My Passport’s Travels

It’s another busy day! We had a lovely breakfast in the dining room and were ready for our excursion at 10am. We (and almost everyone else on the longboat) were off for Panoramic Mannheim & Yuletide Market.

We had a short 10 minute bus ride into town, passing the castle along the way (it’s now used by the university).

Once in town, our guide Christiane gave us a short walking tour of the main square. It was funny hearing Mannheim referred to as a ‘baby city’, as it’s only 419 years old. These entrances are on either end of the concert hall.(Sidenote: there is a musical notation called a Mannheim Steamroller, a crescendo, named for the city of Mannheim, which is what Chip Davis named his band Mannheim Steamroller for.)

Carl Benz was from Mannheim. This car was the forerunner to Mercedes Benz. Mannheim is also home to Spaghetti Eis – vanilla ice cream is pushed through a noodle press to make the Spaghetti, then topped with strawberry sauce (marinara) and white chocolate shavings (Parmesan).

The water tower is the city symbol. On top is Poseidon’s wife, the goddess of rivers and streams.

After 30 minutes or so, we were set loose on the Christmas market for just over an hour. This one was lovely – not so crowded, kids excited for the rides, lots of lovely things to look at – and another Glühwein mug!

These cakes are baked on a rod, so they’re hollow, and while they’re cooking, layers of batter are added so it’s almost like a crepe cake.

The Christmas Pyramid was a couple of stories tall (and it didn’t flash like the video makes it look, the lights were steady).

It was the perfect amount of time here – we had just finished walking the market when it was time to meet the bus to head back to our ship – which had continued up the Rhein without us! We stopped in a small town where the ship was waiting, jumped on board (thank you for the lovely warm, lemon-scented towels) and within five minutes of Mom and I boarding, as we were the last guests on, the boat cast off.

Lunch! We had a lovely meal with the Mother and daughters from California, Texas and Hawaii. I had the Farmers Market salad (a chef’s salad, but fancy, with prosciutto) and an amazing chocolate brownie with salted caramel sauce and vanilla ice cream. Mom had a baby shrimp sandwich (which was a better call than my salad) and chocolate mousse (I won the dessert battle). Throughout the meal we kept oohing and aaahing over the countryside, so we grabbed our coats and headed up to the Sun deck to enjoy the gorgeous, but cold, view.

The ship is offering high tea today, but as we’ve eaten only an hour or so ago, we decided to forgo the offering. Instead, we’re enjoying some down time in the room while we sail down the Rhein.

Couple of random thoughts as we’re about halfway through the cruise:

1. Heated bathroom floors are heavenly, especially in the middle of the night
2. It’s so nice to get a card at every stop with the ship’s location information on it. We haven’t needed it, but it’s nice to have just in case. If needed, you can just hand it to the taxi driver.
3. The room is compact, but thoughtfully laid out. It’s very easy to keep neat and still feel like we have everything where we can get to it fairly easily.
4. There’s both a US and a European plug on both sides of the bed as well as both plugs on both ends of the desk.
5. You can bring on any food/drinks you like for snacking (which has been helpful a couple of times already).
6. The shower doors push in on both sides, which makes the bathroom feel much larger when you’re not in the shower.
7. When in port – we have to look for the “lollypops” that have our ship number (51), as well as excursion letter to be sure we stay with the group from our ship. We also get assisted listening devices to use and between all the Viking ships in port, they have to coordinate who uses which channel.
8. On a river cruise, the port talk each day is important. There are often logistics that are discussed, which become especially important when the ship drops everyone off in one town with the expectation of picking them back up from their excursion in another town.
9. We’ve been very grateful for long coats that go almost to our knees. Outdoor seats are cold!!
10. Laura has kept us in water all week!

Upon arrival in Rüdesheim, we bundled up and headed out. And were promptly stopped at the door. While we were allowed off the ship quickly, it took longer than I expected.

The doors finally opened and the tide surged. Only to stop as those in front realized it was raining and decided to turn around and come back in to get umbrellas Viking had available to borrow. But eventually, it was all sorted out and we were on the short 10 minute walk into town. (Viking offered a tram for those who couldn’t make the walk.) As a side note, the rain lasted about 5 minutes and it never was very hard. We made our way to the Christmas market and hit another wall of people. We knew it was Saturday night, and we had passed several river cruise ships on the way in, but we were not prepared for the humanity. After walking single file, half steps at a time, we made it about half a block in and decided it was too crowded for us! I took a couple of pictures – because it was lovely, then we turned around and single-file, half-stepped our way back out of the market.

On the walk back, we counted the cruise ships – 11, including our Einar. We calculated that each ship had around 190 passengers, plus the 9800 residents – that made for a whole heck of a lot of people in town! We arrived back in time to drop all our winter wear in the stateroom and head up for dinner. We ended up sitting with a gentleman from Virginia named Bob, who’s retired and fosters Pitt Bulls for the local SPCA. It was a lovely evening! Interestingly, while dinner service started slow, by the time we were served dessert, the restaurant was probably 2/3rds full – which means we weren’t the only ones who decided to call it an early night from the Market. Mom and I both had the Spundekäs (paprika cream cheese with pumpernickel bread crumbs), it came with a pretzel chip and dill pickle slices. Yum! I tried the lamb shoulder roast (too fatty for me) but loved the sauce and potato croquettes that came with it. Mom had a rib eye with French fries and veggies. She said it was great! We both enjoyed the chocolate cherry cake for dessert. And I remembered I could ask for a cheese plate as well, which I took back to the room for snacks.

After dinner, I went up on deck to take a few pictures before bed – the town really is lovely in the evening.