bridge over the Tauber River

Wertheim, Germany

Wertheim is a town in southwestern Germany located at the confluence of the Main and Tauber Rivers with a population of around 24,000 residents. A castle overlooks the town from a hill. The town has medieval historical buildings and is known for glass making and Franconian wine. Some of the town’s buildings have markers showing the extreme height of floodwaters from numerous previous floods. Small floods can be stopped by the town’s floodgates, but not the big ones. Raising the streets nearly 5 feet turned prior ground floors into basements, but still doesn’t keep the worst floods from inundating the town. Wertheim has a mild climate with average winter lows in the high 20’s F to average summer highs in the mid 70’s F, though it does get colder and hotter at times. The warm season runs from June to September, with the cold season from November to March. July is typically the hottest month and January the coldest. The driest part of the year is generally between January and May. Snow is most likely between December and February. Annual precipitation averages a bit over 20 inches each year. Things to do in Wertheim include exploring the old town area, visiting the glass museum or shopping in the town’s boutiques. Glassware and beaded jewelry has been made there since medieval times. Wertheim was known as a successful merchant’s town in the middle ages.

Viking Skirnir in Wertheim

Wertheim River Cruise Port

The port in Wertheim was within walking distance of the town, but a train tram was provided to take people for the scheduled tour. There were also several pick-up times running half an hour apart afterword so people could either go back shortly after the tour or spend a bit more time wandering around in the town and still get a ride back to the ship. Not much though since the ship did not stay there very long.

map at the dock in Wertheim

Wertheim Walking Tour

Viking Skirnir came to Wertheim for a brief port stop of about 4 hours on a cold foggy early December morning. The temperature started out below freezing, but warmed up to about mid 30’s F by noon. Which still feels mighty cold since it is not that far above freezing and the air is damp and chilly in the fog. It also gives the photos a misty distant look since they are taken through the fog. Especially the ones from the start of the tour. It did clear up a little before the end. After we got back to the ship the sun even made a brief appearance between bouts of fog.

train tram

This tour had a unique start different from any of the other tours provided on this cruise. Taking the little train tram instead of walking straight off from the ship or taking a bus was unique to this port. Rather than starting everyone off at once groups were staggered a bit because there isn’t enough room on the train for everyone. We were assigned to the middle one of 3 groups. The stop where the train let us off was next to the Main River within walking distance of the ship. They said it would be about a 15-minute walk to get back, but we didn’t test that out since we got to the return stop when there was a train tram waiting there with seats available. Since the return trains ran half an hour apart if we had missed it we would have walked. There was a path alongside the river so just go until you get to the ship and it wouldn’t be hard to find from the tram stop – as long as you went in the right direction.

all of the Christmas market booths are closed

Wertheim is a pretty small town. The map that the ship provides showed a much smaller area for walking around in than any of the previous places we visited. It was apparently too small of a town to have enough business for the Christmas Market to stay open except on weekends so all of the little booths in the main market square were closed.

Everything was closed at the start of the tour. The yellow building is the bakery.

There was a bakery there that the guide said was the one place in town that provided free restrooms for the public without having to pay to use them or buy anything. I’m sure that free service gets them a lot of business from people coming in to use the bathroom. It was closed when we walked by it near the start of the tour, but open later after the tour was finished. Pretty much the whole town was closed when we first walked through it.

street in Wertheim

The tour guide was a retired Colonel from the German army. He was old, born shortly after the end of World War 2 in a small house in that very town.

Spitzer Turm

Pisa is not the only place with a leaning tower, just the most famous one. We saw one previously on Burano Island in Venice, and Wertheim has one too. Not to mention just about all of the older buildings alongside the canals in Amsterdam are wonky. The leaning tower in Wertheim is a round tower that was once a prison with a door way up high where prisoners and guards climbed a ladder to get up, then prisoners were lowered by rope 30 feet down into the dark with all the other prisoners and no facilities. They stayed there in complete darkness for up to 6 weeks for the horrible crimes of public drunkenness, not paying bills, or being a nagging wife or quarreling women. Apparently it was fine for men to nag or argue as long as they weren’t drunk. The tower is called the Spitzer Turm, which means pointed tower. The lean is caused by 800 years of flooding.

new stairway near the bottom of the tower

The bottom of the tower was the original part made of brick and the top was added later to turn it into a watchtower, with a door and stairway added on lower down than the original one for the prison. This tower is not as tall as the one in Pisa and the diameter is smaller as well.

random doorway in Wertheim

Though there was a German military airport near the town during World War 2, Wertheim got spared from allied bombing, but not intentionally. Only because when the allies flew over to bomb it the day was extremely foggy. It had fog so thick they couldn’t see the ground. Since they couldn’t find the town they didn’t know where to drop the bombs so they left without bombing anything.

stairway to the river

The Tauber River which runs through town is a smaller river than the Main that we sailed in on. Homes line that river. Every so often there’s a seemingly random stairway going down the riverbank into the water. These are leftover from a time when the townspeople used them to get down to the river to wash their clothes.

inside of a half-timbered wall

Much of the original construction of the town is in the medieval half-timbered style and many original buildings remain, with a few newer ones sprinkled in between. There was one house where the one next door had been torn down and nothing new built yet so you could see what it looked like inside the wall of a half-timbered house.

skinniest building in town

The narrowest building in town is very thin, sandwiched in between other buildings on the main market square. The bottom floor is very tiny. It gets a bit bigger as it goes up. The wider parts overhang a walkway that goes between it and the next building. The guide said the lowest story was originally made so small to avoid taxes because at the time it was built buildings were taxed only on the size of the space occupied at ground level regardless of how much space or how many stories they had above.

high water mark

Several of the buildings had high water indicators of previous floods. The river floods often enough that nobody lives on the bottom story in any of the buildings near the river. It’s the same in a lot of the riverside towns we visited. Seems like they would either build up on pilings above the high-water mark or build on high ground farther from the river, but apparently they all just take flooding in stride as part of normal life. There are often shops on the bottom floor so they would have to move all their merchandise whenever a flood is expected.

castle in the fog

Ruins of a castle perch high on a hill overlooking the town. It once belonged to the dukes (or counts) of Wertheim who built it in the 12th century. They aren’t recent ruins. That castle has been a ruin since the 30 years war of the 1600’s. The guide said he played in that castle as a child, though even back then it wasn’t allowed. He said since then some walls have fallen and the interior is not safe. Though the castle was not far away it was barely visible through the thick fog. Our local guide insisted that people are not allowed in the unsafe castle, but information online and from Viking said that partial restoration was done in the 1980’s and people are allowed to go there now. Even a sign at the dock listed castle tours.

the tour ended by a synagogue on a hill

The tour wound through town in a somewhat mazelike fashion and ended not within sight of where it started. Though nothing is all that far there the guide’s directions on how to get back to the market square and train stop were not at all clear. Luckily a friend we were traveling with paid attention to where we started and how to get back there so we didn’t have to wander around aimlessly until we found it.

