Chapter 4
Saturday, Sunday, Monday
Nov. 4, 5, 6
Wertheim, Wurzburg, Bamburg
A Map Reminder
Let’s review where we are now. We will be starting this chapter in Wertheim and ending it in Bamburg.
Saturday, Nov. 4: Wertheim, Germany
Do you remember that I mentioned that we would be testing some new excursions and schedules and not all of them would work well? This turned out to be one of those. But, I’m getting ahead of myself.
Several small towns instead of large castles
We mostly left the castles back on the Rhine and spent the morning going by many small, but pretty, towns along the Main. Actually, during the night, about 10 – 11PM, we had gone through about the middle of the large city of Frankfurt, but didn’t see much of it in the dark. It was primarily a morning of watching the landscape go by and relaxing. We had noticed one somewhat strange cargo many of the working barges carried along with them.
Many barges took their cars with them.
There were, of course, numerous working barges on the river, carrying all kinds of bulk goods. A number of them were taking their land transportation along with them by putting cars on top of the living quarters of the barge. Thes barges typically had some kind of crane that could lift the cars between the barge and land area when docked. A couple of them, like the one in the photo above, also had a small outboard motor powered boat that could be lowered to the water when needed.
The excitement for the morning was passing underneath a couple of rather low or narrow bridges. At one point, several crew members had come up onto the upper decks and made sure everything on the Sun Deck was completely lowered and nothing was sticking up very high. The pilot house was lowered to its retracted position and the captain took over the helm position.
Yes, that bridge is a little low.
As we approached the bridge, the crew told all passengers on the upper deck to stay seated and not stand up. Of course, we knew that the AmaPrima would be able to go under the bridge with no problem, but it was close. The water level in the river was higher than normal, so there would not be much clearance. This video shows us going under the bridge. In the video, notice that the captain ducks down completely under the wall of the pilot house as he approaches the bridge. If you go back to Chapter 2, about the AmaPrima, there is a photo taken a moment later when the captain raised up again. Keep in mind that I, and all the people on the forward deck, were seated in fairly low seats: there would not have been much room for people to stand.
As we continued, we passed more small towns but noticed there were very few vineyards in this area.
Where did the vineyards go?
It was a pretty section of the river, with a surprising amount of open land and forests. It was not as settled or commercial as I had expected.
At least one large church in each town
There were few vineyards, but it seems that there was always at least one large church in every town.
About this time, we approached another bridge: not as low as the previous one, but somewhat interesting in its own right.
A higher, but still challenging bridge
This was a relatively old arch bridge. While the bridge was plenty high in the middle of the arch, the boat had to go through almost exactly in the middle to clear the supports on the sides. If nothing else, at least this bridge was certainly more attractive than the other old metal bridge.
At about noon the main restaurant served a German themed lunch. It was good, but I didn’t see sauerkraut and wiener schnitzel on the menu. Soon after lunch we docked at the town of Miltenberg where the people doing excursions to Wertheim took short walks to some busses and loaded up for the 45 minute bus ride. The plan was that we would participate in the excursions while the AmaPrima continued on its way and arrived to pick us up in Wertheim about 6:30.
We arrived in Wertheim on the busses a little after 2:00 and were quickly organized into our tours. As in most of these older European towns, there are both old and new town sections and we were entering the old town.
The Pointed (Leaning) Tower of Wertheim
One of the major landmarks is a tower at the entrance to the old town. Does the tower in the photo above look like it is leaning a bit? Well, it is. Originally built in the 13th century as a watch tower, it was extended in the 15th century. There were some attempts to straighten the tower, but since its primary use was as a prison, the safety of the structure was not considered to be important.
We continued our walk down the pedestrian streets where there were several shops open and displaying their wares along the sides of the street.
Looking through the town square at the church bell tower.
There was an occasional light rain and umbrellas were frequently deployed, then taken down. We continued down the street to the town’s main square where we stopped for some history.
Looking across the square at a “small footprint” house
Remember how, back in Bernkastle, we saw a house constructed with a small first floor to take advantage of the tax laws? We saw another example here on the Wertheim square. More important for us later, would be the “StadCafe” just to the right of the old house. Leaving the square, we started the climb up to the castle overlooking the town. The climb was not as serious as some of the other hikes we had been on, at least not to the entrance to the castle.
Walking up the road to the Wertheim castle
The castle was initially built in the 12th century and was occasionally expanded until into the 17th century. It suffered through several wars and also a major accidental explosion and has been in a rebuild/restoration mode since 1982.
