We docked next to Wertheim during breakfast. It's a small, former medieval town that is at the junction of the Main & Tauber rivers. You remember the Tauber?, this is the river that Rothenburg was built above. Back in the day, this town, as many along the Main, was flooded quite often. That is, before all of these locks were built for navigation. The last big flood was in 2011. Take a look at the flood gauge picture, expand to see the specific marks and dates. To give you perspective, the 2011 mark had 2+ feet of water throughout town.
Wertheim was spared destruction during WWII thanks to two students who raced up to the castle to show a white flag of truce when the US Army approached. Here's the castle overlooking the town. It was built in the 12th century.
At 9, all of the tour groups met in front of the ship.
Our host's name was .. Ulrich. His family line has lived in Wertheim since 1427 !! He was very informative and interesting to listen to. The first attraction you see is the 'Spizer Turm', or tower, built in 1180, the superstructure in 1450. It continues to .. lean. Probably because of the many many years of floods. It used to be a 'jail' that housed the town's drunkards and 'quarrelsome women'.
walking into town and the town square.. that's Ulrich with green 'lollipop'
Here's a pic of the castle/fortress from the town's view..
The castle/fortress has been left in ruins as a reminder of the Thirty Years' War of 1618-1648, which started out as a religious war between the Catholics and Protestants. The yellow and blue flag that flies above the castle is not the one of Ukraine but of Sweden as King Gustavus Adolphus brought his Swedish army to Germany to turn the tide of the war. He left a regiment at this castle to help Wertheim.
Here is the angels' well, built of red sandstone, typical from the area.
Martin Luther is on the side with a riddle shown on his shield. If I remember correctly .. which 4-letter word with the letter 'L' is something that most people crave and desire? .. but when the "L" is removed, the remaining word is all they'll ever need? .. G O L D ..
We needed a coffee and treat break, so we visited the Fritz Frischmuth bakery, which has been operated by the same family for 13 generations!
We visited the gothic church .. Stiftskirche, built in 1383. Today it's a Protestant parish church.
After a fun morning in Wertheim the tour groups met at the leaning tower and climbed aboard a bus for the drive to rejoin our ship in Freudenberg. Along the way I tried to take a picture of the .. Henneburg Castle, ca 1450.
We arrived at our ship and promptly had a wonderful lunch and started cruising down the Main. Before I could finish my main course an announcement was made that we were cruising by the famous town of .. Miltenberg. It was a strategic location for fortifications starting in the neolithic and bronze ages, then the Romans built upon these in 150ad, and subsequently rebuilt by the Franks in 500ad and more by medieval settlers in the middle ages. Here's a few pics taken from the sun deck.
I went back down to the dining room to finish my lunch. In the afternoon our cruise director gave a presentation on European history and culture and the geography of the Main and Rhine rivers as we were cruising towards Rudesheim.
Afterwards we went to our stateroom to relax and read before getting into our finest for the special dinner tonight. On our way to dinner we heard another announcement that said we were approaching another castle. I hurried up on deck to take a picture or two. The Johannisburg Palace in Aschaffenburg was built between 1605-1614 for the prince bishop of Mainz. I barely got there to capture some images before it slid by. Whew!
It was time for our special .. Chaine de Rotisseurs Dinner.
Appetizer : smoked trout rillette, horseradish panna cotta, cucumber-macha coulis, tomato chips, micro herbs
soup was .. clear onion soup, cheese crouton
sorbet was .. kir royal
main course : mustard crusted medallions of lamb, thyme sauce, ratatouille, artichokes puree, potato gratin
dessert : 'crepe suzette' - orange/cointreau/caramel, cinnamon ice cream
I hope the weather tomorrow is good, because it's probably the highlight of this specific cruise. Jan and I saw it from the other direction a couple of years ago on another river cruise. After Rudesheim we'll be entering the magical Rhine Gorge that has 30-castles in 66-km !! We better get some good rest tonight.
Take care, Jan & Joe
I imagine there were some quarrelsome men who would have/should have been in the jail as well 😄 Great pic of you and Jan! And that appetizer looks interesting.
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