Cruising through the Rhine Gorge

The first part of the day is spent sailing through the Rhine Gorge. Some of this section is often slotted into land-based tours as a "Rhine Cruise". We were blessed with a splendid temperature of 27C and as such everyone was on the sundeck enjoying the scenery and sights of castles. If you're lucky to have an informative Tour Director, as we did in Hendrik, you'll receive a commentary on the Rhine castles (and there are a lot of them!) over the PA system.

Siegfried's Mechanical Musical
Instrument Museum

Lunch was early today as we were scheduled for a shore visit in Rüdesheim. At 12:45 p.m. a train transports you to Siegfried's Musical Instrument Museum for a tour. Free time in Rüdesheim was quite limited. You had to choose what you wanted to do: wine-tasting, walk around to look for souvenirs (the main street is the Drosselgasse) or dash around to take snaps of the town (Tony worked up a bit of a sweat doing the latter!).

Meeting point was Breuer's Rüdesheimer Schloss where you'll be treated to a demonstration of how Asbach coffee is made... and more importantly, you'll get to drink it. Asbach is the local brandy and the speciality and a bit like Irish coffee - with more cream on top!

After Rüdesheim, you travel by coach to meet up with the boat up river, just before Frankfurt. Along the way, a stop is made at the Statue of Germania which was built to commemorate victory in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. From this viewpoint, you'll have a splendid view of the River and sprawling vineyards.