We awoke as we docked into Wertheim this morning. It is a smaller Medival village of about 9500 people. We met for breakfast and visited with a couple from St. Agustine Florida. After breakfast Ken, Ken, Kay and Julie Ann headed into town on their own. Fran, Dennis, Mary Lou and Glenda took the local tour with the guide.
We started out walking a shop lined cobblestone street. We spotted a narrow walk way that went upward toward the Burg Wertheim Castle. We followed it up and low and behold we found the castle entrance. We wandered around the castle for some time and eventually climbed the many steps to the top of the lookout tower. It has spectacular view of the Main River Valley through Wertheim. The castle was built around 1100 AD.
We then ventured back into the town via an alternate stairway route. It led us to the doors of the Protestant Collegiate Church in Wertheim. We went in and looked around but the interior was pretty plain in comparison to where we have been in the past several days. The town is filled with many “half timbered” homes and shops. This is the look of Bavarian buildings that have stucco exterior accented with wood beam in various designs showing from the outside.

We rose at about 7 again this morning and at 8:30 we boarded the bus at Miltenberg and began the 1 1⁄2 hour drive to Heidelberg. We drove through the Old World Forest which the area that Dwight D. Eisenhowers father was from. Reminded us a lot of the Black Hills of S. Dakota with lots of evergreen thickly populated and rolling hills of red sandstone.

We arrived in Heidelberg and went directly to the Heidelberg Castle. It was another huge Castle complex in need of much repair. We toured it for about 1 hour and then went into the center of the town. There we walked the streets of Old Heidelberg and then walked into the University area. You can imagine the crowd with 28,000 students returning to the University. There were shops which most of the group began to work over. Ken and JA found a Starbucks and got connected and bought a Heidelberg Starbucks Cup. Kay and Mary Lou found a Christmas store and found a few treasures. That now makes it Vienna, Nurenburg and Heidelburg for this trip for new Starbucks cup....more to follow for sure.

Our day began waking up to rain and fog. The first really hard rain we have had in the entire trip. We grabbed the umbrellas, jackets and caps and headed for a little mini train that picked us up at the boat for the trip to this sleepy little town. Rudesheim is known for their wine growing which is primarily for Reisling. The town is 10,500 people and they have 3 million visitors per year.

Our little train took us to the base of a gondola lift. There we took the gondola up to the Niederwald Monument to German Unity. This is a small Statue of Liberty type of monument on the side of the mountain surrounded by vineyards. The gondola ride was about 10 minutes directly over the top of the vineyards. We could see the grapes going but they are about 1 month away from harvest.

We woke this morning in dock in the center of Cologne. We opted not to take the included tour today that was to start at 9 am. Ken, Ken, Kay and Julie Ann left the boat at 7 am for a stroll around Cologne. We walked through the old market area of the old town but it was really quiet at that time of day. We continued our walk toward the giant towers of the Cologne Cathedral that we could see off in the distance. That walk went through the new shopping district of large shops and incredible bakeries. We found a Starbucks and it was just a coincidence that Ken W had his computer with him so we had a coffee and used their wifi to get connected.

After the wifi fix we walked over the Cathedral. This was started in the early 1300’s and was finished in the late 1800’s. It had huge spires and great sculpted figures and images all around the building. We went into the Cathedral and a mass was in progress. It was filled with a few thousand students attending this mass in honor of their returning to school the following week. We listened to the organ music for a while and then left to continue our journey through town. We wandered the streets for a while, then we ended up back at the Cathedral just as the mass was finishing so we went in and toured the interior. Not as ornamental on the inside of many of the churches we had been through but still impressive.