Thursday December 21: Mainz
Rhine Castles
I had an absolutely miserable night last night. I seem to have developed a bad cold, and I really hope it is nothing worse than a cold. My throat isn’t as scratchy, but my nose is running like a faucet. I slept little and poorly last night.
So I definitely didn’t get up around 5am to see us go under the low bridge and then transition to the Rhine.
After breakfast, I lay down for a bit. The tour manager, Andrew, was giving a tour of the Rhine castles and other stuff as we passed them. They were gathered on the top deck, although you could also hear it in the lounge, but you might need to run from side to side. I decided that I was much too comfortable lying in bed. I kept thinking that I would lay there a bit longer and then go up. In the end, I never went up.
Amy returned, and it was time for lunch, so I got up and put my clothes on. She said that there was another castle that we were about to pass, so I grabbed my camera, went out, and took some pictures. Amy had the map, and she said that there would be another in a few km, so we waited a while until we got to the next castle. Rumor had it that was pretty cool and breezy in the morning, but I found that by lunch time, when I was up there, it wasn’t too bad. I was up there with just my heavy fleece shirt on, and I was OK.
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After the castles (there were two, one on either side), we went down and had lunch. The Rhine is high but not flooding. We saw a number of “islands” that were flooded. All we could see was a long line of trees, whose bases disappeared into the river water. There was no sign of dry land.
After lunch, we had about an hour or so to kill before the shore excursion, so I lay down again. The forecast was for showers, so given that it didn’t seem that cold out, I was planning to wear my red fleece jacket rather than my down jacket, as it was more waterproof. I went topside to see how it felt, and I found that it was raining lightly. So we grabbed an umbrella each, and I put on my Seattle Sombrero, and we joined the throng in the main entry.
After a few minutes, we finished docking and we started filing out. For this shore excursion (Mainz), there were no busses, The Gutenberg museum and the Christmas market were both within walking distance.
It turns out that while we waited for everyone to disembark and get organized, the rain pretty much stopped. I never used my umbrella.
Our guide talked a bit about the history of Mainz, and then when we got to the Gutenberg museum, she talked about what Gutenberg did and gave us a printing demonstration. She said that it wasn’t the press itself that was revolutionary, as there had been printing presses before. Gutenberg’s innovation was the reusable metal type blocks.
After the museum, most of us went over to the cathedral and got a quick tour inside. After that, we were on our own. Amy and I spent some time going through the Christmas market. This was probably the biggest one we’ve been through. We bought a number of things, although since none of the stalls took plastic, we burned through almost all of our Euros. Some people were waiting for the Heidelberg Christmas Market, which is supposed to be bigger and more elaborate. We’ve heard mixed messages about it. Originally we heard that it was going to be closed. Then we heard that it would actually be open. The consensus is that we’ll find out when we get there. Amy and I figured that “a bird in hand is worth two in the bush”. That is, we were better off getting things that we found rather than waiting to see if we can find something better later on.
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We did a little wandering through the downtown, particularly looking for a toy store that might have stuffed bears, but so far we’ve come up empty.
Just as we started heading back, the light rain started up again. Amy used her umbrella, but I didn’t bother. I joked that the rain was nature’s way of telling us that it was time to head back to the boat. After getting back, I typed this up, and it is now time for the nightly briefing and then dinner.
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Tomorrow is likely to be a long day. We’ll leave by bus for Heidelberg in the morning, have lunch there, and then get back to the boat in time for dinner.
Tonight’s dinner was themed after a German Oktoberfest beer garden. It was essentially a buffet with tradition German food. Being a buffet, it means that we all ate more than we should. It is good for my waistline that the normal meals are pre-portioned for us.
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We ended up eating with a family of four that included two children who were in their early 20’s; i.e. Sam’s age. On the other hand, I heard that due to the timing of this trip (near Christmas), there were more young people on the boat than usual.
Amy is going to stay up and at least listen to the Christmas trivia contest. I have no interest in such things and will be trying to sleep promptly.