At one point during the night, my sick husband K was using our bathroom, when I woke up needing it. So, I slipped on a robe and went down the hall to the one down there. It was terribly quiet on the boat and I ran into no one. I did grab an extra roll of toilet paper, because I knew we were running low.
When I got up at 7, K said he'd been up a lot during the night. He was really feeling lousy.
Our daughter J arrived at 7:30 and she and I went to breakfast. She got some pastries and potatoes from the serving table at the far end of the dining room. I went with the breakfast special, which was berry French toast that was actually made with French bread. Delicious!
While we were at breakfast, we noted the temperature was 61°. That was definitely cooler than yesterday and we decided to get coats, while we were in our cabins. On the way to mine, I noticed the really nice lanterns that lined the hall.
The Imodium didn't seem to be working for K. I suspected that when I took it, it was so late in my illness, that I was going to get better soon without it. I washed up, gathered my things for the outing, and left him to rest. By 8:20, I was in J's cabin, which I hadn't gotten to see before. It had plenty of storage and was not at all cramped. She had a window just below the ceiling, which let in natural light.
We were docked next to two boats. In fact, they were both between us and the dock. So, at 8:40, we checked out by having our key cards scanned. Then, we climbed the outside stairs to the top deck. We walked across the top of the next two boats, with some of their crew members watching to be sure we didn't stray. Then, we climbed down the outside stairs of the second ship and headed up a steep ramp to the actual dock. It was then a long walk along the back of what looked to be a mall to get to the parking lot with the buses.
This was the one day of the cruise for which J and I had chosen a different excursion from K. He had chosen the Mannheim Baroque Palace, because a famous orchestra had performed there. J and I felt that since we had been thwarted last year in our attempt to visit gardens on a cruise, this time we wanted the Schwetzingen Gardens.
So, at 8:51, we boarded bus 1 with Christian as our guide. It was now 62°, but only felt like 60°. As we left the harbor of Ludwigshafen (which is redundant, I suppose, since Ludwigshafen means Ludwig's harbor), he started to tell us about the town. In the 1800s, BASF was founded here and is still based here. The company even has its own train station. A poll named the city the ugliest in Germany. It was leveled in WWII and there was a quick, ugly rebuild so that the company could be up and running.
Within a few minutes of leaving, we were crossing the bridge over the Rhein to Mannheim.
We could see the Barockschloß Mannheim (Mannheim Baroque Palace), which is now Mannheim University, from the highway. It is the largest baroque castle in Germany and the second largest in Europe after Versailles. K was interested in it because it is where the Mannheim court orchestra performed. They pioneered techniques known as the Mannheim school, whose founder was Johann Stamitz. One of these techniques was the Mannheim Crescendo. Another was the Mannheim Roller (Mannheimer Walze) and yet another the Mannheim Rocket (you can hear the influence of that last one at the beginning of Mozart's Eine kleine Nachtmusik). K probably was interested because they had the clarinet as part of the woodwind section and as a solo instrument. I'm interested, because I found out that Chip Davis used Mannheim Steamroller as a pseudonym and took it from the Mannheim Roller. I love Mannheim Steamroller's music!
The first thing we saw as we got off the bus in front of Schloß Schwetzingen at 9:35 was Peter Lenk's sculpture Glückschwein, a statue of Karl Theodor IV (Charles Theodore), Elector of Bavaria from the Sulzbach branch of the Wittelsbach family, seated upon a pig. "Elector" means got to elect the Holy Roman Emperor. It was under his reign that the palace and gardens reached their height from 1749 onward. (There are more than 100 statues in the gardens.)
Karl Theodor, Christian told us in front of the palace after he bought our tickets, was not into war. He was into belly dancers. He was called a "lucky pig" - the translation of the name of the statue- because he got land without war. His wife Elisabeth-Auguste, on the other hand, loved power and soldiers.
The Schloß was used as a summer party palace and, in fact, the orchestra from the winter palace over in Mannheim was brought in for the summer. Its peachy color really does say summer. I was quite intrigued by the shingles going up the sides of the dormer windows. I've never seen that before.
We walked through the center arch to reach the gardens. I would have liked to have had time to really look at the giant map on the wall. We showed our tickets to the guard and went out to the great expanse.
After giving us a restroom break around the side of the palace, Christian pointed out the curving building to our right. There was another on the left. Here was where the orchestra would have played. Mozart and his sister played here, too. They even went riding in there, if there was rain! Note the heavy clouds in the picture. Our time here would have some sun, but mostly those clouds.