The amphitheater inside the castle grounds
One area we visited inside the castle grounds was the amphitheater. It is used currently for concerts and plays but probably only during better weather than what we experienced. From the amphitheater, we started climbing again. I was a bit surprised that we were allowed to climb into some of the areas that we visited.
Looking through the old walls toward Wertheim
Some of it was so “sketchy” that I got so focused on holding on and avoiding low overhead doorways, that I forgot to take any photos. At one point we climbed up an interior spiral staircase to the very highest platform of the castle complex: I did think to get a couple of photos here.
From highest point in the castle, a nice view of Main river
In the photo above, the semi-circular structure is the very top of the amphitheater we saw earlier. I was rather glad to get down and off of some of those stairs and platforms. We continued around the grounds of the castle and soon headed back into town.
Looking from the town square back up at the castle
It was an interesting tour of the castle and our guide was both friendly and very informative. When we got back to the town square he said that was the end of the tour, so we could look around the town and maybe have a cup of coffee in the café until the AmaPrima arrived to pick us up.
It was now about 4:00. The AmaPrime was not due to arrive until 6:30. It was rather cool with an almost constant light rain. Everyone else in the town had left: all the shops but one small clothing store had closed and there were only two small café/coffee shops and one Mexican restaurant open. The people from the AmaPrima were almost the only people left in town, and none of us really knew what to do for the next two and a half hours. Susan and I headed to the café on the square, had a couple of coffees, shared a large croissant, and occupied the seats as long as we felt comfortable taking up the space. We wandered around the riverfront, discussing with people where the boat was likely to dock and when we hoped it would arrive. We went back and forth on the walkway a couple of times, wandered back into the square, and we did about anything else we could think of to kill time. In the rain, cool air, and darkening skies, those two and a half hours passed very slowly.
The AmaPrima did arrive very close to 6:30 and everyone was anxious to get back on board. As we boarded, we were directed to the reception desk where we were each handed a sealed envelope which later turned out to have two twenty Euro bills: an obvious apology for an excursion gone wrong. I did wonder if that was the last we would hear of the problems. At the information meeting that evening, Marcia started it by asking: “Where are we?”. Since we were not sure what she was asking, nobody answered, so she said: “a Ship, we’re on a ship. Now, what are we on?” This time we all answered “a ship”. Marcia continued: “Again!” and we responded “ship”. “One more time!”… “ship” To which Marcia just responded with “Happens”. We all immediately knew what she was saying. If it is not obvious in my retelling, just substitute another four letter word starting with “shi.” And I think you will understand. With one simple exchange, Marcia made it clear that the AmaPrima had made a mistake and both the crew and even the owners were very aware of it, so the appropriate changes would be made. I liked Marcia before this, but my estimation of her went up a couple of notches with the way she handled this issue.
We again enjoyed dinner in the main restaurant and cognac in the lounge afterwards. This was the night that the “silent disco” was tried out. I thought it went relatively well and got a number of people up and dancing, but it will apparently not be repeated on future cruises.
Sunday, Nov 5: Wurzburg, Germany
Today we would again offload from the boat and take a bus to the next city, Wurtzberg, where the boat would meet us after the completion of several different tours. After the previous day’s tour, we were keeping our fingers crossed, but all worked out very well.
Our tours and activities today would last the entire day, with a hike to a fortress and a wine tasting in the morning, After lunch back at the AmaPrima, we would have another wine tasting on the boat. As with all the tours this day, our “active” hike started with a 30 minute bus ride from a dock at a small town to the city of Wurtzberg. Most of the city is on the east side of the river Main but our objective, the Marienberg Fortress, is on the west side so our bus dropped us off at the bottom of the hill below the fortress, a short block from the river. Like the previous couple of days, there was a almost steady very light rain falling which decreased through the morning.
A quiet street in Wurtzberg
After a very short walk from the bus stop, we had a good view of the fortress above us and the start of the path that would take us up to it. The hill was planted in several levels of vineyards: although on a hill, these vineyards were not as steep as those we saw along the Moselle a couple of days earlier.
Our first view of the Marienberg Fortress
Some grape vines we had seen had already lost all their leaves and some were just starting to turn color and drop the leaves, but these had mostly turned yellow and created a rather bright display for us. It was a fairly good hike up the hill, but the path was paved and not a real problem for the 7 of us and our guide. As we found out later, our guide turned out to be rather talented in several ways.
