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The main excursion for the following day was to Munich. As this was a 9 hour tour and we had been several times to Munich we decided that it would be wiser to pass this one up. We weren’t clear on how much walking was involved and although the walking isn’t too much of a problem, standing around...

Nuernberg was our destination the following day where Jackie and I had signed up for different excursions. Having grown up during the London Blitz, WW2 its history has always interested me, and Nuernberg (in English speaking countries the city is always known as Nuremberg) has always been high...

An addendum to the Maastricht piece which I forgot to mention. During dinner at the hotel, members of André Rieu’s orchestra came to play for us as we ate. Any of the kind people on this site who watch the André Rieu concerts broadcast on the Sky Arts channel would have recognised them. They...

Our evening meal, included in the package, was to be served at 5 pm, allowing the four course repast to be enjoyed at a fairly leisurely pace. The wine kept flowing so by the time we had to leave for the concert we were as jolly a bunch as you will find. We assembled outside the hotel and...

There will now be a short intermission while I write about our trip to Maastricht for André Rieu’s magical concert in the town square. Anybody who’s followed our jaunts this far will know that last year the rain and concert began about the same time. The rain was torrential and outlasted the...

Thanks Jay. Hope we can carry on for a lot longer. Back to the cruise. We were cruising after breakfast so there were no excursions until after lunch. At 10.30 there was a presentation on Great Canals and Locks by our Program Director, Caitlyn, in the lounge. Jackie and I trundled along and...

Jackie’s excursion involved a short bus ride and then a trip in a cable car over the Rhine to the fortress, mine to Marksburg Castle meant a bus ride and then a climb upwards (by the bus) to a car park that was just below the castle. From there it was a stiff walk upwards to the castle entrance...

After breakfast the ship stopped at Zons where those of us who were going on the Cologne city tour disembarked for our tour buses. The ship then continued on to Cologne, due to arrive at 12 noon. In the meantime we travelled on our buses to the centre of the city where we rendezvoused in front...

There had been a briefing on the ship and its personnel before dinner time arrived. It’s good to be able to put a job to the faces that become so familiar to you over the course of your river cruise. Knowing the captain’s name, the head chef’s name and those of the people who are going to play a...

Thank you, Jay. Budapest is indeed brilliant, and I'll get around to it a little later. It was the penultimate town on the trip. So there we were waking up on a Sunday morning, the departure day for our Rhine/Danube cruise to hear the steady pounding of heavy rain. We were due to catch the...

We are now two days away from our river cruise from Amsterdam to Budapest with a 3 day extension in Prague. Luckily this was all booked and paid for before those gigantic dental bills started arriving. I’ll be covering this trip as it includes many places we haven’t visited before. I just hope...

And you're perfectly correct, Jay. If I'd conformed to "ordinary" behaviour my life would have been much duller.

First, thanks are due to Daisy and Jay for their likes. They're appreciated. The rest of the fortnight was passed in similar vein. The rain, however, came on every day except our first and last. Luckily, it didn’t rain for the whole day but we would have a downpour in the morning, for example...

The weather next day was warm and sunny and after a breakfast of eggs followed by croissants we were taken out for an informal tour of the island. It’s pretty flat so it’s not as picturesque as, say, Cornwall or Devon, but the beaches are superb and the weather is in general warmer than in...

Hi there, Jay. No it's not the Ile de Ré, it's the Ile d'Oléron just to the south. And I agree with you that it's a really nice area. We loved La Rochelle where we spent a day with our son, walking around the harbour and the small streets of the town.

And so the time to visit our son and daughter-in-law arrived. They had sold their houses (his in Luxembourg, hers in France) and moved to an island on the west coast of France. They had set up an enterprise to buy 2 houses and 2 apartments to begin with, renovate them and, living in one of the...

Well, this was something I hadn’t seen coming. Before Christmas I had my regular 6-monthly dental checkup appointment. One of the teeth in my upper left jaw was coming loose. My dentist had fastened it in place a couple of checkups ago, but it was now working loose again. He had a look at it...

Best of luck on the forthcoming treatment. I hope that thinking of your problems helps make them smaller. If it does then I'm working like a beaver to help you. Good wishes for the best outcome possible.

Arriving in the village, our first task was to look for a car park. We wanted it to be as central as possible to reduce the distance Jackie would have to walk so we drove around for a short while, getting an orientation while doing so. Then, finding a car park with an empty slot approximately in...

To each his own, Sue. Personally, I'm a Scotch drinker.