Grand European Tour and Christmas Markets : Neuremberg Dec 8

Thursday, Dec 8

Once again we stop briefly to let off passengers to board busses for excursions, and the ship moves on to meet us later up river. We are on the Main-Rhine canal now, leading to the Danube. Our destination today is the town or Neuremberg, where the famous war crimes trials took place. But it is also an ancient city which was heavily bombed during the war. Much of the old town still exists and dates back to the 12th century, but much was destroyed and rebuilt, which accounts for varied architecture as we pass through on our way to the old walled city.

We were taken on a bus tour around the second largest city in Bavaria, before starting our walking tour. The day started with snow flakes, and stayed quite chilly, but we enjoyed our tour, then went on by ourselves to the Christmas market. We found the brass ring in the fence surrounding the beautiful and ornate old fountain, and rubbed it for good luck, then enjoyed seeing the ornaments and food in the stalls. We found a restaurant for lunch to sample the local finger sausages and kraut, hoping to rest our legs and warm us, but found we were seated front and center by the opening door, which did little to warm us! Heading back out, we had some hot chocolate in a particularly neat Gluwein mug, not being ready to drink mulled wine, hit some more market stalls, then the Toy Museum, before finishing up and heading back to our bus in another part of town.

The stalls and shops are full of Lebkuchen, the famous gingerbread Neurenberg is noted for and has baked for over 600 years, and we had to try some. We found it very different from what we know, with milder spice, dried fruit, and somewhat sticky, baked on a thin wafer. Once we discovered it was a wafer and not paper, it was easier to eat, and very good! It comes in different sizes and shapes, ranging to quite large, with some coated with chocolate or a colored icing. I think I will look up a recipe when we get back, because I’d like to have some again, but I sure don’t need to eat anything more here!

The markets and the lights are so festive, its really fun to browse, even though we didn’t buy anything. I find I am very tempted by the little wooden characters who smoke and I may just have to purchase one before the trip is over!

We returned to our ship where we were greeted by the staff with hot toddy’s to warm us! We were just in time for an evening lecture about Bavaria and King Ludwig and his son, who built many of the structures, including the magnificent Neuschwanstein Castle, which we saw many years ago. Then we heard the port talk to prepare us for the next day’s adventure, and had dinner.

During dinner it was announced we were going through an 82 foot lock and past the continental divide, and we were able to go out on the side deck and see the massive walls, with no sky in sight, and watch the water rush in to carry us up! Amazing! One of the 69, but the largest, which carries us through a 1200 foot elevation difference. Dark out, and the wheel house down to clear the low bridges, we are not able to see the wall that marks the divide, but we saw slides of the rather mundane marker, and didn’t think we missed much.

Tired from a very full day, we headed back to our room to relax and rest up. No special entertainment tonight anyway, so we weren’t missing anything. Some nights there are contests of some sort, or music by the on board pianist, and one night they brought a duo aboard to entertain us. A little rest is all the entertainment we needed tonight!