We had a glorious slow start to the day with a trip along the Rhine Gorge. Vertical vineyards and castles all over the place. The little villages along the way are built very close to the water line.
We docked at Rudesheim and boarded the Winzerexpress mini-train which took us through the town to Siegfried’s Mechanical Musical Instrument Museum. This is one of the most beautiful collections of automated musical instruments in Germany.
The first one was the largest of them all and had about 17 instruments included – piano, flutes & drums. There was a violina which had 6 violins in it – each one uses only one string for the mechanical part of it. There were Bible-based stories and machines, carousels and music boxes, accordions, pianolas and a bird in a cage that was the smallest instrument they have.
There was also an organ grinder (without the monkey) but one of the crowd was given the chance to play it.
Afterwards, we had some free time so we took the cable car across the vineyards up to the Niederwald Monument, built between 1871-1888 to commemorate the unification of Germany. The bronze statue is amazing and the views are stunning.
We had met up with Donna & Konrad and John & Joanna and so we all went back down to the town to get a Rudesheimer Kaffe – it’s a traditional coffee with a shot of Brandy and cream. Since Tracey doesn’t drink coffee, she just had a hot chocolate.
We arrived back at the boat in time for sailing at 4:15pm.
Tonight’s entertainment is dinner and then a “Name that Tune” competition with the musicians, Josh & Grace who are from Yorkshire.
We had a fun night and our group (John & Joanna, Kevin & Lorraine & Danny & I) called “Stayin’ Alive”, ended up equal 2nd. Got a bottle of sparkling wine which we all shared the next night.
