The Viking Vili docked in Koblenz, Germany in order to visit Marksburg Castle.
This is breakfast! I still can't get over the FOOD we were served everyday! Wait a sec! Did I eat more than Art??? He had an egg benedict which he said reminded him of a Hawaiian loco moco (rice with a hamburger patty and sunny side up egg covered with brown gravy).
Our shore excursion was to Marksburg Castle.
People in the Middle Ages had a life span of about 50 years.
There were several doors to pass through with passageways designed for protection.
You could see evidence of Marksburg being used more as a fortress.
It's hoped nobody was below when anyone used the bathroom.
They slept sitting up because lying down supine was considered the death position.
Candles were rarely used because they were considered too expensive.
The castle was named for St. Mark.
And then it was back to the riverboat for lunch.
In the afternoon, we sat up on the top deck to see a lot of castles along the Rhine River.
Here we can see what Marksburg Castle looks like from the Rhine River.
Our program director recommended that we buy a book titled The Castles of the Rhine when we were at Marksburg Castle. It was very, very helpful in helping us name the castles that we took photos of.
Lorelei is reputed to be a beautiful siren or mermaid who would bewitch and distract sailors causing them to crash into the rocks.
There were many, many castles on the Rhine!
At 3:30 PM there was a demonstration on how to make Rudesheim coffee with coffee, brandy, sugar, whipped cream and dark chocolate. Yes, it was quite good.
We had dinner with Jane and Adrian from England again who explained what that Yorkshire pudding from the previous night was.
Good grief! I had no idea it was something like a popover when these years of reading British type novels had me thinking Yorkshire pudding was some kind of American type pudding! Jane told us that her mom used to make it in something like a muffin pan.
We branched off from the Rhine River and were now traveling on the Main. Main is a Celtic word for snake.
It was a lovely day and I was wondering why they didn't have a scale in our cabins.
Note: Aggravation! For some reason, our Apple iPad keyboard would not work in Europe. I have no idea why. It magically started working again once we returned to Hawaii. Also, the WiFi onboard the Viking riverboat was so terrible that it was very frustrating. It's also not secured so I turned off WiFi and used our t-Mobile which provided free text coverage across the countries that we traveled through.
This is breakfast! I still can't get over the FOOD we were served everyday! Wait a sec! Did I eat more than Art??? He had an egg benedict which he said reminded him of a Hawaiian loco moco (rice with a hamburger patty and sunny side up egg covered with brown gravy).
The Marksburg is a castle above the town of Braubach in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is one of the principal sites of the Rhine Gorge UNESCO World Heritage Site. The fortress was used for protection rather than as a residence for royal families. It has a striking example of a bergfried designed as a butter-churn tower. Of the 40 hill castles between Bingen am Rhein and Koblenz the Marksburg was the only one which was never destroyed. --WikipediaThe Marksburg castle is over 700 years old and built in 1231. There are four gates. We entered through the Fox Gate. The castle walls are 12 feet thick.
People in the Middle Ages had a life span of about 50 years.
There were several doors to pass through with passageways designed for protection.
You could see evidence of Marksburg being used more as a fortress.
They slept sitting up because lying down supine was considered the death position.
Candles were rarely used because they were considered too expensive.
The castle was named for St. Mark.
In the afternoon, we sat up on the top deck to see a lot of castles along the Rhine River.
Here we can see what Marksburg Castle looks like from the Rhine River.
Our program director recommended that we buy a book titled The Castles of the Rhine when we were at Marksburg Castle. It was very, very helpful in helping us name the castles that we took photos of.
We had dinner with Jane and Adrian from England again who explained what that Yorkshire pudding from the previous night was.
We branched off from the Rhine River and were now traveling on the Main. Main is a Celtic word for snake.
It was a lovely day and I was wondering why they didn't have a scale in our cabins.
Note: Aggravation! For some reason, our Apple iPad keyboard would not work in Europe. I have no idea why. It magically started working again once we returned to Hawaii. Also, the WiFi onboard the Viking riverboat was so terrible that it was very frustrating. It's also not secured so I turned off WiFi and used our t-Mobile which provided free text coverage across the countries that we traveled through.
