Bamberg, Germany

 

Early morning brought Foggy weather and the "ship swap".  All of our luggage would  be trucked to Nuremberg to an identical  ship since low water is preventing our current ship from progressing.  Viking has this process down pat. 

This meant a long 4 hr bus ride for us to Nuremberg. 

Comfortable as we watched the scenery. 

We were on the German autobahn but it seemed like any US interstate highway. 

After a quick lunch on our new ship, we boarded the busses for our tour of Nuremberg.   We went by the sites where Hitler gave his "rallies".  

There was construction  and barricades  so was not very tourable.

On to less somber venues, the city wall from around the year 1000 is largely intact.

Some very old buildings too.

Next we made our way up the hill to the Nuremberg castle. 

The "keep" was built around 1050. 

View of the Old city from the castle. 

Some of the structures were a little later in the 1300's. 

Walking on thru the old part of town.

Beautiful catholic church.

Old city hall, I think.

A Gothic fountain in the square

A Catholic church.

And more city walking. 

Busy market area

And this is St Lorenz, a Lutheren church.

And this strange more recent sculpture called the Marrige Carousel. 

One of the coolest subway entrances, under a 13th century tower.

Back on the boat for a lovely evening. 

Thru several locks as we had dinner at the bow of the ship 

Lovely sunset we will be in Bamberg tomorrow. 

Engelhartszell, Germany

 We woke to rainy skies....not enough to change water levels....just enough to be annoying.  Buses ready to carry us 2 hours to Regensburg, Germany. 

On the bus, we drove thru several small towns, the on an interstate type road.

Lovely countryside along the way.

Lots of solar farms -our guide said Germany  uses about 60% renewable energy! 

Arrival to the old part of Regensburg.  The town was not damaged in WW2 so many 1000 year old buildings remain.

We walked over the oldest stone bridge in Germany,  built in 1135!

Buildings on a branch of the Danube.

We had a guide again, so enjoyed 90 minutes of narrated walking.

This building was built in the year 197 by Marcus Aurellius. Pretty old!

Lots of the usual cool street scenes.

Last stop on the guided tour was the St. Peter's Cathedral. 

Inside was beautiful  but not quite as ornate as some we've seen. 

After the guided tour  we had a few hours on our own.  The guide had pointed out a sausage house that had been in constant operation for 900 years so we had to try it out.  I had to opt for a vegetarian dish but Duane said the sausages were very good.  Here is a view we had of the kitchen thru very an old wavy glass window.

More wandering as we found a couple of postcards, then found the post office to mail the postcards to our kids like we do every trip.  

Stopped by a bier garten for a cold beverage before it was time to head back to the bus. 

Back across the old stone bridge.

The ride back to the boat was a little longer with some traffic.  But nice sights along the way.

More agricultural land.

And very well groomed forest land. 

Back to the boat for the evening,  we were informed that we will have a "ship swap" tomorrow  due to low water levels.  Unfortunately,  we will have to pack our suitcases  and put them out for collection by 7am in the morning.   We will then ride a bus 4 hours to Nuremberg where we will board a different boat.  Not great but we were aware of this possibility  when we made the decision to continue on the trip.  Viking is making it as painless as possible.