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Tuesday: October 1

Thursday: October 3

Wednesday: October 2

Miltenberg, Steps

This morning, just to be different and get away from just eggs for breakfast, I ordered the French Toast. That was really wonderful. I’ll have to add that to my breakfast rotation for later in the trip.

This morning there was a steady rain. The forecast calls for 50% showers all day. This morning we are just cruising. There is a demonstration from a glass blower. We missed that last cruise because just before the cruise, the glass blower broke his arm. This time we’re actually going to see him. This is a good activity for a rainy morning. Hopefully this afternoon will be a bit drier.

I brought a thinner green mock turtleneck, which I’m finding to be about right for on the boat. I’m glad I did. Most of my shirts are just a bit too heavy for wearing on the boat.

The Main River is a lot smaller than the Rhine. It seems in some places to be no wider than twice the width of our boat. It makes me wonder what happens if we meet another similar-sized boats going in the other direction. On one hand, I’m sure it is a bit wider than it seems to look. On the other hand, the boat can’t get too close to the shore without risking going aground.

Lounge and Narrow River

The glass blower was interesting. He told a story about making Christmas ornaments at a Christmas market, having a small girl want to blow one herself, and doing a particularly good job despite no experience. Then he had the woman seated next to me (Mira) come up and do the blowing to make an ornament, that he finished and gave to her.

Various Glass Items for Sale
Glass Sculpture
Glass Blower

After his talk/demonstration, he did a pretty brisk business. He had a large number of pieces for sale. Amy and I had gotten there a bit early and had seats in the front row. So when he finished, we quickly went up, grabbed the pieces we were interested in buying, and then proceeded to buy them. When we had finished, there was a significant line waiting to buy things.

I think of the ornaments as light, delicate things, but his are pretty robust. He kept banging them hard against the table to show that they did not break. They are a little heavier than commercial ornaments, but not really heavy. Still, the “bang!” when he hit the table would make me jump.

It ended around 11:30, and our afternoon excursion didn’t begin until 3:15. I saw walls next to the boat, and I figured that we were in yet another lock, but Amy told me that we were actually moored, and that we could explore the town if we wanted. It wasn’t currently raining, but I was worried about being cold and wet, so I put on a red fleece shirt and my red fleece jacket. I found out that we were moored at a small town called Freudenberg. There were the ruins of a small castle on the hill above town. I thought that it was just a quick stop to drop off the glass blower, but it turns out we were going to be there for a while. Lunch was from 12:30 to 2:00, and we just needed to be back no later than about 3 or 3:15 to make it to the day’s excursion.

Amy and I wandered through town a bit. It quickly became apparent that we had different styles. Amy was fascinated by everything and was taking pictures of everything. The net effect was that she wandered at a glacial pace. I thought things were somewhat interesting, but I was not nearly as fascinated as Amy, and I was going crazy walking around at a snail’s pace. Finally, I suggested that we split up and meet at the boat at 1 for lunch.

Interesting Window
Small Park
Interesting Sign
Small Castle Above Town
Small Castle and Town
Flooded Something

We found the town square, where there was a map of the town, and it seemed to show a path leading up to the castle ruins. I wasn’t sure if I had time to get up there and back, but I decided to try.

I tried one route which ended up being incorrect. I was kicking myself for not taking a picture of the map before leaving it. I went down the street a short ways, and then I found the beginning of the path. I started up it, and I found that it had about a bazillion steps. I quickly took off my fleece jacket, and I almost took off my long-sleeved shirt, but I didn’t want to have to carry both shirt and jacket.

Start of Path
Bazillion Steps

I started at 12:40, and at 12:50, I was high enough up that I didn’t want to waste my effort and turn around. I kept going “a little further”, and of course the further I went, the less likely I was to turn around. I was breathing hard, but maybe around 1:00 I got to the castle ruins. Strangely enough, they had some sort of metal bleachers installed inside the ruins. I imagine it would be a great place to watch a performance of Macbeth or Hamlet. I wished I had more time to explore, but I was already running late. I took a handful of pictures and then started down.