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Cape Horn

On days when there’s something especially scenic Holland America opens up the front bow so people have somewhere outside to go besides the promenade deck and back deck to see the scenery. The Crow’s Nest observation lounge with its floor to ceiling windows across the front of the ship is also a good place, as is anywhere with a window or people’s own balconies. They have commentary in the Crow’s Nest and on the outside decks, but not other places where people might go to see things.

bowcam view

Commentary is on the bow cam channel in the staterooms too.

sunrise on the way to Cape Horn

Our balcony was on the port side and it looked as if Holland America Oosterdam would pass by on the starboard side so we went up to the Crow’s Nest shortly after 5am to watch from there. All of the seats by the front window were already full, which is not surprising thinking back to having staked ours out for a Panama Canal cruise at 4am and just beating the next people there by a few minutes for a later arrival than what we had here. The coffee bar in the Crow’s Nest did not open until its usual 6am at which time the line was extremely long so we didn’t bother. If somebody really wanted coffee or tea that badly they could have made it to the Lido buffet at the other end of the ship and back long before getting through the line at the coffee bar.

sailing past cape horn

The ship’s path was not displayed on any screens in the Crow’s Nest, but we watched it on the ship finder app on my phone. Ship finder used to be really good at showing all the ships in any area of the world, but it is not so good in some areas now. It might show some ships halfway around the world, but none anywhere nearby even when you can look out the window and see them. It didn’t even show the ship we were on as a ship. It will still pinpoint your current location on the map wherever you are even if it isn’t showing any ships in that area, which was all we really needed for this even if it did show our ship as a current location dot rather than as a ship. There are better navigation apps available.

jaws of the sea

Before reaching the cape we passed a rock formation which the naturalist onboard doing the commentary called the jaws of the sea.

sunrise over the jaws of the sea

Instead of going straight to the cape like we had expected, the ship sailed around the island and rounded it from the other direction so we went back to our room where we had the port side view since that turned out to be the side we would actually see it from. The seats we had chosen in the Crow’s Nest were starboard where the majority of the land mass was at the time as well as the side we would have passed Cape Horn on if we’d gone directly there rather than taking a detour around the island.

clouds over Cape Horn resembling a smoking volcano

It’ s nice to have a balcony for scenic things where you can run outside and get photos, but still go back into the room to warm up or listen to the commentary. It takes awhile to sail around the horn. There was a dark cloud on top of the cliff that is Cape Horn so it kind of looked like a volcano spewing up ash, though of course it really wasn’t.

giant rocks jutting out of the sea by Cape Horn

We sailed past scenic islands and rock formations on the way to Cape Horn. There were some pretty big rock formations near the cape as well.

in the dining room on Cape Horn night

From the times of old sailing ships they say that if you round Cape Horn you are entitled to pierce your left ear to wear a gold hoop and you are allowed to put one foot on the table when dining. If you also round the Cape of Good Hope in Africa you can then put both feet on the table and get a tattoo of a square sailed ship on your chest.

land passed after rounding the horn

The tip of South America is not one solid land mass, but rather a bunch of islands. Cape Horn is a high cliff on an island called Hornos Island, which is the southernmost one. There is a flatter land mass stretching out into a point that has a lighthouse, the farthest southernmost church in the world, and a monument. If you can afford the small ship expedition sort of cruise with zodiacs they will go to shore there weather permitting, but the regular cruise ships just look at it from the ship.

buildings near Cape Horn

One family lives at Cape Horn. There’s a lighthouse keeper who is a member of the Chilean navy with the applications for the voluntary position only open to married men who move there with their family. They stay for one year and then a new family takes over.

Australis ship and its zodiacs

We saw a ship from the Australis line near the structures sending people to shore. They had said we would get close enough to see the stairway up to the monument, but apparently that ship was blocking the way because we didn’t do that. Of course they were actually using the stairway rather than just sailing by to look at it like we would have done.

Cape Horn

Our ship turned there to give people on the starboard side a view of the lighthouse and other structures, but when rounding the cape itself people had to be on the port side to see it.

pilot boat zipping past our window

Local pilots sail with the ship as it passes around the horn. We sailed quite a way north to the pilot station where the pilot boat came to pick up the local pilots off the ship before turning south again to head across Drake Passage to Antartica. Pilots may be the reason for circling the island since we had to pick one up somewhere.

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tour boat

While staying in San Antonio, Chile for a couple days before embarking on a cruise to Antarctica on Holland America Oosterdam, we took a harbor tour available on the spot at a dock along the waterfront promenade. After walking down the stairway leading to the dock we found a couple men sitting on a bench who take the money for the cruise. Like the majority of the people in San Antonio, neither of them spoke English. John and I each know a few words in Spanish. Not enough for a conversation, but enough to manage a transaction, though for that it probably wouldn’t even matter since both sides know what the other wants and they were sitting under a sign with the price of 4000 pesos, which was about $4 USD per person at the time, though it would now take nearly $4.50 USD to equal 4000 Chilean pesos.

buoy in the harbor

They have a whole fleet of little boats that run the harbor tours. Some are very small and open with no shelter at all, while some are bigger and have a canvas cover over most of the seats. Others are somewhere in between.

double deck tour boat

We even saw one double deck boat. After paying they direct you into whatever boat is sitting at the loading spot at the time. The one for our tour happened to be one of the bigger single deck boats. There were a few people on it, but not many. As we boarded a young lady handed us life jackets and said something in Spanish. Probably telling us to put them on. All of the life jackets said Pamela on them, so that was most likely the name of the boat.

waiting for the boat to fill

Most of the people already on board were on the port side and the seats there were pretty much full. There was nobody on the starboard side. A family of 4 just ahead of us were getting into the middle seats, but one of them stood in the aisle for a very long time and wouldn’t move until we finally asked if we could get by. I don’t think she even realized we were there. She had a cute tiny little dog. There was a bigger dog along on the ride too so apparently they are allowed. When we could finally walk down the aisle we went to the back where we could have a view from the back of the ship as well as the side. At first the ship listed to port, but as it sat there for awhile while more people came to take a tour the starboard side eventually filled and the boat straightened out as the weight evened up.

sea lions on the beach and a grain ship unloading

For awhile there was a large school of tiny fish between the boat we were on and the one tied up next to it. Eventually the boats drifted together and the next time there was space between them all of the baby fish were gone.

