OR
A FREE University education – if you can pass
the entrance exam…
How’s your German?
“Ok… we’re one wife short here… did anyone
see where she went this time?”
“We think she’s on the Barrel.”
“The Barrel?
Which Barrel?”
“The Big one with the Dance Floor.”
Say What?!?!
A Mid-night cast off from mostly wet
Rudesheim heads us up river to Mannheim where we'll dock for the Heidelberg and
Speyer visit.
As morning broke we were awakened to the dulcet
tones of:
“Good morning Ladies and Gentleman, this is
Bojan, Your Cruise Director speaking… Blah… Blah… Blah…” giving us the run down
and timetables for today’s tours etc.
We could see a lovely park off the port side where
the busses were waiting and hustled up to breakfast before departing for our
tour of Heidelberg and its “Romantic Castle”.
Heidelberg, Germany’s oldest university town is situated
in the Neckar Valley just east of the cradle of the German Romantic movement
[really… Romantic… Germans?!? – go figure].
It boasts beautiful Baroque architecture and is the site of the most
imposing Heidelberg
Castle.
The link leads to fascinating reading about the castle, its residents and history of the region.
A magnificent red sandstone ruin perched 330
feet above the river Neckar, it was home to the Palatinate princes until
partially destroyed by fire in the 17th Century. It’s been said that Heidelberg’s cityscape is
so beautiful and so admired that American Forces deliberately chose to avoid
bombing it during WW II.
With history as dramatic as its
Gothic-Renaissance Characters, Palatine Princes, Stampeding Swedes, Protestant
Reformers, raging fires and Lightning bolts that killed the twins
of the architect causing him to retire from building forever, it’s little wonder that the castle
inspired artists and writers alike including Mark Twain who was so enraptured
by the Castle during his 3 month visit in 1878 that he included flattering
remarks about it in his book A Tramp Abroad, 1880.
Our 30 minute bus ride was punctuated with a
running commentary from one of the guides on the history of the region and the
significance Heidelberg and its castle played.
And yes… it was Magnificent, if not a bit
imposing, bawdy tales and all, including one of the Dwarf Perqueo, [whose name
came from his answer in his native Italian “Per Que No?” {Why not?} to the
question “Would you like some wine?”]
Perqueo’s statue stands atop the pedestal spot
where he was charged with guarding the World’s largest Wine Barrel - 50,000
gallons –shaped from 130 oaks trees.
Upon this massive container of the regions finest wines – long since
dried up - a dance floor was built and this is where Dragon Chick had
disappeared to for photo ops galore, giving way to our opening dialogue.
How she got up the steep-narrow staircase,
and down the equally daunting spiral staircase on the other side is anybody’s guess considering
her mild acrophobia. She is a Mystery at
times…
The rest of the tour was enlightening as well
as the other photo ops, some seen here and the rest in NOWAT-Rivercruise2016 PicasaAlbum.
Then we were bussed down to the riverside to
begin a walking tour of “Old Heidelberg”
while dodging hordes of students of every nationality and persuasion as
well as gangs of other tourists [three
boats docked near ours and loads of bus tours] as the running commentary of our
guide Helga over our “Quiet Vox” kept us moving along.
One interesting moment occurred in the Cathedral of Heidelberg where we found tradition meets new age technology as we observed the daily organ concert performed on a re-fitted old organ with an iPad as the sheet music. 
Once dismissed from our merry Group 47D for 1½ hours to explore on our own, we headed for the famous Christmas store,
found it… decided it was waaaaaayyyyy overpriced. Sooooo... we set out to find a spot for lunch.
Flatbread pizza, OK... Beer GOOD!
The rest of the time in Heidelberg was spent
finding our way back to the bus and another half hour trip back to the boat.
Another tour was about to depart for Speyer,
one of Germany’s oldest cities and site of a Roman Military camp in 10BC. While it is supposedly dominated by one of Germany’s
largest and most important Romanesque buildings, the Speyer Cathedral, home to
the tombs of 8 German Emperors and several bishops, we had no desire to take
another hour long bus ride for more Rocks, Ruins, and Temples.
Sooooo… We changed shoes and struck out to
see Mannheim, up the park path and just across the Railroad tracks.
Of course getting there was an exercise in
navigational challenges to which Navigator Illy actually shined in determining
the correct winding path to take - to get to the tunnel under the Tracks - to
emerge in the Manheim Train station and out onto the grimy streets of one of
the major crossroads in Germany.
Not much going on here… but we had to look and after a warm day that got hotter, we found a spot for cooling Gellato, rested our feet for 10 minutes and trudged back to the Viking Tialfi in time to change for dinner.
A pre-dinner briefing for tomorrow's adventures brought some very unsettling news. It seems that because the river was so swollen, navigating some of the locks etc would put us behind schedule, in addition to having to dock in an unplanned location.
More on that in tomorrows episode, currently titled:
"W T F!!!! The Damn Trip Goblins are still in play."
Or... sumpthin' like that.
Ciao für Jetzt
Uncle Chuck & The Now joining the WTF Chorus,
Dragon Lady
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