Viking Grand European River Cruise: 6/15/2016

6/15/2016 - Wednesday

We have just passed through a 20' lock and I am sure that we went through a bunch while we were sleeping last night. Our elevation is somewhere around 110 meters right now according to GPS but I am not sure how much higher we need to get to be able to go back down to the Danube. At any rate we will be motoring along until about 1400 this afternoon when we will reach our next stop, Miltenburg. Until then, there just isn't anything to do except eat and drink and rest and relax.

In the meantime, here are a few pictures from last night.

A breakfast menu out on the Aquavit Terrace. The same menu plus a very large buffet can be accessed down in the dinning room.

A dinner menu from one night.

One of our Dinner menus

Poached salmon.

Entering one of the small locks.

Cannons looking out from Marksburg castle.... guarding the river.

We approached Miltenburg after enjoying a beautiful cruise along the very scenic Main River Valley. We departed our ship for a walking tour at around 1330 hours and had an enjoyable 1.5 hours with our guide. The town of Miltenburg is a beautiful old town, first settled by the Romans around 50 AD. The interesting aspects of the town are the half-timbered houses (many built around 600-700 years ago) and the castle. This region is famous also for the Riesling wines that are produced in the area.

Of course there is a local Bruhaus... which we visited. We spent about 4 hours in the town and that was probably enough.

Returning to the ship was a bit complicated and interesting. They departed Miltenburg immediately after we left the ship because it takes a lot of time to pass thorough the locks and they were able to save 3 or 4 hours of travel by doing so. However, that meant that we had to take a bus from Miltenburg to catch up with the ship. Four big buses transported us and the Viking staff were in touch with the ship all the time. It turned out that the ship had been help up somewhat and we had to take all of these buses down into a tiny village to meet the ship after it exited a lock. It was pretty funny watching the villages gawk at the caravan of buses coming through and disgorging 190 North Americans. We made it on board and went immediately to a wonderful dinner and to bed around 2130 hours... We were fairly tired and happy to get some sleep. Tomorrow we visit Wurzburg!

We are sitting on the Aquavit Terrace enjoying the scenic river valley.

One of the numerous castles that guard the river.

A nice example of the half timbered houses that were the favored construction in Bavaria and Franconia. It is said that if you were rich you would build your house out of the red sandstone that is so common in the area.

Below each castle is the settlement where people lived during peaceful times. They apparently retreated to the castle if there was any danger.

Many of the castles were well kept and still in use.

A friendly dog was saying Hi to us as we passed by.

Some of the bridges along this stretch of the river are very low and the entire upper (sun deck) deck is collapsed (even the wheelhouse) so that we can get under!

Arriving in Meltinburg.

Downtown Meltenburg

Our tour guide stopped in a wine shop and showed us the bottle that is an approved shape for Franconian wine . The shape is called Ziegen Blase (goat's bladder).

The narrow main street much as it might have been in the 1600s. The original town had a single street that stretched for 1.5 miles.

More of the beautiful 1/2 timbered houses.

This is the old market square where they shared their goods and burned witches. They say they move the witch burning down closer to the river after a while because of the fear of fire!