captain

It took awhile for enough people to wander down to fill the boat enough to start the tour. Once both rows of outside seats were full the captain boarded without waiting for the whole inside row to fill as well. The girl who handed out life jackets came around with a camera and took pictures of everyone. As best we could figure out they needed to have a photo of everyone on board for liability reasons or something. Her phone translation said required for registration. Buying the photo after the tour was optional.

small container ship with small cranes

Once the tour got underway she put the camera down and picked up a megaphone instead. She had a running commentary throughout the tour, but since it was all in Spanish we don’t actually know what she said.

fishing from a fishing boat at anchor

It was a bit of an unusual boat tour. Usually they go to scenic sights or looking for wildlife. This one meandered through the harbor, I assume talking about the different ships we passed. First we went by fishing boats at anchor, one of which people were fishing off of right there in the harbor while it was anchored up – and catching fish too.

big container ship with big cranes

The boat went around to all of the different docks so I assume the commentary was about whatever ship happened to be there and how the loading and unloading works for that particular dock and type of ship.

car carrier

One was a car carrier with sides much higher than any of the container ships. Trucks loaded with cars would periodically drive down the dock away from that one, but since we were not on the side by the dock we didn’t see them unload though I would guess they probably just drive them off the ship and onto the truck. That ship did not have any cranes on or near it.

hotel we stayed in from the tour boat

The next ship back had its own cranes onboard, but no visible containers or anything. If it had anything left on it to unload it must have been inside the hold. The captain seemed to indicate that was the spot where the Oosterdam would be the next day so if there was any more loading or unloading to do they would have to finish it up before then. The process seemed to take quite awhile since all of the ships we saw stayed at least overnight if not longer. We could see a lot of the slips where ships were from our hotel room, but unfortunately not the one where the cruise ship docked. We had been hoping the Oosterdam would dock where we could see it from the hotel.

giant cranes

There were 4 enormous cranes between two berths with ships, but no ship at the cranes. On the other side of that little inlet there were some container ships. The smaller one had smaller cranes unloading it and the bigger one had some of the giant ones. At the time we passed by those cranes were pulling things up out of the hold from below decks near the middle of the ship while the outer ends still had containers piled high above the surface.

sea lion on top of the pedestal bit below the hull

We passed by the back end of a partially unloaded ship that had a sea lion and some birds sitting way up high on some sort of structure hanging below the hull of the ship. While the birds could easily fly in and out of there, we figured the sea lion must have gotten up there before they started unloading the ship when it sat lower in the water and would now have a very long drop to get down unless that ship was loaded up again before it left port.

tetrapods

A lot of the edges of the harbor had tetrapods, which are t-shaped concrete blocks piled up along the shoreline. These are used to prevent erosion and protect structures – like the docks they are placed around. The end of the outermost dock had some larger concrete blocks, which made a nice resting place for sea lions. Seagulls and sea lions were the only wildlife we saw on that tour. We also could see them from our hotel room. Sea lions liked the beach near there except when dogs chased them off, and seagulls were everywhere.

sea lion

On the way back to the dock we saw some more sea lions in the rocks at the end of another dock. It was a pretty short tour, but then again it was also really cheap. Most people did leave a tip at the end.

little mermaid tour boat

Many of the tour boats looked a bit worse for wear. As we were disembarking one pulled in next to us that was about the same size as ours, but painted up all fancy with characters from the Little Mermaid.

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display cake

The food on Holland America ships is similar from one ship to another, but there were some differences on the Nieuw Amsterdam from other Holland America ships I’ve sailed on. The buffet was arranged a bit differently with a refrigerated case taking up space in the central walkway/drink station. That made an extra place to obtain things like fruit and juice at breakfast or dessert at lunch or dinner, but it also eliminated some counter space. Other ships used that counter space for a tray of muffins and pastries in the early morning before the buffet opens, but the Nieuw Amsterdam only had fruit and cereal available. They could easily have solved that by opening the curtain at one of the pastry stations next to that area early where there were already an assortment of things stocked, but they never did.

buffet seating

Another change to the buffet is having taco and nacho type offerings at a station within the buffet instead of at a serve-yourself taco bar out by the pool and having a separate pizza place out on the back deck rather than serving pizza from a station at the buffet. In the morning they had regular waffles and crepes at the station that on previous ships used to make gluten free crepes out front. They recently changed that to pancakes, which this one made behind the scenes. The gluten free crepes they used to make were a whole lot better than the pancakes that they make now, but they won’t make gluten free crepes any more even though all they’d have to do is spread the dough out thinner. They did not make any gluten free baked goods in house at all on this ship and in the dining room people had to order gluten free in advance for any meal, not just dinner.

Tamarind sign

An additional difference on the Nieuw Amsterdam was a third premium restaurant in addition to the Pinnacle Grill and Canaletto that all of their ships have. The new one was called Tamarind. It served Pan-Asian food at dinnertime. It’s located at the center of deck 11 and accompanied by a sushi bar and an Asian themed bar with great views. Tamarind is available on only 5 of Holland America’s ships.

Tamarind bar

In addition to Nieuw Amsterdam it can also be found on Rotterdam, Nieuw Statendam, Koningsdam, and Eurodam. These are the larger ships of Holland America’s fleet, though nowhere near the megaship size some other lines have.

Canaletto

As previously mentioned, Nieuw Amsterdam also has Holland America’s standard pay-extra restaurants Canaletto and the Pinnacle Grill. Canaletto serves Italian food. It’s open at dinner only and located in a corner of the buffet seating. That works out well for the buffet as the seating area is open for anyone to sit there at breakfast and lunch when the buffet is more crowded and that corner of seating is restricted to Canaletto customers at dinner when more people eat elsewhere.

Pinnacle Grill

Pinnacle Grill is the upscale steakhouse and has its own space that is open for lunch and dinner. The lunch menu is different from the dinner menu and about half the price. The ship also had Holland America’s standard free Dive- In Grill next to the pool. Well at least the food there is free. You have to pay for it if you want a milkshake to go with the burger and fries. The Dive-In will make gluten-free or beyond meat burgers on the spot without having to order the previous day like you do in the dining room.

standard afternoon tea

You can also ask for gluten free on the spot at afternoon tea, but it’s pretty pitiful. The regular afternoon tea has the little 3-tiered tray with sandwiches, scones, and sweets on different tiers. Gluten free they bring a little plate.

gluten free afternoon tea for two

To share for 2 people they gave us one plate with 2 tiny very dry egg sandwiches with barely any filling and one big blob of chocolate. That’s it. What a disappointment. It wouldn’t be that hard to put together something nicer without even baking anything or putting much effort into it. They could add things like mini muffins which you can buy ready-made and some macarons, which are made with almond flour anyway so they’re always gluten free. (Macarons are the little fancy sandwich cookies, but coconut macaroons are often gluten free so they would work too.)