Walking through the vineyards below the fortress
As we got closer to the fortress (and it was definitely a fortress, not a “castle”), we started to get a better feeling for the layout and size of the place. It was big, as you will see when we go through it.
One entrance: almost like a maze
We wound around several access roads and through a couple of tunnels with gates, all part of the protected entrance. Lets’s stop our tour for a little history. Excavations have been found on the site going as far back as 1000 BC, so the value of its location has been recognized for a long time. The current fortifications were started in the 13th century, with periodic enhancements after that. The major part of the fortress was constructed in the 15th and 16th centuries. It was attacked, and changed hands, multiple times in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. For such an imposing fortification, it did not seem to be able to defend itself from attackers very well.
Another “entrance”, with more to go
There were still more gated entrances, each protecting another inner level of the fortress. When we went though the gate above and entered the courtyard below, I thought sure we had reached the innermost area… nope. We even had another moat to go over.
One of several courtyards
This courtyard was a large area that even had a swimming pool (or bath) for horses that was almost the size of an Olympic swimming pool. It had a sloped entry the horses could easily navigate and it could be mostly filled with water.
Crossing one of the moats: this one inside the outer walls
Another entry gate, above, and there was a moat below it that could be filled with water when needed. Each of the gates would have either a very heavy gate or a form of drawbridge. Inside what turned out to be the final courtyard, was a small chapel and a watch tower that was often used as a prison. New prisoners would be dropped through a small opening near the top of the tower, almost 30 feet to the rock floor below. Most prisoners likely started serving their term with one or more broken bones.
The Watch Tower/prison and another courtyard
We wound our way back out of the fortress by a different route and when I thought we had gotten outside the walls, below, we realized that we were still within the outer, and very large, walls.
We are still inside the outer walls of fortress.
From up on top of one of these walls, we did have a very good view of Wurtzburg, just across the river. We were back in wine country, as most of the hills around the city were either covered with buildings or with vineyards. This is enough of a wine growing (and drinking) region that the pedestrian bridge you see in the photo below is nicknamed the “Wine Bridge”, because it is a popular place to meet friends, socialize, and drink wine.
The fortress has a commanding view of the city.
Looking out from even the lower parts of the fortress it was clear why this site was chosen for such a defensive fort. This short video panoramic view of the river and city may give a better feeling for the commanding view offered from the fortress.
Leaving the exit gate and lower moat behind
We did finally leave the fortress, passing over the outer moat just outside the entry gate. The grounds around the fortress were maintained like a park, offering benches and grassy lawns. I suspect that, if it had not been cool and raining, we would have seen local people enjoying the expansive view.
A better view of the Wertzberg “Wine Bridge”
When we got back down to the river or street level, the bus picked us up again and we headed toward the site of our wine tasting. But first, we had to go by the “Residenz Palalce” to collect another of our tour groups who had spent a couple of hours visiting the UNESCO World Heritage site. It was certainly impressive, just seeing it from the outside. The main structure was completed in 1744 but it took until 1780 to complete the interiors.
The people from that tour joined us and we all took the short 10 minute walk to the winery from the “Residenz Palalce”. At this point we realized that our guide at the fortress would also be our guide and tasting leader at the winery. It turned out that he is a wine consultant to a couple of the wineries in Wertzburg and he essentially has the keys to the winery for the day. (This was on a Sunday, so there were no regular workers at the winery.)
The “Residenz Palalce”: a UNESCO World Heritage site
Our guide unlocked the doors and led us to the basement where the wine is stored and there is a space for tastings. He had come in early in the morning and set up the glasses, wines, and such so everything was ready for us when we arrived. It was a very nice layout. After getting the 30 of us organized, he led us through a tasting of the first wine, providing a little history along the way.
Ready for the wine tasting
After tasting the first wine, our host took us on a tour of the the “barrel aging rooms” where the wine is stored and aged in very large oak casks. There were several rooms like the one in the photo below. Then we wandered back to the tasting area for the second wine.
One of several similar “barrel rooms”
After tasting the second wine, the host led us to another area where the unoaked wines were stored in stainless steel rather than oak casks. The vast majority of German wine, greater than 80%, is white wine and it generally gets only a light oak treatment. The very large casks impart only a very light oak flavor, compared to the more common standard (about 40 gallon) barrels. When the wine is bottled, it is frequently blended using both the cask aged and stainless steel aged wine to achieve the desired flavor and mouth feel. After touring the stainless steel tanks, we headed back for the third wine to taste.
And they also use lots of stainless steel.
