I finished off my last notes letting you know we were off to a concert in Vienna.
We are well back from that now and I would have to say it was the highlight of my trip. I can now say I been in a concert hall in Vienna, on the banks of the Danube, filled with chandeliers and marble columns listening to Mozart and Strauss -what a fabulous evening! The most obvious pleassure was listening to the Wiener Hofburg Orchestra play The Blue Danube Waltz. The acoustics in the hall were amazing - not a microphone in place but the sound spread loudly and evenly through the whole hall. Operatic singers were also part of the concert but it was a beautiful way to finish our couple of days in Vienna. On the way back to the boat, we were given a brief 'Vienna by Night' tour also which was lovely.
Yeah!!!! Have finally managed a ‘play around’ and got this email looking the way I really want it to come out. I might do website work for clients and have everything looking you beaut for them but like a carpenter who never finishes building his house, I never really did get around to making my emails resemble something sensible. But for most email clients, this should now look heaps better!
We arrived in Cologne in Germany on Tue 28 Sept mid morning having left the Netherlands behind. Then left the ship for a guided walking tour around the city. Guided walking tours are all planned extremely well on these cruise boats – each of us has a earphone headpiece which was given to us at the beginning of the trip and each time we head off the ship we pick up a radio receiver from reception ready to receive our running commentary from a local tour guide who meets the ship and is given a radio transmitter. This way they can be 100m or so in front and talking and with our earpieces, we can still know what’s going on. Tour groups are commonly seen everywhere with earpieces stuck in ears listening to their guides!
Expecting a full`day of cruising the Rhine today with the Rhine Valley being the most photographic area along the way. Have managed to get the very front chairs in the lounge on our ship "MS Amabella" so we have a lovely view of both left and dight sides of the bank. The weather has not been very kind to us over the last couple of days however as we begin our day cruising along, we are beginning to see some blue sky so we could be in luck!
We are now into the “Main” River (Myne), a river in Germany of some 525kms. It flows through the German states of Bavaria (and boy have we tried some Bavarian beer along the way!!), Baden-Wurttemberg and Hessen. How do I know all this??? Each evening on board we are given a 4 page journal of the next days travel, excursions for the day, timings, meal timings, buses, bike tour times, ariivals and departure times from ports and entertainment for the next day etc. It’s a really comprehensive journal and will be something we keep as our memories of the trip.
Today was what we referred to as ‘Castle Day” – a section of the Rhine River where all the fabulous and very old castles are situated high on the adjoining hills. All very picturesque of course so a million photos taken by all on board. Our weather for this particular day was nothing to be overexcited about – in fact it was very cold, dull and gloomy but that did not stop us all spending the day admiring the scenery along the way.
Lunchtime we arrived at Rudeshiem – the town I have already spoken about in an earlier news blurb! This was our afternoon of sunshine but still not warm enough to bare the arms just yet!