pork meatballs that were raw in the middle

The dining room food was generally good if refraining from ordering pork. At least I didn’t have any luck with it. I ordered pork 3 times. Once as an appetizer and twice for the main and every time it ranged from undercooked to nearly raw so after the third strike I did not order anything with pork again on this cruise.

pork dinner looks good, but is way undercooked when cut open

Other people at our table managed to get pork that was actually cooked all the way. It was just me that kept getting it undercooked. Kind of the opposite of an MSC ship we were on once where whatever I ordered for dinner was cooked perfectly and whatever my husband had was way overcooked. Even when we both ordered the same duck meal on that MSC ship mine was beautifully golden brown and his had the color and consistency of old leather.

this gluten free puffed pastry was the only GF baked item all cruise that didn’t come straight from a package – and it was delicious

Other than pork they did a good job with the mains and appetizers, but gluten free desserts were an issue.

one of many renditions of the flourless chocolate cake

If ordering anything chocolate it was always their flourless chocolate cake with various different toppings rather than whatever it was supposed to be. The flourless chocolate cake is good, but it’s nice to have some variety in cruise ship desserts rather than the same thing over and over. Pies were just the filling in a jar served like pudding, which was at least something different each time. Since we are just limited tolerance rather than celiacs we had better desserts sometimes up at the buffet where we could get things the way they were supposed to be. In the dining room it’s all or nothing on gluten free because anything else confuses them. They probably have to treat everyone who asks for gluten free as if they are a celiac to prevent causing anyone problems.

vegetarian dinner

There’s always a vegetarian option on the dinner menu. One night it was cauliflower steak, which sounded better to me than anything else on that night’s menu. It was pretty good.

turkey dinner in the dining room

One night after disappointing dining room desserts we went up to the Lido buffet to see if we could find something better and they had an assortment of cakes made with different types of booze. They were moist and delicious and some of the best desserts we had all cruise. We didn’t try all of them, but shared little pieces of a few different ones and they were all good.

lots of cakes at Cake Me Away

The other good cake day is when they have Cake Me Away one day at lunchtime in the buffet. They have quite a variety of fancy cakes for that. Their gluten free offerings were pretty bad, but any of the rest that we tried were good. They had that twice during our cruise because even though we had booked it as one cruise the last few days was sort of like a back-to-back because a lot of people got off in San Diego and new ones got on just from there to Vancouver. Which meant a chance to try some different cakes the second time around.

chicken dinner

The other special dessert thing they had was chocolate surprise one evening which is where you hang out on deck 2 and wait for the galley crew to come out with trays of a variety of different chocolate treats. Finding the door they come out of is the ideal way to see the entire selection on some ships, but on this ship there seemed to be quite a lot of each thing so at least some of the trays of each thing managed to make it all around the deck. They had little chocolate muffins, white chocolate fudge, dark chocolate macarons, and chocolate covered cheerios, raisins, almonds, and peanuts. Each item comes out one at a time and when all of the trays of one thing are gone they come out with the next treat.

dining room tacos

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spa balcony cabin

On the Luminosa, we had a spa balcony cabin, which is similar to a standard balcony cabin only it comes with extra perks including use of the thermal suite and is listed as having nicer amenities. Pictures show the interior décor of Carnival’s spa cabins in a green and blue color scheme, but ours was red and yellow so apparently they did not redecorate the spa cabins on the Luminosa when it switched from Costa to Carnival.

towel turkey

Spa cabins are supposed to come with upgraded amenities, but the shower still had conditioning shampoo instead of separate shampoo and conditioner so it was a good thing I brought some from home. It did have body wash separately so it wasn’t quite an all in one. There was bar soap for the sink rather than liquid hand soap. The bathrobes said cloud 9 on them and the provided beach towels were soft yellow ones that said serenity so they were serenity deck towels rather than the main pool deck towels standard cabins receive.

wall hooks and magnetic hooks

The cabin had ample storage space with 3 closets, 2 of which have hanging bars and one with shelves. As is usual on most any cruise we had to ask the steward for extra hangers. There were 3 empty drawers in the desk as well as 2 that had some stuff in them – like a hairdryer and laundry bags and forms. There were 2 built in wall hooks, and with magnetic hooks we added more places to hang things. The refrigerator came empty so we did not have to ask the steward to clear out mini-bar items, but there were two water bottles on the desk with price tags on them. Because we are returning guests the steward took the pay tags off and said we were entitled to have them for free. That perk may change in the near future though since Carnival’s overhaul of their loyalty program will soon take the earned status away from everyone who has not made diamond by the end of the summer and base it on money spent in a 2-year period rather than points accumulated from all past cruises.

balcony

The room had a cupboard with two fairly good-sized shelves and and two open small shelves next to it. The nightstands were quite small, but did have a tiny cupboard with 2 shelves inside each one. The framework of the couch under the seat has a couple loops sticking out of it and pulling on them I found 2 large drawers, empty and available for storing stuff. One of them could probably hold nearly as much as all of the drawers in the desk combined.

cabin 8224

The room has a king bed that can be separated into two, a chair at the desk, a full-sized couch, and a larger than average balcony with two chairs and a small table. Since this was a spa cabin we expected a very comfortable mattress. but this one almost felt like sleeping on the sort of carpeted floor with some kind of matting under the rug. Cruise ship beds are usually a lot more comfortable than that. The floor felt like its flat carpet was directly over a hard surface with no matting under it at all so the bed was somewhat softer than the floor in this room, but a softer mattress definitely would have been nice.

bathroom has 2 sets of shelves on the mirror

The bathroom is standard cruise ship size – small with a small shower. It does have a fairly long counter and a set of 3 shelves on each side of the mirror above the bathroom counter for a total of 6 rather than the standard only 3 on one side found on many ships. There is not any storage space under the counter. Some ships do have a shelf there, but this one did not. The center area underneath the sink is closed off with just a trash can at one end and a small shelf area filled with spare supplies like Kleen-x and toilet paper at the other.

magnets are useful for keeping paperwork organized

Most of the cabin walls are magnetic. The door can hold a strong magnet, but not a weak one. Door décor on week magnets hung just fine on the walls around the door, but not on the door itself. Of the magnets I had only the strong hook magnets could hold things up on the door.

wall art

The room has a pretty big mirror over the desk and a small TV hanging on the wall next to the mirror. There are a variety of different lights around the room. Wall art in our cabin was 3 pictures that looked like watercolor to me, though I’m no art expert. One was a tulip, one a vase, and the other the sort of abstract design that you can find to look like something if you stare at it long enough. It also had a little oval table by the couch.

using an adaptor to increase the available outlets

The biggest drawback of the room was that it had only one American and one Australian outlet and those so close to each other that even a small plug going into the American one was crowded by a smaller than average adapter in the Australian one – of which I plugged a plug extender into, though the 3 are spaced close enough that with most items you can only actually use the outer 2. This gave us 3 outlets to plug into rather than just one. Luckily electronics are OK on different power. My clock is not so it got the one American outlet. There were also some USB ports on one of the nightstands.

