At 7 AM this morning we docked in Wertheim, Germany, yet another small, old quaint town on the river. This city has experienced 800 years of flooding because of its location on the Main and Tauber Rivers and even boasts of its own “leaning tower” resulting from that flooding. Spitzer Turm has a noticeable lean but it was originally built in the 13th century as a lookout tower. The entrance is 30 feet off the ground and also served as a strong hold if being invaded.
There are several buildings in the city that show the height of the flood waters with the most recent being 2003.
The town is filled with half-timbered homes and narrow cobble stone streets indicative of that era, along with a relic of a not so distant past; a telephone booth.
Main Street where everyone could see the clock
Brown Timber House One of the original buildings, very narrow. Merchants lived above their place of business
Downtown area with open seating to enjoy many of the cafe’s. bakeries and restaurants
This is their library where they can pick up and return books.
If a house was painted in bright color, as this one is, it signified the owner was wealthy.
Of course, there was also a castle high on a hill.
View of Tauber River from Castle
Wall of the Castle
Restaurant in the Castle
Wertheim has some really unique architectural features in the city that we thought were fun to see. Hope you do too.
The Wurzburg prince-bishops wielded enormous power and wealth, and the city grew in opulence with the Residenz being one of the finest baroque palaces built between 1720 and 1744.
Used to be, this was where all the waste water was dumped making the river very polluted and the smell only added to the unpleasantness. But as you can see, these homes are now lovely and quite hard to buy and are beautifully maintained.
In Bamberg, we noticed very little delineation between sidewalks and streets. In fact, in some places, the only clue you had that you were walking in the street were these metal discs identifying the “curb”.
They came to a perfect solution: They built a bridge across the Regnitz and a city hall on a manmade island in the middle serving both sides and not subject to the taxes. Seems to me there were clever, greedy Capitalist even in the 14th century.
It’s history dates back to the 11 century, but it is most known for its role in World War II. This city was a prime target for the Allied Forces. It was Hitler’s headquarters and the site of the Nazi rallies because of its location and proximity to surrounding towns by railroad. As a result, almost all the buildings were flattened by the Allied bombers in January 1945. Of course, it was also the site of the war crimes trials at the Palace of Justice.
The Palace is now the home of Government offices but garden is where the children sing Do Re Mi in the movie. When you watch the movie, which we did aboard the ship, its fun to see these places but you realize there was a great deal of editing done to make the locations gel.
It was built in 1661 of Italian marble and is the largest fountain in Austria. I remember seeing it in the scene after Maria leaves the convent to become a Nanny. Again, no logical reason why Maria was walking past that fountain in the movie other than it was a famous and beautiful masterpiece.
Just before the Port Talk, we were treated to some bathers on the river bank mooning us which you don’t see on an ocean cruise.
Even though the temperature had been in the mid 90’s all day, the air conditioning in the concert hall was turned off at the request of the performers. (Something to do with the air effecting their voices.) The performance was wonderful but the room was terribly hot. Most of us left some of our DNA in the form of perspiration in that concert hall. When we got back to the ship, the Chef had made a late night snack of traditional Hungarian Goulash Soup. Nice touch!
the largest city in Austria with over 25% of its entire population living here. It’s obvious the city is very interested in the arts with advertisements of famous opera singers appearing at the Opera House, and art museums having special showings and beautiful architecture. The city is filled with large palaces and elaborately styled buildings influenced by the Turkish rule for over 500 years. It is also filled with small city streets paved in old cobblestone rounded by the horse’s hooves.
After dinner we had a guest lecturer taking us through the Austrian history which was not only interesting but entertaining and fun. He defined Austrians as “an unsuccessful attempt to make Italians into a Germans”.
(gef-i-on) and it took me several days to remember how to pronounce the name. Like Viking’s other long boat ships, Gefjon is 440 feet long and narrow accommodating under 200 passengers. We were lucky enough to have only 182 passengers and 52 crew members which was very different from any other cruise we had been on. There were no children and a few young people and a few “really old” people but I would say the average age was around 60 years old. As in all groups, there was one group from Australia that joined with some Canadians to be the rebel rousers of the group who were always the loudest and most vocal.
Our guide must be an entertainer by profession because he kept us laughing for two solid hours and still managed to show us the high points in Nashville.
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