In keeping with the pattern so far, after tasting the third wine, we went to visit another area, the “Wine Library”. Most wineries maintain a library with samples of all the wines they have produced.
Part of their wine library
In this case, there were racks and racks of cubby-holes where wine was stored. Each cubby-hole would have 5 to about 30 bottles of a specific type of wine from a specific vintage. In the photo above, you can see a yellow tag that indicates this section contains each of the wines produced in their 2008 vintage. The primary purpose of the library wines is to provide a means of studying how their wines aged over time and to be able to investigate if some wine type or vintage has some unusual attribute (good or bad) after a period of time. Sometimes bottles are taken from the library and sold, typically at high prices, or used for some special occasion at the winery.
Most of the bottles are not kept for as long as one of the bottles in the winery, which we saw next. The bottle, third from the left, in the photo below is the oldest known vintage labled bottle of wine in the world. The bottle is labeled (and has been verified) as being bottled in 1540. Other containers that are thought to contain older wine have been found, but they were not labeled with the vintage, so their true age is not known.
Oldest known vintage labeled bottle of wine in the world (1540)
After tasting one more wine, we said good-by to our host (although we would see him again) and walked through the downtown part of Wurtzberg, heading to where we hoped to meet up with the AmaPrima at a dock on the river.
Heading to the AmaPrima through downtown Wurtzberg
We walked to the Wine Bridge and took some steps down from it to a walkway along the river bank, where we had a nice view of the Wine Bridge from a different perspective. About this time, we spotted the AmaPrima just coming under the bridge on the far side of the river.
The Wine Bridge again, from water level
By the time we got to the dock area, the AmaPrima was pulling up to the dock and we just had to wait for the crew to properly tie off the lines and put out the boarding gangway. While we waitied for this to be done, I got in another photo of the boat.
The AmaPrima with fortress in background
We grabbed some lunch and relaxed a few minutes in preparation for, what else, another wine tasting. The same man, the guide and wine consultant, led this tasting also, presenting four different wines. I wish I could remember the young man’s name, as he did an excellent job of both the fortress tour and both wine tastings.
The lounge is set up for a wine tasting.
After the end of the tasting Marcia conducted a “wine knowledge” test, asking 20 questions about wine with the passengers dividing up into teams to answer the questions. Of course, Susan and I formed a group but, since there was no one else sitting close to us, we were the only ones on our team. Somehow we won and received a bottle of wine as a prize.
The wines we tasted.
That evening there was a “Farewell Cocktail Reception” in the lounge with introductions of all the officers and sort of a parade of all the crew members. After the reception, we headed to dinner in the restaurant, then cognac, and listening to the duo in the lounge.
Monday, Nov 6: Bamburg, Germany
Today the plan was similar to the last couple of days: we would get off the AmaPrima and be bussed to a city, Bamberg, where we would take tours and eventually meet up with the boat again. One of the specific objectives of the way would be to try the local specialty, “Smoked Beer”. But, more about that later. Right on schedule, a little after 8:00 AM, the AmaPrima pulled into the town of Eltmann. But we didn’t dock on the side of the river with the town, rather on the other side of the river where there was, well, nothing.
The town of Eltmann looked like a nice place to dock.
I can’t really say there was “nothing”, as there was a very simple dock and a small road about 100 feet back from the river bank. There were three tour busses lined up along the edge of the road, waiting for us.
But the dock was across the river, where there was, well, nothing.
We found the proper bus and our guide for the morning introduced herself as we headed off for the 30 minute ride to Bamberg. There were only seven of us on our “active” walking tour of Bamburg. The busses stopped, dropped us off at the very modern looking Bamberg Concert Hall, and it would serve as the meeting point to get back on the bus later if anyone got separated.
We got organized and quickly headed off with our guide. And, when I say “quickly”, I really mean it! Our active walking tour was billed as a “fast walking tour of Bamberg” and our guide certainly fulfilled that description: she was always walking at a fast pace, almost a “race walk”, and she did not slow down or wait for any one who stopped to take photos.
A mix of new among the old: the Bamberg Concert Hall
We soon left the modern architecture of the concert hall behind and entered the “Old Town” section of Bamberg. One of the first things we stopped to see was a somewhat strange bronze sculpture, the “Lady with Fruit”, although our guide admitted that most local people called it the “fat lady”. The sculpture was created by Fernando Boptero (from Columbia) who is known for creating this style of art.