We were in cabin number 8224 which is located right at the opening for the stairway and elevators. We thought it might be noisy there when we saw where it was, but we didn’t hear the elevators from inside the room at all. Occasionally there was a group of people with loud voices waiting for the elevator and we did hear them.

cabin door

The location of our cabin door was pretty handy for duck mailboxes since anyone going up or down the stairs could see it. The spa was just above us and the gym one more floor up. The entrance into the Lido pool area was also on the deck above us so it was an area where people would go. We got a lot of ducks traded in our duck mailboxes, but sometimes people took them without leaving one. Sometimes people left a duck without taking the one that was there and one day somebody put a ship on a stick (Carnival’s version of a trophy) on top of mine, which I figured was an award for having the best duck mailbox since mine was homemade.

ship on a stick on the duck mailbox

The only other duck mailbox on the ship was just a few doors down from ours. It was the little yellow sort you buy online like what John had. (I would not recommend those, they break easily.)  The people in that cabin took theirs down for much of the cruise due to a couple kids who constantly raided all of the duck mailboxes without ever leaving any ducks in trade. Those kids were probably somewhere between 10 and 14 so definitely old enough to know better, but since they often had a grandmother with them who not only allowed, but actually encouraged their bad behavior they aren’t likely to ever learn any respect for other people’s things. If they leave it empty then the next person who comes along to trade a duck won’t get one. One of the people in a nearby cabin caught them in the act and gave them a pretty good lecture so after that we got a lot more ducks in the mailbox rather than always finding it empty, and a lot of other people had fun trading them too. We even found one lady who just liked to look inside and see what was there. Duck mailboxes bring enjoyment to a lot of people.

ducks we either found or acquired in the mailbox

Our cabin steward was the friendliest one we’ve ever had. He was also a good steward. It was a 22-day cruise and we had a different towel animal every day. Overall it was a good cabin in a good location. The fact that cabins in our area stayed dry when a leaky pipe flooded some down the hall made our location that much better.

Copyright My Cruise Stories 2026

island tender at Cascade Pier

Norfolk Island, Australia is more than 1000 miles from mainland Australia. It’s of volcanic origin and about 5 miles long and 3 miles wide. None of the animals associated with Australia are native to the island. Neither are its venomous spiders and snakes. Other than domestic animals and creatures of the sea, Norfolk is mainly home to birds and insects. The highest elevation in the island is about 360 feet above sea level. The coastline mainly consists of cliffs. Tourism is the island’s main industry.

Norfolk Island Map

About half the island’s residents are descendants of the mutineers from the bounty and some Tahitian women that the mutineers brought with them to Pitcairn Island where they lived before being relocated to Norfolk Island. Prior to that the island was used for two different sets of convicts. One as Sydney was first being settled, which turned out advantageous for Sydney’s settlers since food was more easily grown on Norfolk Island at that time, and the second time for repeat offenders. Before that the island was not inhabited full time, though it did have some historic artifacts from Polynesian visitors. The rest of the population mainly comes from mainland Australia and New Zealand.

view of the tender pier from the ship

It’s a tender port with a couple different dock options, of which the one best suited to the day’s weather will be used – if the tenders can make it in at all. Sometimes the sea is too rough and the port gets skipped. This is a port with a high likelihood of getting skipped, but luckily the seas were not so rough to prevent us from coming ashore on our scheduled port day there. The docks are located at Kingston and Cascade.

Cascade tender pier

Tenders come out to the ship from the island rather than using the ship’s tenders at this port. The tender crew is also from the island and were far more skillful in docking their tenders than the Nordam’s crew had been with theirs. They managed to dock on both ends without crashing the tender into the ship or the dock, and made it to the dock on the first try. Neither of those things were likely when using the ship’s tenders. They also knew how to tie a proper knot to the cleat on the dock, another thing that sometimes escaped the ship’s tender crew.

shuttle bus near the dock

Holland America Noordam anchored out near the pier called Cascade, which is a remnant from the whaling industry of the past. Cascade is just the name of the pier. There’s nothing else there. Free shuttle busses wait to take people to the nearby town of Kingston. Other busses wait for tours booked through the ship.

mermaids on the rocks

Mermaids aren’t normally seen from the Cascade pier, but there were a couple out on the nearby rocks entertaining the crowd waiting for the next tender to arrive. The entertainment of the crowd was incidental though. The mermaids were a couple crew members who like to pose in mermaid costumes and were really there for their own enjoyment. They didn’t swim in their costumes at that location because the sharp rocks and harsh waves were far too dangerous for swimming in that area.

shore excursion bus

Kingston has all sorts of shops and some restaurants. There is a visitor’s center and another tour place where people can go to book tours. Both are a bit of a walk from the shuttle stop. I just saw them from the bus and don’t know if they book last-minute tours for cruise passengers or if they are just there for people staying on the island. There were a couple last-minute local tours available right at the shuttle stop as well as a few local crafts for sale. One of the tours from the shuttle stop went up a mountain, the other to the Kingston pier.

view from the national park

Ship’s excursions offered at this port included a fish feast, golf, a hike in the national park, a visit to a botanical garden, museum tour, 4×4 adventure, glass bottom boat tour, liqueur factory, historical tours, and a scenic drive. Whether a ship’s excursion or just the shuttle driver to town, locals are likely to share a bit of island history. All of our drivers and tour guides mentioned that they personally are descendants from the Bounty. Locals are quite friendly and go out of their way to be helpful. Someone we met on the ship left their jacket on one bus and another driver on a different bus tracked it down and brought it back to the port for them.

Copyright My Cruise Stories 2026

girls on Symphony of the seas in Miami

When our 16-year-old granddaughter, Hannah, came to visit from Australia we booked a couple Caribbean cruises out of Florida to take her on. Symphony of the Seas is an excellent ship for cruising with teens because it has so many things for them to do. Besides the usual ship things like pools, hot tubs, and waterslides, Symphony also has a zipline, 10-deck dry slides, flowriders, rock climbing walls, ice arena, mini golf, a carousel, and arcades. It has a nice teen space where kids can go to hang out and meet other kids, and there are also organized activities just for the teens.

