Sunday, May 31, 2009

Day 8: Cologne, Germany


Today we had an omelet instead of our usual scrambled eggs, bacon, and sausage. I guess we were feeling adventurous, lol. After breakfast, as usual, we left our tour guide behind and walked through the trash ridden streets. It was a ghost town for a while, but things picked up by the time afternoon arrived.
We made our way to the cathedral - a massive display of gothic architecture at it’s best. Apparently the cathedral took 640 years to build. There were a lot of church goers, being that it was Sunday morning. Inside we could only stare up at the elegant stained glass windows, simply jaw dropping. Attached to the ceiling was by far the largest organ I’d ever seen. We lit a candle and quietly exited the church.
While waiting for the Tourist Information place to open, we sat at a cafe overlooking the cathedral square and people watched. That’s an under rated activity, I must say. I had a glass of Champagne and an apple, sugar, and cinnamon crepe while Amber had an Irish coffee, which she thoroughly enjoyed.
At 10:00am we crossed the street and into the Tourist Information building. We got a map of the city and discussed what we wanted to do for the rest of the day. I picked a few nominees and Amber decided on one. We made our way to the Ancient Roman Ruins Excavation Exhibit. Not much to say, really. It was short and sweet - the way all museums should be.
Later we made our way back to the riverfront and strolled through a farmer’s market. I was ready to buy, but most items were antiques that were of no interest to me. We then went to Lindt’s Chocolate Museum. A very interactive, fun museum where you can actually see the machines making the chocolate in front of you. It was fun seeing all the different processes happen assembly line style.
Right outside the museum there was a terrace where we decided to grab a beer and some currywurst. Shortly thereafter we returned to the boat and took a nap. Around 6:00pm we woke up and had dinner at a cafe riverside. I ordered quatro formagio macaroni (which actually ended up being ziti) and Amber ordered the lasagna. After getting our meals, though, she wanted mine, so we switched. The lasagna was really good, so I didn’t mind.
After dinner we headed back to the boat in time to set sail for the Netherlands. We went to bed fairly early and I woke up around midnight, so I decided to come to the lobby and type up the trip report. Anyway, I’m gonna go to bed now so that I’m not exhausted tomorrow. Auf Wiedersehn!

Cologne - 6/10

Day 7: Cochem & Cologne, Germany

Cochem is absolutely beautiful. Lush rolling hillsides and wine vineyards fill the valley. Clean cobblestone streets with a number of shops and restaurants line the riverfront. Oh, and did I mention the bad ass huge castle overlooking everything?
After breakfast we walked the streets in search of our first excursion - a wine tasting in a cafe lined with beautiful ivy creeping up the outer walls. We had a Pinot Noir, and three Reislings. The owner spoke excellent english and was full on insight. That was probably my favorite excursion thus far, other than driving through the Black Forrest.
Once all the wine was gone we ditched our group, yet again, and roamed the streets in search of allergy medicine because my hay fever was reaching alarming levels at this point.
An hour later we found ourselves sitting on a terrace people watching while having lunch. Amber was craving Italian, so we both had spaghetti bolognese accompanied with a refreshing glass of pils.
12:30pm arrived and it was time to set sail to Cologne. We arrived in Cologne around midnight and decided to check out the city, since it was Saturday night. Thus far we’d been in small, quiet towns. However, Cologne is a pretty big city with a rambuncious young crowd - at least it was this night. A lot of drunken frat boys singing at the top of their lungs in the streets made for a pretty entertaining night. We stopped at a late night food stand and I got my usual - doner kebap and a beer - while amber chose unwisely and got a vegetarian pizza which she only ate half of.
We chose one of many pubs with loud hip hop music and dancing to grab a beer and watch the chaos. If I didn’t know any better I would have thought it was New Years, lol. Surprisingly, we were younger than most of the party goers, at least in this bar.
After an hour or so we were ready to hit the hay, and finally were able to sleep through the night! Today was my favorite day so far =)

Cochem - 9.5/10

Friday, May 29, 2009

Day 6: Rudesheim, Braubach, and Koblenz, Germany

Neither Amber nor myself wanted to take the Music Museum Tour, so we decided to walk back to town and see what we could find. We came across a Medieval Torture Museum, so we decided to check that out. Both of us were pretty creeped out by the place, not to mention that we love scary movies, and this place looked like something out of Tarantino’s Hostel movies, so we booked it out of there!
We had to be back by 12:30pm to embark towards Braubach. Along the way we passed a few castles overlooking the Rhine. They were pretty bad ass, I must say. We were both pretty tired, as usual, so we took an afternoon nap. Unfortunately we slept through Braubach and Koblenz. We woke up at 6:30pm, had some dinner on the ship, and then passed out in the room again. We’ve somehow developed a pattern of sleeping during the day and not being able to sleep at night, so I decided to write up these trip reports and hopefully the internet will finally work so that I can post them. Anyway, Day 7 is beginning now, so I’ll post about it tomorrow night.

Braubach - ??
Koblenz - ??

