HEAVE HO, AND AWAY WE GO!

This is it.  The actual river cruise.  We are finally on our ship, the Emerald Luna, a long, narrow, floating hotel complete with a luxurious dining room, a bar and lounge, a small pool, and an observation deck with a putting green on the top deck, staffed with friendly, helpful people whose mission is to make sure we enjoy ourselves so much that we will want to come back again.  It was a pretty sweet ride.

Having done two cruises now I will testify that this is the best way to travel.  You can literally unpack once but still holiday in a new city every day.  Your hotel goes with you.  It’s the best.

But because the hotel keeps moving you need to heed the rules about checking in and out if you leave the ship.  Your room card is also your electronic identity.  The very first night they made repeated calls for room 324 to prove they were aboard before we left.  I’m still wondering if they ever found him.

We spent the first morning on an excursion to Keukenhof Gardens where the tulips grow in wide swathes in fields.  It was early in the season so they were mostly yellow (did you know the varieties bloom by color sequence? Learn something new every day!)  We went totally tourist mode … explored a windmill, walked through the gardens, took a whole bunch of pictures, bought the tiny pancakes dusted with powdered sugar, looked around the souvenir shop and then it was back to the bus that took us back to our boat.  Day 1 was done.

There were some tense moments the next day when our promised wifi had disappeared.  Imagine a whole boatload of people with NO WIFI!  The Emerald cruise line had changed their provider and everything had not gone smoothly.  Owners of Apple products were the last to be saved.  It was touch and go towards the end.

I have to confess, from there on things get a little fuzzy.  No, this memory haze has nothing to do with wine consumption, although there was plenty of that.  I just quit taking notes.  I thought I would remember, and I do recall the things we did, just not the order we did them in.

There was the day in Dusseldorf where we did a tour of the old part of town (think: Middle Ages) and the guide bragged up the fine German mustard made there.  I live with a guy who loves different mustards so I wanted some of that for a gift for him.  Spent our free time making sure I had some.  I think that was Day 2, cannot be sure. 

In checking with my fellow travellers who did continue to write things down, that wasn’t the end of Day 2.  I had Cologne and its fantastic cathedral on Day 5 but apparently Cologne was the afternoon of Day 2.  All the other stuff I have written about Day 5 is true, or corrected.  The trouble was I needed help getting my cathedrals sorted out.  Cologne is where there is a magnificent cathedral.  Spectacular.  Awe-inspiring.  Hundreds of years in the making.  Survived the war because the allied pilots used it for navigation purposes – it’s that impressive.  I thought we were there on Good Friday but were at another church on Good Friday (see how easily it is to get these things mixed up?)  I do remember that it rained on Day 2.  I have a picture of us all standing in a circle so that I could capture everyone’s soggy shoes and raincoats in front of the Cologne Cathedral on (not) Day 5.

If Day 3 was also on the Wednesday, that was the day we paid extra to go tour a castle.  The scenery was breath-taking.  The walk downhill to the castle and back up to the parking lot was great exercise and provided vista views at every turn.  The forest trees were just leafing out and the edelweiss was in bloom.  I could almost hear Julie Andrews singing the song from The Sound of Music.  AND I found the perfect rock to take home from my trip.  It’s a thing that I do, and this rock was perfect. 

Now … just let me check my photos … oh yes!  We spent most of the afternoon going through the Rhein Gorge and spotted nearly 40 castles in 4 hours.  It truly is a fairytale land and to soak it all in a person should rent a house for a month and stay with the locals to learn it all.  Speaking French and German would be a real asset if I were to do this.

The next day (Day 4, I’m fairly certain) we took another bus trip to see another palace and gardens.  More history showcasing the furniture and décor of centuries past.  The dishes, the diet, the clothing, the customs.  The loveless arranged marriages to keep property in the family’s control.  The resulting love affaires, the secret doors, the illegitimate children, the humans being humans.

That afternoon we had free time to do our own thing.  There was a big, modern mall a few blocks away so we stepped up into the 21^st Century and went shopping.  The smart one of us bought a new sweater to broaden out her choices of something to wear for the last few days.  To put it mildly the weather had not been kind, and every day had been a quandary on how to look fresh in the only warm clothes we had brought with us.  By this time we were beginning to look pretty recycled.

On the REAL Day 5 we visited another awesome church in Strasberg.  This time we were allowed in even though it was Good Friday.  I have read books about the engineering and artistry that went into these masterpieces of architecture.  It’s mind-blowing, and their beauty is exquisite.  The sun shining through those stained glass windows (packed up and hidden in a mine to save them during the war and then lovingly restored to their glory when peace made it safe) is something everyone needs to experience – it makes you believe that good can triumph over evil.  We rounded out the day with lunch in a sidewalk café and later on eclairs from a shop on “Temptation Street”.

Day 6 (and by this point I confess I’m leaning heavily on stuff I don’t necessarily remember myself).  We took another bus trip to another place that had another medieval town center to showcase.  I don’t mean to sound disrespectful or bored.  By this time we were on overload.  This day I remember thinking about how we were on the edge of the fabled Black Forest and close to where The Sound of Music’s story originated.  We toured the town, we shopped in the huge street market, we bought souvenirs, we were treated to Black Forest cake and samples of the local sausages and cheeses.  It was all wonderful.

And that evening there was a farewell party and disco on the ship.  I don’t remember when the last time was that I got up to dance to Y.M.C.A. but my sisters and daughter were there and the time seemed right … there are pictures … no worries … it was on the other side of the world …

All that was left to do was get up the next morning and pack for the trip home.  We had been told to always check the safe before we left our room so that we had everything, but as far as I can figure it was my drawer I should have checked one more time.  The mustard I went to extra lengths to buy for Glen did not come home with me.  Neither did my perfect rock from my castle climb.  I can picture them so clearly in that drawer, nestled right up beside my favourite bra!  I am so disgusted with myself that I left these things so close to my heart so far away but there is nothing to be done about it.

Instead I brought home what is probably the 2026 version of Covid.  Glen says he would rather have gotten something more touristy like a fridge magnet.