Violet on the flowrider

Along with us on the Symphony we had a friend with 15-year-old daughter, Violet. Hannah and Violet had not met before the cruise, but both are athletes. They had a lot in common and got along like they had been friends forever. Hannah is a competitive ninja and Violet plays basketball. They met other teens through the teen club on the ship and had a lot of fun trying out the various things the ship had to offer and going to teen activities.

the first few rows closest to the pool/stage are in the splash zone

Hannah said her favorite show ever was the Hiro water show on Symphony of the Seas. The girls watched it from the front row splash zone with other teens they had met and got soaked. The 3 adults of our group stayed dry watching the show from higher up.

swimming at Maho Beach

Teens are pretty self-reliant and both girls mostly went off and did their own thing while onboard the ship, often together. They came to meals and some of the shows with us, but did nearly everything else on their own.

airplane coming in for a landing at Maho Beach

In ports we all went out together as a group. In Saint Martin Hannah wanted to see the airplanes flying overhead at Maho Beach so that was where we all went. Most of the taxis out of Saint Martin go there so transportation is easy. There’s not a lot of beach there, but we did see a lot of planes and the girls went for a swim. That was Hanna’s favorite port of the trip so she definitely had fun.

kayaking in St Thomas

In Saint Thomas we went kayaking out of Margaritaville. This was not a ship’s excursion so we had to Uber from the port to get there, which is about half an hour away. It was in a part of Saint Thomas we hadn’t seen before. It was a bit windy that day, but Margaritaville has a beach in a fairly sheltered cove so it wasn’t too rough for launching kayaks from there. We paddled to another beach to go snorkeling and then across the bay to a dolphin rescue center where they had dolphins that had come from other facilities that either closed down or had kept them in manmade pools rather than open spaces in seawater like this facility had. The girls went in a kayak together and had no trouble maneuvering it.

ready to make chocolates

In Nassau we went to a chocolate factory and made chocolates. I think that was Violet’s favorite excursion. That one is at Greycliff Hotel which is a short walk from the ship and also booked through outside sources. We did not take any excursions through the cruise ship on this cruise.

girls in Margaritaville

When the Symphony cruise ended Violet and her mom went home so Hannah was on her own on the next cruise on the Majestic Princess. She did meet some other kids in the teen space there, but didn’t hang out with them as much as the ones on the Symphony.

scarlet macaw at the monkey and sloth rescue in Roatan

Although the Princess doesn’t have all the bells and whistles like the Symphony, Hannah still enjoyed that cruise. She found plenty to do with the gym and hot tubs, hiding ducks, and going to the teen space.

capuchin monkey

We had just two ports from the Majestic Princess. It overnighted in Roatan. The first day we had a long excursion, again booked through outside sources. This was also something Hannah had chosen. It picked people up in a van just outside the port. We went first to a sloth and monkey rescue. People went into cages with the monkeys who ran wild jumping from person to person. The sloths weren’t caged. They had an open pavilion surrounded in trees and went in and out as they pleased. They moved surprisingly fast compared to how slow their reputation is. Not nearly as fast as the monkeys, but they could cover ground when they wanted to.

riding at the water’s edge

Next we went to a beach that also had a stable. We had a short horseback ride that was mostly on a trail, but went down to a beach on a river where they walked through the edge of the water for a bit. Then we went out to the reef in a little boat to go snorkeling. The next day we went to the beach at the port and went swimming.

filming sea life through the bottom of the clear boat

In Cozumel we went out in a clear boat where you can see down to the bottom of the sea through the floor of the boat, which is a different way of viewing the sea life. The building where the clear boat tours start from is within walking distance of any of Cozumel’s three cruise ship ports.

Symphony of the Seas

Symphony was Hanna’s favorite of the two, both because of all the things the ship offered and from having another teen as part of our group. She said that was her favorite cruise ever because of all of the things available to do. She especially liked the dry slide which is a lot longer than the waterslides. The rock wall was right up her alley as a ninja so she had no trouble climbing it.

returning to the boat after snorkeling in Roatan

Cruising with teens is a lot easier than cruising with younger kids since the teens can pretty well take care of themselves and find things to do on their own. They can also navigate their own way around the ship to get to whatever activities they choose to participate in. It would not be so easy if the teens were the sort likely to cause problems, but these girls were not troublemakers. Of course that can apply to adults as well since some adults do cause trouble on cruise ships. While we have not sailed with troublemakers of any age as part of our group, the cruises we sailed on where there were other people who caused problems they all happened to be adults.

Copyright My Cruise Stories 2026

Enchanted Princess in Martinique

Martinique is a Caribbean island territory of France. This 436 square mile volcanic island sits between Barbados and Saint Lucia in the windward islands of the Lesser Antilles. Mont Pelee is an active volcano at the north end of the island. Its 1902 eruption killed over 29,000 people and destroyed the town of Saint Pierre with almost no survivors. The city has mostly been rebuilt, but there are a few ruins left of the old city including part of a prison where one person survived in an underground cell. It last erupted in 1932.

view of Fort-de-France from the ship

Tourist attractions include rainforest, beaches, and a 17^th century fort. It also has a zoo, a botanical garden, and a banana museum. La Savane des Esclaves in the town of Les Trois-Îlets is outdoor museum in the form of a recreated native village.

cruise ship dock at Pointe Simon

Ships dock in the capital city of Fort-de-France. Currency is the euro. A lot of places near the port will take US dollars. The climate is tropical, usually warm, humid and often windy. Temperatures are usually in the 70’s to 80’s F.

ferry dock near the cruise port

We docked at Pointe Simon, which is the main cruise ship port. The port there was pretty much just the cruise ship pier. After walking down to the end of the pier it exited right into town, not into the usual conglomerate of cruise port shops. These are all unique local stores, not the same stores often found at every port. There is a ferry dock near the cruise ship dock where small ferries take people for a short ride to a couple different beaches. The little booth where you buy ferry tickets has a schedule and they do take US dollars. The ferry ride is less than half an hour and it runs pretty frequently. There is a secondary cruise pier called Tourelles Cruise Port which is about a 20–30-minute walk from the main tourist area. That one is used for the second ship when two ships come on the same day.

little beach below the fort near the cruise dock

Walking along the shore leads to a small sandy beach. It’s not the best beach around, but it is close to the ship. There’s also a park with a nice playground along the seashore.

one of many narrow streets

Walking through the part of town near the port there are narrow streets with narrow sidewalks. Some have fancy brick paving, others are asphalt or concrete in various states of disrepair. Buildings are mainly narrow rowhouses, often with business at the bottom. Many are picturesque old architecture, but some are newer. The newer ones are usually bigger.

one ruin in a row of buildings

Here and there crumbling ruins sit in a narrow lot between a couple buildings, still attached on both sides.

cathedral and really tall palm tree

The steeple of an old cathedral towers over much of the town, with a palm tree nearly as tall growing next to it. The cathedral is of the town’s tourist attractions, but the unusually tall palm tree next to it was interesting in its uniqueness.

reflection of the cathedral and palm tree

A building across the way shows a reflection of the cathedral and the tree. In actuality the tree was only slightly shorter than the steeple, but in these photos it looks taller in the one taken directly because it was slightly closer, but significantly shorter than it actually is in the reflection.

bottle garden in a vacant lot

Sometimes there are random things that are interesting only because of how odd they are – like the bottle garden we saw in a vacant lot on a street corner in Fort-de France.

