Our ship left Rüdesheim and made a left hand turn into the Main (pronounced “mine”) River and headed toward Frankfurt, where we will board buses for an all-day excursion to the town of Heidelberg.

The Main River is a much smaller tributary of the Rhine River and is noted for the 34 river locks we will be passing through as we work our way 246 miles to Bamberg where we will connect to the Rhine-Main-Danube Canal for the next portion of our journey. By the way, our ship is 38 feet wide and the locks we will be going through are 39.4 feet wide. Do the math! The captains that oversee these boats are darn good!  Another fun fact about boat captains on German rivers. The language used are either German, Russian or French- surprisingly not English.

We have 1.5 hour bus ride from Frankfurt to Heidelberg. The ship will continue without us and pick us up later today downstream. During the ride our local guide, Magnus, narrated historical information  about Frankfurt. It is a financial center and its airport is the largest in Europe. The city has a population of about 700,000 and has more non-German people living here than Germans. A favorite drink here is alcoholic apple cider (apfelwein). Magnus says the first glass is not all that tasty (tart and sour tasting) but the taste improves as you have more glasses!  “Hand cheese with music” is a popular companion to apple wine. It is a stinky cheese with onions and is eaten with your hands. And we were told the music comes later!

If only I was 18 again and graduating from high school after taking 2-3 years of German as a second language. Why, you ask?  Because I would be able to attend the University of Heidelberg for free; yes, free.  Why U of Heidelberg?  Because the town of Heidelberg is idyllic:  the ruins of Heidelberg castle, overlooking the Main River, an old town with cobblestone streets, and a variety of small restaurants that cater to the 40,000 students who attend the university. The city itself has a population of 160,000. Heidelberg University was founded in 1386 and is the oldest in Germany; it is considered to be one of the best in Europe. Four of the prestigious Max Planck Institutes are located in Heidelberg.  Heidelberg is a lovely city that won us over!

We visited the ruins of the Heidelberg castle. First built before 1214 it was subsequently destroyed by fire and wars, rebuilt, with new architecture incorporated over the years, such that it is recognized as one of the best examples of renaissance architecture north of the alps.

One of the major sights in the castle is the world’s largest wine barrel. It was built in 1751 and stands seven meters high, is eight and a half meters wide, holds 220,000 liters (58,124 gallons) of wine, and has a dance floor built on top of it.  One hundred and thirty oak trees were reputedly used in its construction. It has only rarely been used as a wine barrel, and in fact presently enjoys more use as a tourist attraction.

After the guided tour of the castle we rode the funicular down to the town proper where we toured the old town a bit. We always seem to run into a wedding when we are traveling and today was no exception. In fact we saw three separate ones during our afternoon in Heidelberg.

It was now time for lunch and we were taken to a small local restaurant where we were served a delicious German potato salad as an appetizer, followed by “Maultaschen“, the German equivalent of ravioli.  It is made with ground meat, onions and parsley and molded into a pasta. It can be either boiled or fried;  ours were fried and came with a green salad. As expected beer or wine accompanied the meal. 

We were free to shop or sightsee on our own for some time before returning to our bus/ship. We wandered down the pedestrian malls, bought something called “Schneeballen”, a local fried pastry covered with various coatings, which looked and sounded good but turned out to be dry; none of us were particularly excited about it. We did stop for some ice cream and coffee, sitting on the market square, watching the world go by and enjoying the atmosphere of Heidelberg.

While we were in Heidelberg our ship continued downriver and met us in the nearby town of Aschaffenburg, so we did not have a long bus ride back to the ship. This will happen more than once on this trip, a nice benefit.

There was a cooking class at 5:30 on making Kasspatzle, which consists of spatzle, onions and cheese. Unfortunately there was a limited number of people who could attend. Luckily Jan made the cut and promised to share the recipe.

The on board entertainment tonight was a local female group (dressed in white) called the “4 Virtuosos”, who played violins and a cello. They played a 45 minute set featuring mostly popular tunes that we all recognized.

We got in 10,495 steps today, so we headed to bed right after the show.