Christian pointed out a window on the left side of the palace with the painting of a woman looking out. This was Elisabeth-Auguste's side of the palace. This was typical of the time.
The gardens were public even back then and anyone could just roam about. That is unless you were drunk; then you were tossed out.
As we began our tour around some of the gardens (there are acres upon acres here), we noticed that the gardeners were hard at the spring planting. Look what company their tractor came from!
As we walked through the beginning of this French baroque garden, we were struck by the formality. That's kind of a hallmark of this kind of garden. There's a lot of symmetry and trees and bushes are trimmed into shapes.
At the center of four avenues stood the Arion fountain. volumegraphics.com had this:
....There, in the center of the circular parterre, stands the Arion Fountain. The scene portrays the shipwrecked singer, Arion, as he is being saved by a dolphin of Apollo. He is accompanied to shore by four putti. These five sculptures were created by Barthélemey Giubal in the early 18th century for the gardens of Lunéville Palace (Château de Lunéville) but were brought to Schwetzingen in 1766 by Prince Elector Charles Theodore.
Those putti were, in fact, torturing animals in the fountain. I didn't really photograph them, because I found them unpleasant.
Just after the fountain, they used this shape on each side of the long axis.
We could see signs of the French desire to mold nature. There was metal scaffolding for the vines and such to grow over to provide shade. Trees were shaped and formed into a shady area. He took us under those trees. It was quite pleasant.
A look back to the palace provided an impressive view. We could also look to the sides to see these avenues were lined with very tall trees.
We hit a section, where the four corners each had a statue representing an element. This first was water, we thought. But, in fact, when I was searching for identities for the statues, I found out it is Neptun (Neptune). So, we were close.
Christian led us off to the right. He told us that the garden was built with lots of little hidden nooks that were meant to surprise and delight. For instance, in one, we came upon this statue of Bacchus. In another, Pan was up on a rock.
We found a man-made pool with a stream meandering out of it to a pond. Sadly, with all the pollen in the air, it was quite mucky.
When we reached the orangerie, even the garden in front of it was impressive and in the English style. It was made even more impressive by its flowers. The palm tree are put in there, during the winter.
Soon, we found ourselves at the baroque theater, which was built like a temple. There was an amphitheater in front of the grassy stage. Guests would sit on the grass of the amphitheater, I suppose. The stage had to a cavelike entrance on either side in the back, which let actors enter and exit. They lead to a road area behind the temple with Apollo (Apollotempel). Must have been quite the showcase.
Elsewhere, we went through an deep arch whose interior was covered with Delft tiles.
There were unexpected and, perhaps, unplanned surprises like a patch of tiny daisies.
But, then there was a planned surprise- a forced perspective ending or a Berceau de treillage (trellis cradle) Laubengang zum Perspektiv im Volksmund (pergola perspective in the vernacular),,Ende der Welt" genannt (called "End of the World"). It was a pretty cool effect. The painting really looked like a far away scene until we got as close as we could.
You might have noticed a statue of an eagle killing a bird in the middle of the pool. Look up and you'll notice metal birds above, too. There was lovely stonework on the path. This area had a beautiful, bejeweled niche for sitting and various tall screened enclosures of birds. A sign said the birds were Wellensittich, which is German for budgerigar or budgies or common parakeets. They were pretty and more colorful than the ones we had long ago, when I was a kid.
Having completed the highlights of the right side of the gardens, Christian led us out to roadway that went along the man-made waterway from the Leimbach River to the Weiher, which is like a lake, probably man-made, too. Anyway, there were nice dripping trees, Egyptian geese, and even a rather wild patch of flowers behind the Badhaus (bathhouse).
We even walked past the back of the Apollotempel. That was very interesting to see.
Our tour ended at 10:45 with a view of the Lügenbrücke ( Bridge of Lies or Liar's Bridge). It is quite steep at either end and only a truthful person can traverse it without stumbling. I liked the reflection.
I took a moment to appreciate again all the wonderful symmetry. I really like symmetry. Must be the geometry teacher in me.
By now, the sky had cleared enough- and we were far back enough- to see the Königstuhl above Heidelberg in the distance.
We did get photos of the other three statues: Juno with a peacock, Vulkan, and Cybele.
