royal Palace was actually built to be the Amsterdam Town Hall in the mid-1600s. Today it is one of 3 royal palaces used by the royal family of the Netherlands. The Netherlands has a constitutional monarchy and the current king is Willelm-Alexander. This palace isn’t used very often by the royal family and when used it is celebratory, similar to the U.S. president hosting state dinners.

Inside the palace we were able to take a self-guided tour around the second floor. The real interesting history of this palace, though, goes back to the Bonapartes when France ruled the Netherlands in the late 1700s to early 1800s. The Batavian Republic was ruled by Napoleon’s brother, Louis, and Louis moved from the The Hague to Amsterdam and turned the Town Hall into his residence. This place is incredibly opulent. I don’t think any expense was spared in creating huge paintings, lots of sculptures, and all kinds of works of art in furnishings. The celebratory hall, where current state dinners are held, was huge. The ceiling must have been 4 stories high.

The rooms open to the public were all around the perimeter of the building and I think there were about 20 different rooms each having a specific purpose during Louis Bonaparte’s reign.

As with most museums, it was too much to take in. The narrations were good, but our brains were getting too full, so after about an hour, we decided to walk back to the ship. We had a pleasant walk back through some of the same streets we toured on Thursday.

We passed by a little shop that was nothing but little rubber duckies.

I was pretty sure I knew the way back to the ship. Not! I knew we needed to get to the train station, where we were hoping to have time to run into a drug store. Christine kept saying, “this isn’t right,” and I should have listened to her. What I got confused about was that the train station was on an island so that there was a river or waterway on both sides. I thought we were on one side of the station where we would need to go right, but we were on the wrong side, so we went the wrong way. Christine was right, we needed to go left! We did get to the train station (on the correct side), but had a very difficult time finding a drug store. Many of the shops are near the train platforms and to get to them you had to go through a ticket turnstile, so we couldn’t do that without tickets. Just when we were about to give up, saw a drug store just before exiting the building and made our needed purchase.

By this time it was about 15 minutes before departure time of the ship so we hurried down the promenade from the station to the mooring location of the ship. I’m still dumbfounded by the number of bicycles everywhere. Here’s a double-decker bike rack. How can you ever find your bike??

We made it back to the ship in time and at about 1:30 p.m., the Avalon Vista slowly backed out of its mooring location and motored northward up the large canal connecting Amsterdam to the Rhine River, which is about 80 miles from Amsterdam.

Here are a couple of scenes from the end of our day.

We loved our visit to Amsterdam. The 3-day pre-trip package was absolutely worth doing. Amsterdam is an amazing city and the Netherlands seems like a beautiful, interesting country. Maybe we’ll come back and explore some more. But now it is on to the Rhine River and our first stop in Cologne, Germany.

04/16/2022: Tulips!!!

This morning we were bused to world famous Keukenhof, a private garden open to the public only 8 weeks of the year, from mid-March to mid-May. During its peak blooming time, which is right now, it gets 26,000 visitors per day. This being the Easter weekend, I suspect there were more visitors than that today. The garden has been closed for the past 2 years due to COVID, so I’m sure lots of people wanted to come back to the garden. And we lucked out because, although a little nippy on our arrival at 9:30 a.m., the sun came out, warmed things up, and it was a glorious day in the garden.

Anyone who has followed this blog the past few years knows that Christine and I are garden lovers. I must say that Keukenhof will likely be the most fantastic garden we’ll have visited. I am at a loss for words to even begin describing its stunning beauty. I’m not even going to add captions to the photos because I could tell you how beautiful all the flowers are.

Of course the flowers are fantastic, but what really did it for me was the huge trees just leafing out and seeing and hearing all the wonderful birds. We strolled along for a while and then just sat on a bench to drink in the sights and sounds. Then we stroll some more and then sit a spell.

The garden covers about 80 acres. There are several buildings housing various displays, each having a cafe or place to enjoy a beverage. A crew of 30 gardeners plant 7 million bulbs each year, and each year all those bulbs are dug up and are mostly turned into animal feed. Some of the smaller bulbs do get sold, but the majority are tossed. Then the replanting of 7 million bulbs starts all over again. It’s so hard to imagine what 7 million bulbs looks like all piled up. The landscape designer draws each bed with colors and types of bulbs denoted, and gives the gardeners instructions for what to plant. It’s just unbelievable!

While tulips are the major floral display, there were numerous other bulbs, like daffodils, several kinds of hyacinths, snowdrops, irises, etc. But tulips are the main attraction. When one thinks Holland, you think tulips. Well, we learned that tulips originated in Turkey and were imported to the Netherlands long, long ago. There are over 3,000 named tulip varieties and I think we saw a lot of them.

One of the pavilions housed a fabulous orchid display. I love taking photos of orchids. They are such interesting flowers.

All the bulb beds were just breathtaking. The lawns and trees made everything just magnificent.

We had about 3 hours for our time at the garden and we probably could have spent another 3 hours just taking in all the beauty. It was crowded, more so in some spots than in others, but most of the time the crowds didn’t impact our enjoyment. Keukenhof is truly heaven on earth.

Afterwards, our tour stopped at a Dutch pancake house for lunch. Dutch pancakes are more like crepes. We had one bacon pancake and one cheese pancake and split them. I probably could have eaten a couple more, but by the time you sprinkle on powdered sugar and squeeze on the syrup, one was enough to eat, not to mention the high caloric content.

We then bused back into Amsterdam to board our riverboat, the Avalon Vista. We’re sleeping on the riverboat while docked tonight in Amsterdam. So our time in Amsterdam is nearly over. We have one more tour in the morning and then we will begin our riverboat trip tomorrow afternoon. We have been so fortunate with the weather; each day has been fine, moderate temperatures, and pretty sunny. Let’s hope that stays with us over the next week.