View of River
Lower Castle Walls
Castle Proper
View Down from Castle
View Up from Bottom
Interesting Mushrooms

I hadn’t counted the steps on the way up because I hadn’t known that there would be so many.   I counted them on the way down. I might have lost count in the middle. I think there were 450 steps, but there might have been only 350. I got back to the boat at 1:15, rather sweaty. I definitely got my exercise today!

I saw Amy by the gangway. It turns out that she figured that I wouldn’t be back at 1, and so she only arrived at the boat a few minutes earlier. She went in to grab a spot at a table, and I dropped off my excess clothes in the room and joined her for lunch.

While we were eating, we noticed that it was now raining. It seems that if I had been 15 minutes later, I would have gotten wet (I didn’t bring an umbrella). Since then, there have been periods of rain and periods of almost sun. It will be interesting to see what happens when we have our afternoon tour.

Boy, did we luck out with the weather today!

I already mentioned how we had rain during the glass blowing demo, rain during lunch, but that it was dry while Amy and I were walking around.

After lunch, when I was getting ready for the afternoon excursion, it became somewhat warm and sunny! We were joking “what is that bright thing up in the sky???” Or “What is this strange blueness that we see overhead?”

I was paranoid about being cold and wet, so I put umbrellas and my down vest in my backpack, then wore my heavy gray fleece shirt and my raincoat. I had to run back to get Amy’s Audiovox, so I changed into a lighter maroon fleece shirt. There was a short wait for the busses, and while we were waiting, I was getting hot, so I took my raincoat off and stuffed that into my pack as well. I was still warm and had to pull up my sleeves. We had a maybe 10 minute drive to Miltenberg, and then we divided into groups for the various guides.

They have an interesting sense of humor here. There were some free public toilets, and to advertise this, they had a statue/fountain of three boys peeing!

Advertisement for Toilets
Old Town Alley
Camino de Santiago!
Miltenberg Old Town Square
Old Inn
Old Inn
Main Street

We went through the old town section and then a bit of the newer section. Amy, of course, was completely captivated by the architecture and other details and took a plethora of pictures. This lasted about an hour, and then we had a half hour to explore on our own. We visited a few shops and then went up the hill a short distance. Our guide had suggested that we check out this small dark doorway at the end of the alley, and that we would find something that would take us back to the Middle Ages. I wasn’t sure what to expect.

On the other side of the doorway that there was a path angling up the hillside, with green growth everywhere but on the path. One could easily imagine that we were in a pre-industrial age traveling through the forest.

Path Leading Up
Path Keeps Going Up

The path goes up and then joins a collection of other walking paths. I took some pictures and then hurried down to get to the busses at the scheduled time. Interestingly, they had one double-decker bus, so Amy and I went up to the top to enjoy a better view on the short ride back to the boat.

It was pretty amazing that we had a fair amount of rain today, but never while Amy and I were out and about. It was even almost warm.

Now the ship is sailing further upstream. We just went through a lock, and both Amy and I took time-lapse videos of the lock process.

Approachcing Another Lock
View from Bow

We had a very nice dinner with a pair of sisters that we’ve gotten friendly with: Theresa and Jo. I came up to finish today’s notes, and I checked out the bow of the boat. It is actually fairly nice out—not raining and not too cool. I noticed a spider web highlighted by the lighting and the dark background, so I took some pictures. I then noticed that the spider was in the middle of the web, so I got some pictures of the spider as well.

Spider and Web
Spider

Tomorrow is going to be an interesting day. We’re going on an all day (8.5 hour) excursion. This means that we’ll be eating lunch at a restaurant in town. The weather looks promising for the morning, but then around noon the chance of rain rises to about 50%. It will be interesting to see how our luck holds tomorrow.

Up to Europe Trip 2024 main page

Tuesday: October 1

Thursday: October 3