Near the farthest west of the three statues, we found a metal map of the gardens on the ground. It seemed odd to have it so far back in the gardens.
As we headed toward the palace, we saw more and more fresh plantings. They were sure to provide a pop of color this summer.
We did get a nice shot of the fountain and the palace.
We saw orange umbrellas on orange boxes around this central part of the gardens. They turned out to be part of Ort Zeit Klang (Place, Time, Sound), a project of the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Mannheim (College for Music and Performing Arts, Mannheim). The one we got close to took the ambient sounds and turned them into musical tones. Quite interesting.
At about 11:26, we exited the fancy gates of the palace. We could see the bus across the street, but I had to stop first and take a photo of a most marvelous statue/sculpture- Spargelfrau ( Asparagus woman) by Franz-Werner Müller-Steinfuth in1990. My favorite vegetable is quite the thing in Germany at this time of year, which is called "Spargelzeit" (Asparagus season), when white asparagus is in season.
We were on the bus at 11:28 and on the road at 11:33. I promptly dozed off. I woke to find us going back over the bridge to the port at Ludwigshafen. I had a pretty good view of how large that shopping center there was.
We had to do the exit procedure in reverse. When we were on our upper deck at 12:06, I asked J if she'd mind if we took a moment for photos. She had no objection.
I got a nice shot of the bridge we'd crossed and then I looked at the small pool we had. I figured it would never be warm enough for anyone to get in. There was an interesting glass dome over the glass elevator. I guess the blue was reinforcement. I'm not a chess player, but I found the giant board near the walking path to be a good idea. I never figured out what the blue thing with the railing was. It seemed too small to be of use. I got a nice view of the bridge from the front of the boat and on my way back to the stairs, I took note of the hydraulics to allow it to be lowered for low bridges. Very cool.
When we got checked back in at 12:09, we found that they were serving a cold mango tea, that was really delicious. I went down to my cabin to check on K, but it was being cleaned. So, I relaxed in the lounge with two vanilla cookies and water. I went back to the room at 12:35 and the cleaning was finished. K was still not doing well, but listened as I told him about our excursion.
J and I wound up by a window at lunch at 1:30. That meant I had a view as we sailed a short time later. We were brought Appetizers, that included prosciutto with melon, and spring rolls.
We ordered our usual sodas from the young woman, who handled bar orders. Then, we ordered our meals. The dining room sat rather low and the water level was just barely below the windows. Everything along the shoreline was BASF and went on for miles as we sailed past.
The main courses came before we could even finish passing BASF. They were delicious of course. I'd ordered spinach samosa, hummus, beetroot, sprouts, and rajita, which was in a separate bowl. J's meal came from the front cooking station- Stroganoff, prime beef strips, champignon, bell pepper, beet root, gherkins, onion, and mashed potato.
I was really surprised when we reached the BASF tower and I saw their slogan was in English. "We create chemistry" was an understatement based on what we'd passed.
We both ordered Black Forest cake for dessert, since we were now leaving Baden Württemberg, the home of the forest. Supposedly, it had Kirsch on it, but I didn't really taste it.
When we left the meal at 2:20, we went to our respective cabins to rest. K was still under the weather.
At 4, J and I joined some of the other guests up in the lounge for a lecture on Rhein River history from a lecturer from the University of Mainz, who was brought on board for the night. He would be turning in his dissertation in a week. Some of the things I wrote down that I found interesting: Km 1 is where the Rhein exits the Bodensee (Lake Constance). At that moment, we were at km 475. The Rhein starts out flowing east to west. Then, it goes south to north at Basel. The word "Rhein" just meant "river" back in the day.
We were sitting on the left side of the room, toward the middle, and close to the windows. At 4:24, I noticed an interesting village and took photos. It turned out that the town was Nierstein and one of the wines from the region is my favorite- Niersteiner Gutes Domtal. I wish I'd realized it at the time, but, maybe it was kismet.
It turned out that, when I took a photo of the church (Kilianskirche), I also caught some of the vineyard around it. This was an incredible stroke of luck, because I found this at rheinhessen.de:
Niersteiner Glöck
Highlight of wine culture - with bell ringing
According to legend, it is the oldest vineyard in Germany to be mentioned in a document: a deed of donation from the year 742 is supposed to prove this. The vineyard takes its name from St. Kilian's Church and its bells - but it is unclear whether this comes from the bells or because the church bell-ringer was paid with wine from the site. The Kilianskirche is still surrounded by the vineyards of this site. A centuries-old vineyard wall encloses the site, built by monks in the Middle Ages. The single vineyard site is the sole property of the Oppenheim State Vineyard Domain. Traditionally, 2/3 Riesling and 1/3 Pinot Noir grow on the loess-loam soil. The Rieslings are very fruity and have a high ageing potential.
