Our cruise down the Rhine and Mosel rivers started in Basel Switzerland and floated us thru 4 countries…Switzerland, France, Germany and The Netherlands. The boat is very beautiful and our cabin is larger than we expected with comfortable beds and a small balcony. Impressive! Food is 5 star with a variety of choices at each meal and actually tasty.

Numerous castles along the way and daily stops. We did a day in France exploring Strasbourg. It’s the 2nd largest port in France and 2nd largest city along the Rhine river. This city is 2,000 years old … put that in perspective to the USA fixing to be 250 years old…HUGE difference. The city has a population of 30,000, but 6,500 are students. It’s know for its free university which is the 2nd largest public university in France.

The French arrived in the 17th century, but thru the ages, it experienced a “Yo-yo” history between French and German. It’s known for wine and silver & gold mining.

The Notre Dame here, built in the light 1100s in honor of the Virgin , was very impressive. It suffered bombing during the 1870 Franco Persian war when the roof was bombed, which created a bad fire. It’s made of blocks of sandstone so it was not totally destroyed .

We also enjoyed visiting a church that held the organ Mozart played and a huge organ designed by Albert Switzer.

We sailed on into Germany which is divided into 16 separate states. Our next stop was Heidelberg, Germany. built on the River Neca. The city is about 800 years old. It is an American army base. General Patton died in the hospital here in 1945 from car accident. The city wasn’t bombed in WWII…because there’s no industry here. It’s an academic city with oldest university in Germany built in 1386 … today approx 40,000 students.

Schloss Heidelberg is one of the most famous and preserved ruins in Germany…first mentioned in history as early as 1225. The early 17th century brought new buildings and a palace that Frederick IV (who never went to bed sober) used this palace as a family album. There’s a statue of each family member carved into the outside walls. And the coolest asset here is it houses the largest wine barrel in the world…holding 49,000 gallons of wine…built in 1760 and made of 130 good quality oaks trees… , but but it still leaks 😜
A unique quirk about this town…you are NOT allowed to wash your car or mow your yard on Sunday.

We visited many towns along the Rhine but I think my favorite was the VERY small village of Rudesheim. It was truly like stepping back in time. There’s only 10,000 locals but over 2million tourists seek out this village every year. Don’t go in the summer! Big mistake! We could barely walk down the famous Drosselgasse alley … only about 8 feet wide and 144 feet long. It’s really quaint and lined with wine taverns, restaurants and lots of artisan specialty shops…and of course I found a few treasures.😉

3 more days of sailing to reach Amsterdam. Praying for our Texas communities & the flood victims. 🙏🏽