Fort St. Louis

We walked to Fort St. Louis. It’s an ancient stone fort, but it is still an operating military base rather than an old fort where tourists can go. At least the part you can see from the outside is ancient. There was a gate guard at the entrance motioning us away, but according to a website about the fort people can tour it. From their website it looks like tours are only allowed during scheduled times on certain days with tickets purchased for specific tour times for a one hour and 15 minute tour. From that it sounds like it’s probably a guided tour. The tickets are purchased elsewhere rather than right at the fort.

park across the street from the fort

A park across the street had some structures that were probably once part of the fort. It also had a lot of litter.

market

Many streets full of shops meander through the town in the port area. A lot of the women’s clothing displayed in the windows of shops that sold it looked so tiny that the average American might have a hard time fitting one leg through the waistband of a pair of pants with no possibility of actually getting a foot into the pantleg. Either Martinique is full of extremely skinny ladies or they actually sell some bigger sizes of clothing than what they show in their window displays. I don’t know what size they were, but if the smallest American size is 0 these clothes must have been about –5. There’s also a fruit market. Or at least a market with a lot of stalls selling fruit. It had quite a few stalls selling other things too.

carnival tent booths

We were there during Carnival so there were lots of white tent stalls along the waterfront selling food, clothes, jewelry, souvenirs and other merchandise. None of them were open when we first got off the ship, but they all opened while we were still in port. They had some sort of parade going on at the time our ship departed. We could hear it, but not see it so it was probably one street in, on the other side of all the booths at the waterfront.

waterfront near the cruise dock

Other than just wandering around or taking the nearby ferry to the beach, Martinique is the sort of place where it’s best to research what you want to do and how to get to it before going there if you haven’t booked anything. There may be last-minute island tours available. We did that there once before, but with their carnival going on during this visit everything was shutting down early that day and drivers of taxis and vans pretty much seemed to have taken the day off.

ruins at St. Pierre

The highlight of the island tour we took on a previous visit to Martinique was the bits of ruins in St. Pierre that remain from the 1902 eruption of Mont Pelee.

crazy looking bus

We saw a crazy looking triple bus at a bus stop, but I don’t know anything about it or where it goes.

waterfront walkway

Excursions offered through Enchanted Princess in Martinique from our cruise: Best Of Martinique: St. Pierre & Rum Distillery; Easy Martinique Panoramic Drive; Authentic Martinique By Cabrio Bus; Discovering Creole Martinique; Balata Botanical Garden; Histories Plantation & Botanical Garden; Local Connections Belfort Plantation House & Clement Rum Tasting With Cultural Expert; Martinique 4X4 Adventure; Walking Tour Of Fort-De-France; Catamaran Cruise, Grand Anse Beach & Swim; Two-Site Snorkeling Adventure

Copyright My Cruise Stories 2026

cabin 1014

Carnival Radiance Cabin 1014

We had an inside spa cabin on Carnival Radiance, which is the first inside cabin we have had in years. It came with spa privileges so we got to use the thermal suite. Spa cabins also get some other things. This ship just offered one free yoga class though Carnival’s listed privileges for these cabins say you get two fitness classes. It’s also supposed to include a scrub for use in the steam room, but on most ships you have to ask for that. Discounts on spa treatments also come with the room, but you can’t combine that discount with other offered spa deals so it doesn’t always provide the lowest price. Other amenities include a spa robe and slippers. The spa robe is similar to bathrobes provided by the cruiseline for other cabins and the slippers might fit a sasquatch, but they’re mighty big for a human. That’s not unique to Carnival. All of the spa slippers I’ve seen on any cruise ship were too gigantic for me to even consider attempting to try walking in them.

sauna at the thermal suite

Cruise ship thermal suites usually have some sort of pool and some heated ceramic chairs as their main features. There’s usually a few other features like a sauna, steam room, fancy showers, or relaxation area. This ship had a very small thermal suite that did not include any sort of pool. It did at least have more of the heated ceramic chairs than some ships do. It also had a nice sauna. We would have been pretty disappointed in the lack of any sort of pool there had we bought the thermal suite package rather than it coming with the room.

inside spa cabin

The cabin had 2 closets and 3 drawers for storage space. Also a small refrigerator in a little cabinet. Besides the mirror in the bathroom. there was one small full-length mirror and a mirror above part of the desk. The bathroom was a bit bigger than the standard cruise ship bathroom. It had 2 shelves on each side of the mirror, which was nicer than the ships that just have 3 on one side. The shower had combo shampoo/conditioner and separate body wash. I guess that’s a step above all 3 in one, but since spa cabins are supposed to have upgraded amenities it would be nice if they provided separate shampoo and conditioner.

the bottom drawer doesn’t completely shut

There were several things wrong with this cabin. One of the drawers didn’t quite shut, the USB charging ports didn’t work (luckily I bring a clock that has a couple USB charging ports), there was only one nightstand, and the door on one of the closets folded out rather than opening on a hinge, but it didn’t work right. Shortly after mentioning it to guest services the USB ports were replaced with new ones that worked and another nightstand appeared, so they were on the ball about fixing complaints. Wrestling the closet door open and shut and the drawer sticking out a bit were constant throughout the cruise, but we hadn’t said anything about those so we can’t blame the crew for not fixing them.

towel rabbit

We were not the only ones with stuff wrong in the cabin. We heard other people complain about things in their rooms as well. We also did not have the only room with rollaway beds taking up most of what would otherwise be under the bed storage space even though there is no space in the room to set one of those up. When there are more than two people in a cruise ship cabin the extra beds are usually either bunks that drop down out of the ceiling (or from a wall on older ships) or a couch that converts to a bed. I’ve never seen a rollaway bed used on a cruise ship and have no idea why this one had so many stored under beds in cabins. Especially ones with no space to even set one up. We did once see a whole bunch of mattresses unloaded at a port that were being donated to a facility there, but these beds were never removed so unless they were for donating somewhere on a future cruise that wasn’t it. We also lost storage space in one of the closets in our room which apparently was used for life jacket storage. This was only a two-person cabin and it had 5 or 6 lifejackets hogging up storage space. On the plus side there was still room enough for our suitcases under the bed and we had a good steward. He left a new towel animal each day.

desk and TV

There were only 2 obvious outlets located right next to each other at the desk. Behind the TV there’s an extra one along with the one the TV is plugged into. None by the bed. Besides the bed the only other place to sit was a small stool under the desk. No chair or couch. Not room for one either. Inside cabins are generally the smallest on pretty much any cruise ship. People book them to save money because they are the cheapest or because they like a darker room if they want to sleep when it’s light outside.