Day 5: Heidelberg & Rudesheim, Germany


We took a bus from Mannheim to Heidelberg in the morning. Our guide for the day was the worst yet, but the city of Heidelberg made up for it. We started the day by touring the ancient castle overlooking the city. The castle was fairly small, but the views overlooking the city, the Rhine, and the surrounding countryside were spectacular.
After our tour of the castle we made our way down to the city, where we proceeded to ditch our tour guide and head to an internet cafe to catch up on a few emails. We had an hour or so to stroll around the city, which had a huge pedestrian promenade with many shops and restaurants.
We grabbed a bite to eat - Amber had a margarita pizza and I had a doner kebab, both of which were terrible. We walked the streets for a bit and then headed back to the buses, which took us back to the boat.
The boat then sailed toward Rudesheim while Amber and I took our daily afternoon nap. Around 6:30pm we arrived in Rudesheim. Because the dinner menu looked unappetizing, we decided to walk around the town and find a restaurant on our own. There were many restaurants and bars with live music playing in many of them. It started to rain, so we took shelter in a bar and grabbed a beer. Then we continued down the main street until we found one of many restaurants that looked great.
We both had goulash for dinner, which was amazing =) We strolled the streets a while longer, and found a biergarten. A few drinks later we made our way back to the ship and called it a night.

Heidelberg - 9/10
Rudesheim - 8/10

Day 4: Strasbourg, France

Although we were supposed to tour Strasbourg, neither Amber nor myself had any sleep, so we decided to stay on the ship sleeping for most of the day. At this point I was pretty upset about the whole trip, given the boat didn’t even have a pool, the internet wasn’t working, no couple was even close to our age, and the chance of some time of refund was slim to none. We were seriously considering ditching the cruise and doing our own thing for the next ten days or so. We even got a map of Europe and started planning out where to go, but when push came to shove we gave in and decided to give the trip another shot. We slept through most of the day and decided to start fresh in Heidelberg. The highlight of the day was watching Planet Earth - Deserts.

Strasbourg - ??

Day 3: Breisach & Black Forrest, Germany

After breakfast we took buses through the cute town of Breisach and into the Black Forrest. Along the way we passed through a few cute, quaint little towns. We made two stops along the way. The first of which was a quick tour of St. Peter’s Cathedral. This non-traditional cathedral had walls of plaster and a lot of ornate paintings lining the walls. I gave it a 2/10.
Our next stop was deep in the beautiful mountains of the Black Forrest. One of the coolest (and biggest) gift shops I’ve ever been to. Full of cuckoo clocks, traditional German steins, swiss army knives, and home blown glass vases. We bought a cuckoo clock for Amber’s parents and a couple steins for ourselves.
We went across the courtyard to eat at the less popular restaurant (of the two). Unfortunately we had to leave before we had the chance to eat because our server decided to take a 5 top’s order before ours.
Once back to the ship, we had some free time, so we decided to walk around Breisach and find a place to eat. Along the way we bought a bottle of wine from a wine store and they recommended a few restaurants. We settled on one that featured traditional German dishes of the region. I had Burgundy marinated sirloin and Amber had black pepper crusted rack of lamb. Mine was better :p

We walked back to the ship and chilled in the room for a while. I decided to head to the lobby to see if I could get online and play some poker. When I came back to the room an hour and a half later, the lights were on, the window was open, Amber’s room key was on the desk, and everything else looked normal... except no Amber. I searched the boat (by this time I was the only passenger still awake), but couldn’t find her anywhere. I told the girl at the front desk that my girlfriend was missing and she helped me look, but after a few loops around the boat it was obvious to both of us that Amber was no longer on the boat.
She notified the captain, who then notified the whole crew to search the boat, but still no Amber. At this point I was starting to panic because I figured that she must have fallen out the boat and into the Rhine. The captain called all of the checkpoint stations we had passed and eventually got in touch with someone who had Amber with them. A few hours later, the police caught up with our boat and she was able to re-board the ship. She was totally disoriented and dirty, badly bruised and cold.
She still doesn’t quite know what happened. I think she must have hit her head and fallen out of the boat. She thinks she may have been sleepwalking. Regardless, I was happy that she was safe and we crashed in bed - both exhausted because at this point it was 6:00am.

Breisach - 8.5/10
Black Forrest - 10/10

Day 2: Basel, Switzerland


We had an early morning breakfast, and then rode the buses to town. Once downtown, we were given a guided tour through the Old Town. Strolling through the cobblestone streets, we arrived at the Basel Munster, the city’s cathedral. The architecture was pretty cool, and there was a beautiful open courtyard with flowers in full bloom. On the terrace there were some great views overlooking the Rhine and countryside.

We were given a half hour to shop around and be on our own, so Amber and I headed up the pedestrian mall and found a modern home improvement store similar to Crate & Barrel and the like. We bought a few items and then had a beer at a streetside cafe.
Next, we walked up to the “Internationally Recognized Museum.” I’ve been to my fair share of museums, and I must say that this one had to be in my bottom five. Mostly it was the due to the chaos in and around the museum, but I’ll give most of the credit to the tour guide. She spent the majority of the time talking up her favorite painter before we were even allowed to see anything. By the time we actually got to see our first painting we had only 20 minutes left to see what we could of the rather small museum.
After catching the buses back to the boat we had a quick lunch and then took an afternoon nap, as both Amber and I were still pretty jet lagged. We woke up for an unimpressive dinner and then headed back to the room and watched Planet Earth - Seasonal Forrests and called it a night.

Basel - 6/10

Day 1: Basel, Switzerland

We flew from Denver to Frankfurt, Germany and had a four hour lay over before making the short flight from Frankfurt to Basel. Basel is located at the intersection of Switzerland, Germany, and France. We landed in the late afternoon and were on the ship by 6:30pm. Unfortunately the ship isn't a typical cruise liner - there isn't food out all the time - just during breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Also, there is no swimming pool or any other amenities :(
We had a traditional Swiss dinner on the boat and then crashed fairly quickly. At dinner we noticed that of the 200 or so people on the ship, we were by far the youngest couple there. There was one other girl our age, and the next youngest couple was probably around 50 or so. Depressingly, the average age of each couple on the ship seems to be around 65 or so...