Saturday, June 13, 2015 Nuremberg enroute Regensburg

We went to bed about 11 last night. I woke up at 3 AM and Celeste said she had already been awake for about an hour. I was able to get back to sleep, but Celeste was not. Before I fell back asleep I heard some noises like we were starting up, as the plan was to move overnight from our position North of town to a new location in the Nuremberg harbour. I awoke again at 5:30 and heard water lapping, but I did not feel any movement, so I thought we must be in our new spot. Celeste was sitting by the window, looking out. Lo and behold, we were still underway, but there was actually no sensation of movement. We watched the world go by for a while before showering and going for breakfast. We were surprised by how close we sometimes came to the bank – as close as about ten feet. It made us wonder how deep the water was and how much water the boat drew.

Does Neil Schiisler have a grain handling business over here?

We joined our new pilot and teacher couple friends and enjoyed an excellent buffet breakfast, followed by an included tour. First stop was the grounds where Hitler staged his Nazi Party parades. Some parts had been destroyed and others grown over, but the site is still used for things like rock concerts – AC/DC was here a couple of weeks ago. Today they were setting up for a car race. From there we went to the location where the Nazi party leaders were tried after the war and the neighbouring prison where they were held. Then we went to the fortress which was the reason for the founding of the city. From there we walked down to the main square and the old city, where we wandered around for a while.

After the tour, we drove to another new docking location at Roth. They moved the ship while we were touring as the ship is much slower than the buses and this practice gains quite a bit of time. We were tied up alongside another Viking ship and had to walk through their ship to get to ours. We sat down to a buffet lunch with our new pals shortly after 1 PM and were soon back in motion.

At 2:30 we attended a lecture about Bavaria. The speaker was very interesting, but we felt sorry for him as at least half the audience, including us, kept nodding off. I don’t envy anyone speaking to a bunch of seniors suffering from jet lag right after lunch with included wine and beer. After the lecture, Celeste had a short nap. I was afraid to go to sleep, because I did not trust myself to wake up for German Tea Time at 4 PM. 

After tea, again with our new pals, we attended another presentation about the Rhine-Main-Danube Canal. There we learned that the canal is 100 feet wide at the bottom, 180 feet wide at the top, and 13 feet deep. The ship draws about six feet.

At dinner, we sat with our new buddies again and were joined by another couple from El Salvador. They run a family business that mines and exports calcium carbonate. He had a non-malignant cyst in his brain several years ago, which was successfully treated. A year ago it came back and was again successfully treated, but it changed his outlook on life. He said he was given a second chance to enjoy life and he was going to take it. So, he has delegated much of the business responsibility to the kids and he and his wife are taking more time for themselves. They are currently on a two month tour of Europe, of which this cruise is only a small part.

We also met another Saskatchewanian couple. The wife was a nurse, originally from Quill Lake, who took her nursing at the General Hospital in Regina. She married a Dutchman and they have lived in the Saskatoon area for many years. After our presentations earlier, there was a welcome to the ship toast. The host asked where people were from - mostly the USA from many different states. He asked about Canada, and which provinces. The other couple identified themselves, so as we were all leaving I voiced the universal Saskatchewan greeting, "Go Riders!" Later we were able to have a few words about our personal stories.

We went through a few locks, including the largest ones on the canal, lifting us 82 feet at a time, passed over the continental divide between the North Sea and Black Sea, and started down the other side through some more locks. We will be cruising overnight and arriving in Regensburg in the morning.

The sky was mostly thin overcast until mid-afternoon, then clearing with a high about 85 F or 30 C. It was quite pleasant with a breeze in the early part of the day, but became quite warm in the sun by afternoon.

Friday, June 12, 2015 Nuremberg (Nürnberg)

Around 6 AM Frankfurt time, they fed us a breakfast that was kind of disappointing. I expected more from LH. We arrived in Frankfurt only about 15 minutes late, so we made good time. Customs and immigration was quick and uneventful. We made our way through probably a mile of airport terminal to our departure gate for Nuremberg. They called for boarding at 9:30. We boarded a bus, waited quite a while, and then drove a couple of miles on the tarmac to our airplane, a Bombardier CRJ900. By the time we loaded, taxied out, and departed, it was 10:30. Twenty minutes later we landed in Nuremberg. I can’t imagine anyone taking this flight unless they were connecting from somewhere much farther away from Frankfurt.

We got to our ship about 11:30. It is very nice, only about a year old, and bigger than I had imagined. They had a buffet lunch set up but we could not get into our room right away as they were still cleaning up from the cruise that had just left.

The view from our room is not that great tied up at this particular mooring.

We took a shuttle bus downtown, wandered around for a while, bought some souvenirs, and had a snack. We were back on board by 4:30 and finally lay down for a proper nap after being up about 26.5 hours. We ordered a wake-up call for 6 so we could take in the orientation, then went for dinner. We sat with a retired United pilot whose wife was a special ed teacher, and a businessman, who had been a high school teacher, and his wife, who had also done some teaching. It was an interesting discussion and we solved a lot of problems. Too bad we didn’t have any decision-makers sitting in. We went back to our room about 9 and settled in for the night.

I asked the United pilot if he had ever flown the Seattle to New York route (on which they often flew DC8s north into Canada to catch the jet stream). He said he had, so I told him he was talking to me, which led to an overall aviation discussion. He also said he flew Boeing 747s out of Chicago and Minneapolis to the Far East, which also would have flown through Regina airspace back in the day.

Weather was sunny with a high over 90 F or 33 C.

Thursday, June 11, 2015 Regina to Nuremberg

Brett picked us up a little before 8 on his way to work and dropped us at the airport for our 10 AM flight. So began our 16-hour travel day from flight departure to arrival, not including driving at either end. All was uneventful at the airport and on the flight, which departed on time. We watched movies enroute.

On arrival in Toronto, we were standing at the departure board trying to locate the departure gate for our next flight when Doug and Karen Haughey walked up behind us and said hello. Linda Kuntz had told us that they were going to Rome on the same day as we were and we thought there was a chance we might meet up. Their flight was right behind ours and they practically walked into us while discussing to be on the lookout. After Rome, they are going on to Greece, where Doug has rented a sailboat for a week of cruising with his two sisters and their spouses. We split up for a while, but got back together later in the international terminal for a bite to eat and a very nice visit.

We departed on a Lufthansa Boeing 747-400 about 40 minutes late at 7:20. We watched movies and had a decent meal about 9 PM EDT. We caught a few winks of sleep, but were mostly unsuccessful.