[On the Rhine:] 

w

In winebar, in Speter, in extremis.

(Female Post) Guess what: we´re happy, and both of us at the same time! Those of you who know our temperaments will be amazed. There´s something to be said for this cruise business. In fact, they may have to peel us, whimpering, off the boat in Basel now that we´re used to the pampering. The staff practically lick our feet (as I suppose they should if we follow the suggested guidelines for tipping at the end!). We´ve had a lot of fun with the crew, all of whom seem to be genuinely friendly. 

On the other hand, we are a bit weary of the walking tours with the earplugs... we try to hide our receivers so we don´t look like we belong to the group, and we hang in the rear, much as some of us did in school, at the back of the class. The tours are relentless, so we skipped one today as we´re tired and it´s cold and rainy (for the first time). Yesterday was over-full, as you´ll see from all the photos.

Marksburg

Ho-hum Castle

The Middle Rhine is lousy with castles; they become a ho-hum sight. But we toured Marksburg Castle, which is completely intact from the time of the Crusades, and it was well worth the claustrophobia. That´s the yellowish one in the photos. We´re not even showing you Heidelberg Castle, as it was frankly boring after Marksburg... though the views down to the incredibly cute city were great. (In a bierhaus there we spoke Spanish with a nice young couple--she Brazilian, he Irish--who had met each other at the Temple of the Sun in Teotihuacan, Mexico! So nice to hear Spanish... and our concierge on the cruise is Mexican!)

Kaiserdom, Speyer

We´ve seen some fabulous churches that we liked much better than the enormous cathedral in Cologne shown in our last post. An all-white-interiored Jesuit church in Heidelberg knocked our socks off, and Paul says the Romanesque Kaiserdom in Speyer is his all-time favorite (last church photo). I suspect, however, that we´ll soon start feeling pretty ho-hum about cathedrals, too...

Our wonderful young friend, The Baby Lisa, met us again in Speyer and treated us to some traditional food and drink at a charming old winebar. It makes all the difference to have friends to meet over here! Every town in this area seems perfect, all clean and tidy with omnipresent windowboxes spilling flowers and well-kept public parks. Nice to see what a government can do with tax money other than funding endless wars... 

One last comment: the really good thing about traveling with oldsters is that no one is texting!!! Very few people brought devices of any kind. We feel quite cutting-edge!

[Male Version:]  They're all blogging, the fooks.  Must admit, though, that after you get used to the bloated feeling, this float up the river can be quite relaxing.  Feeling so civil, I've even starting talking to the other passengers.]