How cool is that?! The oldest documented German vineyard. So, here's the vineyard. We also saw the nearby Roter Hang, a red hillside known for its Rieslings.
I spent some time photographing the river bank. I saw some great modern houses, but also an older villa in Walluf.
As we neared Eltville (an incredibly weird name for a German city), the light on the water was awesome. There we terrific villas too, which seemed to be well-spaced. Some were an interesting mix of old and new.
As we drew closer to the town, we could see the Eltville Schloß (castle), as well as lots of folks hanging out on the river bank. Matheus Müller produces Sekt, Germany's sparkling wine.
At 6:30, J and I were in the dining room near the window again. Tonight, J ordered parsnip cream soup with chili croutons, and foam.We both ordered Wiener Schnitzel. Of course, we also had Apfelstrüdel (apple strudel)- a delicous meal.
We were now near km 526, which put us at Bingen. Here we saw greylag geese.
Tonight was unusual, because there was an evening excursion. Since K hadn't eaten and was rather weak, he stayed back in the cabin, when J and I headed off the ship with the others. There were two choices of excursion tonight. One was Rüdesheimer Kaffee, which is coffee with liqueur. That was a no go on two fronts for me and definitely one for J. We chose Siegfried's Mechanical Musical Instrument Museum (Siegfried's Mechaniches Musikkabinett), even though we weren't clear what it was.
When we got off the boat, I got a shot of her waiting for us to return.
Our group boarded the local little tourist train at 8:25. The train departed on its chilly trip at 8:37. The museum was up on the hillside. So, the train was the most comfortable way of getting there. We had a little bit of a view of the houses up on the hill.
At 8:51, we were let off near the musuem, which had a charming courtyard.
Some of them were really beautiful.
For this incredibly large one, he showed us the paper roll that contained the tune.
We saw beautiful gramophones, including an Edison.
The building had been given to Siegfried Wendel, the collector and restorer of these wonders, by the city of Rüdesheim am Rhein to get him to stay in the town. It is the medieval Bromserhof and some of the rooms preserve the vaulted ceilings with paintings from the 1500s.
They've also preserved all of Siegfried's tools. The guide told us there are very few people left who could work on these contraptions, unfortunately.
One of the last things we were shown was a beautiful street organ and its huge music roll.
There was a gift shop, of course, but all I could afford was a few postcards. So, after a restroom stop and tipping the guide, J and I left pretty much after everyone else.
The train was there when we came out at 9:44, but we'd already decided to experience the town at night by walking back to the boat. I really wanted to go down the famous, narrow Drosselgasse and it was right there. I'd been on part of it a while back in the daylight with students. This would give us a chance to see it at night.
A wall decorated with the process of wines from grape to the glass was depicted.
The street is full of restaurants, wine bars, etc. There were a few shops that were, of course, closed. Other than the music from the establishments and some talking therein, it was pretty quiet.
I find it interesting that my first photo is so dark. I guess the flash was on thereafter.
Some places had really nice wood carvings next to doors or windows.
At the bottom of the street, where it meets the street that runs parallel to the river, we found a light pointing at the ground and projecting a purple bird, just as there had been one at the top. The bird is a thrush, which is what "Drossel" means in English. It's an easy marker at night for revelers.
But, it is easy to find the street during the day because of the symbol below. Look carefully and you can see two thrushes holding a bunch of grapes.
The walk was peaceful and nice, if a bit chilly. There were few people about and few cars. It was terribly hard to take good photos across the river, but I think this is Kempten.
This, however, is the moon over Rüdesheim am Rhein after we'd crossed the street called Rheinstraße.
We walked along the sidewalk on the railroad track side of the road for a bit until we found an underpass. The path now ran along the river on one side and a park on the other.
When we reached the boat at 10:09, I got this shot, which looks better small.
It was 10:10, when we were scanned back on board. We said good night after setting our meeting time for the morning. I found K awake and feeling a bit better.
I'd walked 9, 112 steps for a total of 3.1 miles.
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