Thursday, October 8, 2015
Clay woke us both up before 6am again. Things were a bit off
this morning as people were moving luggage and leaving today. Clay was able to
get some fried eggs this morning so he was satisfied. Our dining companions
ordered porridge and instead got poached eggs so they were a little less
satisfied. I just stayed with the buffet.
Since our 2 tours were running together today since we had a
2 hour drive in the morning and about 1.5 hours in the afternoon to rejoin the
boat, they fed us lunch in a restaurant today. We were surprised to wake up at
Straubing instead of Regensburg. I am sure those people disembarking were even
more surprised. It looks like a dirt levee-top single top road. It pretty much
is but it looks like the middle of nowhere. At least it wasn’t raining. We left
about 8:30am with 14 people. Five chose to stay onboard. It might have been a
smarter option but the help acted like they really wanted us out of our cabins and
the restaurants so I don’t think I’d have been comfortable here. We did a drive
around Nuremburg then a walking tour inside the medieval walls. It is such a
pretty city in there around the castle. We walked by the Albrecht Durer house
and the Rathaus. We walked to the Frauenkirche as the animated bell tower clock
was ringing noon! Sadly, like the stone bridge yesterday, the signature fancy
fountain was covered up with scaffolding. The open air market didn’t seem as
special either. We only had about an hour of free time, so we didn’t go far or
do much. Clay bought and ate a chocolate lebkuchen. I guess it was only OK
because he didn’t get anymore.
We had lunch at a wine place just off the main square in the
old Spital monastery. It was very good and it was also our restroom stop. Free
toilets! Yeah! They served iced tap water, pancake soup, Nuremburg sausages
with sauerkraut and German potato salad followed by cheesecake. No tea or
coffee were offered. They just came and collected money from those who had
ordered other drinks. We reboarded the bus and drove to the site of the
Nuremburg Trials. It is still a working courtroom, so you can’t visit but they
show you the outside of the courtrooms and the prison. Then we drove out to the
Nazi Parade Grounds/Zeppelin fields. This place gives me the willies. It was different
this time in that they are allowing weeds to overtake it and grow out of cracks
everywhere. They had up signs about their restoration/renovation/preservation
efforts but I thought at first that they were allowing it to be demolished by
neglect. Weird. We then made a final stop of about an hour at the Documentation
Center Nazi Party Rally Grounds in the unfinished Congress Hall. It was just
creepy and disturbing. No one can ever explain what happened and it seemed too
much like honoring Hitler and the rest and justifying it. We had never been to
this center before. I think if I had known what it was I might have skipped the
whole day. The boat was docked in Regensburg when we rejoined it. So, we just
keep falling further behind each day. I don’t know where all the new passengers
joined. If they boarded in Straubing or Regensburg or both or somewhere else!
Regensburg was packed with river boats when we arrived and like the stone
bridge, the whole river side area was a construction zone. Not conducive or
appealing. We arrived back about 6:30pm. Simona came on with an announcement
asking everyone to come to a quick safety briefing before dinner at 7pm. We
have new people from Netherlands, Belgium and I don’t know where else. Simona
asked if everyone was English speaking and no one responded so she said good,
this sailing is all in English. She sounded like we are going to be sailing
hard day and night through the canal to try to catch up with the schedule. She
said that the captain has closed off the sun deck for this sailing. She also
introduced a string quartet that is the centerpiece of the large Dutch group’s
reason for coming. The leader spoke and explained this to the rest of us with
the open invitation for the rest of us to attend their performances in Panorama
Lounge, as long as we understood this was acoustic music and required us not to
drink and talk or more around in the lounge while they were in there. Since the
sun deck is closed there is not a lot of public space left if they are taking the
lounge over. We’ll see. Dinner was not as not as disturbing as last night’s
with jellied pig head or as unappealing as the Gala Farewell, but it was a
clear winner of 3rd worst. I ate the always available chicken breast
and nothing else. We had just all gotten used to wait staff to find they had
shuffle stations this cruise and we got new waiters. We also got a new cabin
stewardess. Oh well. I am sure this week will fly by just like last week did.