The “Lady with Fruit” sculpture by Fernando Botero
· Very close to the “Lady with Fruit” was the local market with several colorful fruit stands and fruit stands always make for colorful photos. Besides, perhaps this where the “Lady with Fruit” got her fruit.
Perhaps this is where Botero’s Lady got her fruit.
Many of the streets were pedestrian only during the day and they made for picturesque views as we wandered through the town. Although this was about 9:00 on a weekday, there were very few people on the streets.
A quiet and pretty street in Bamberg
We came to a bridge over a fairly small river where there were enough things to see and learn about to spend quite a bit of time. The river itself is the “Linker Regnitzarm” or “Left arm of the Regnitz” river. This requires a little explanation. As the Main river flows into Bamberg, it temporarily changes its name to the Regnitz river. The primary part of the Regnitz river flows around the old town area while a small part flows off to the side and goes through the old town as the Linker Regnitzarm. As it leaves Bamberg, the river splits into to parts with the larger section becoming the Main again and the smaller part is the Regnitz. A couple of miles further along, the Left Arm of the Regnitz rejoins the primary part of the Regnitz. Now that the river names are clear, we will continue.
A bridge over the small “Linker Regnitzarm” (Left arm of the Regnitzarm River)
One of the buildings alongside the river and close to the bridge was completely covered with paintings and designs and included a bit of humor. One of the figures painted on the wall was of a reclining woman but the artist added a sculptured leg coming out of the painting, somewhat like a three-dimensional painting.
Some artist had a sense of humor.
There was also a section of the river with poles hung from wires to form “gates” for Olympic style kayakers to practice on. In this same section, still close to that bridge, were some flood control gates which had apparently recently been used.
The “Left arm of the Regnitz” as it flows through town
As we continued, there was a building largely covered in some king of vine, but I don’t think it was ivy as some of it had turned a bright red. It was somewhat unusual but also somewhat fitting because the shop in the corner of that building was a Vino shop: a wine store.
Colorful vines and a Vino (wine) shop
There were interesting views and photos to be had in all directions, but I was continually lagging behind our fast moving guide and working to catch up.
A church bell tower and clock at end of Bamberg street
The photo above is actually looking back across the bridge that we had just crossed. The bell tower is on the same building that had the humorous painting/sculpture.
The The Bamberg Cathedral
The Bamberg Cathedral sits in one corner of a large square or plaza in the old town, with large buildings in the opposite corner that house the primary museum in Bamberg and some government offices. The cathedral actually has four almost identical towers, with two in the front and two more in the back of the main building.
Large building across from Cathedral house a museum and government offices.
There were several other official looking (government) buildings around the square, but surprisingly few people. Other than a very occasional car passing through, about the only other activity we saw was one of the other tour groups from the AmaPrima.
A well tended rose garden behind those large buildings
Behind the large building was a very well tended and manicured rose garden. Although it was past the primary blooming season, there were several colorful blooms. The garden also offered a nice view out over most of the city of Bamberg. After looking around, we headed back across the river and went to one of our primary objectives: the café where we could taste the smoked beer, or Rauchbier. Smoked beer is made using malt that has been dried over an open flame in a smoke kiln. We were told to expect a definite ham or bacon taste to the beer, which seemed rather questionable.
The meeting place to try out the Smoked Beer
We had vouchers that were good for a mug of smoked beer at a couple of places but most people from the AmaPrima seemed to end up at the beer house in the photo above. We ended up sitting at a picnic table with Rudi (one of the owners) and Kristine (the other owner) joined us when her bicycle tour concluded across the street. Marcia was there and encouraged us to try the smoked beer and, it was not bad at all. We like dark beers anyway, and this was definitely dark and did have a bacon flavor. Imagine a good strong Porter beer with bacon flavor instead of chocolate and you would be close to smoked beer. After enjoying the beer, we formed up into our groups again and headed to the bus meeting point.
Walking along the Left Arm of the Regnitz to meet the bus
It was a nice walk along the Linker Regnitzarm but I had to wonder what would happen if the water levels rose about another foot. Hoppefully, the houses above do not have anything valuable in the bottom floor. We got back to the concert hall and loaded into the busses for the short ride to meet the AmaPrima in time for a slightly late lunch. In the afternoon we watched the landscape slide by and observed as we went through several locks.
Yet another lock: a very high one
There was an informational meeting about disembarkation procedures (simple for us) and then the normal “sip & sail” cocktail hour, dinner, and listening to the “Take Two” duo in the lounge with a glass (or two) of cognac.
End of Chapter 4:
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