duck mailboxes – one with enough magnets to stay on the barely magnetic wall, the other sits on a rail

The walls on this ship were not magnetic enough to hold up anything hung up on even the strongest magnets. The door and wall outside of the room were barely magnetic as well. The strip around the outside of the door was the most magnetic and the place where most people hung their door decorations if they had any small enough to fit in that space. I did have enough magnets on my duck trading mailbox for it to stay on the wall outside of the cabin, but it isn’t very heavy and has a lot of really strong magnets. On this ship it tended to slide down when touched, whereas on the next one it pretty much had to be pried off the wall. John’s duck mailbox had less magnets and had to be tied to a railing to stay on the wall on this ship, but it too stuck tightly on the next one.

one of the upper front bows

Our room was near to the end of a mostly dead end hallway, but still seemed to have more traffic going by than you would expect for the number of rooms between it and the end of the hall. It wasn’t quite a dead end since there was a door there out to one of the ship’s secret upper bows, but not many people knew about that bow access so it didn’t explain the amount of foot traffic in the hallway. Perhaps we had a popular neighbor.

bathroom

A few years ago some ships started adding motion lights by the floor which was annoying enough if not covered up at night. On this one there was a motion light in the ceiling in front of the bathroom which was way worse and not even necessary since enough light came through around the cabin door to not need a light at all to find the bathroom in the dark. It would have been way better to have that light in the bathroom so people didn’t have to turn on the fully bright one if using the bathroom in the night. That may be an unfortunate new trend since the next ship we went on had an overhead motion light in front of the bathroom as well. I suppose whoever decides to add these things considers it a safety feature, but what it really does is insure that nobody can get up to go to the bathroom without waking up everyone else in the cabin unless they magnet a towel over the light to block it. Like the walls, ceilings in cruise ship cabins are usually magnetic.

Copyright My Cruise Stories 2026

view from the ship while docked in Würzburg

Würzburg sits along the Main River in the Franconian region of northern Bavaria in Germany surrounded by vineyards including Germany’s oldest and largest one. The city is best known for its historical architecture, especially the 18th-century Residenz palace. It’s also famous for its dry white wines and has a well-known local pilsner beer and the oldest pizzeria in Germany. The city boasts numerous wine bars, cellars and wineries. The population consists of more than 125,000 people. Würzburg has a temperate climate with modest rainfall year-round. Average temperatures range from winter lows in the high 20’s F to summer highs in the mid 70’s, though it can dip down into the teens and rise above 85 degrees. Snow generally falls between December and February. Average annual precipitation is just under 30 inches. There are museums, parks and gardens, a famous bridge called Old Main Bridge, churches, palaces, and markets. Much of Würzburg was heavily damaged during World War 2, but has since been restored. The core of the Residenz palace survived relatively intact, but much of the rest of the building was severely damaged and restored over a 20-year period.

walkway along the river from the stone bridge to the ship

Würzburg River Cruise Port

Würzburg was one of the better ports of our Grand European Tour on Viking Skirner because it was both walking distance from the ship to town and the boat stayed in one place all day so people could come and go as they please. It was also quite scenic with castles and churches on the hill above the far side of the river and colorful houses along the water’s edge. The historical old stone bridge was also within sight of our docking space. The view was even nice from the little above water window in our below-water-level cabin until another ship came along and docked beside us, at which time the view through all of the windows on that side of the ship was of the other ship.

Würzburg, Germany

Würzburg Residenz & Walking Tour

The included tour in Würzburg was called Würzburg Residenz and Walking Tour. It started with a short bus ride to the Residenz. It’s a former prince bishop’s palace, though it doesn’t look like a castle. Prince bishops were the rulers of German towns back in medieval times and beyond. They ruled Würzburg from 1168 – 1803, but the rule of prince bishops started elsewhere in Europe in the previous century. The prince bishops were the ruler of their town as well as the bishop of its church.

Würzburg Residenz

The tour there started with a guided part, followed by free time. The guide said no photos during the guided tour, wait until free time when you can take all you want. Large bags, backpacks, and liquids are not allowed inside so they were all put into a big locked box where the ship’s cruise director would stand guard over them during the tour. There are individual lockers in another area for people who don’t come on an organized tour.

grand stairway

Entry into the building is through a tiny door within a giant door which isn’t really visible as a separate door until it is opened. There are 3 large doors there, which the guide said were originally openings without doors so carriages could pull right inside and let visiting kings, queens, or other important people right out at the grand stairway instead of outside. When Napolean came conquering his carriage had 8 horses instead of 6 and didn’t fit inside so he had to get out and walk in, which greatly displeased him, though the people getting conquered were probably not unhappy about that. Once inside a grand stairway leads from the entry area up to many rooms inside the palace.

Christmas tree in the entryway

Not thinking the tour had officially started yet since they had said we were picking up a guide from the building when people dropped off their stuff, I took a photo of a Christmas tree in the lobby and got yelled at by our guide. There was no additional guide after people dropped off their things like they had implied there would be, just the one we came from the ship with.

ceiling above the grand stairway

Most of the guided part of the tour was spent in just a few rooms while the guide went into great detail about all the artwork there, both painted walls and molded relief sculptures integrated into the paintings. Most of that time was just getting around the walkway surrounding the top of the stairway while the guide spoke about pretty much every painting and sculpture there. We’d move along maybe 10 feet before stopping for another long explanation of whatever bit of the paintings were directly above us.

even the heaters were ornate

Nearly all of the other people on the tour constantly snapped photos without reprimand. All throughout the entire tour everyone else took many photos and the guide never said one word about it to any of them. Didn’t even give so much as a dirty look to all the people holding phones up right in front of her face snapping away taking photos while she was talking about stuff. In fact she did not say a thing about taking photos to anyone else at all. Just yelled at me for taking one photo before the actual tour had even started. She did not get a tip from me.

marble room

One room had real marble floor tiles and columns with real marble bases, but imitation marble columns. The imitation marble took longer to make than cutting actual marble from stone. At the time it was cheaper to make it that way, but in current times because of the intensity of the labor and the modern technology that makes cutting stone much easier than it was back then the false marble would actually cost more to install than the real stone.

bed in the Residenz

During the free time part of the tour there were lots more rooms to see than what was included in the guided part, but as is with all of these places none of them were fully furnished as they would have been when in use. They all had some furnishings, but set as a display rather than how anyone would have used them. One room did have a bed, the first of those we had seen. Beds were quite short in those days. People were afraid of sleeping lying down because they associated it with death and they feared demons would press down on their chests. Instead they slept nearly sitting leaning against several pillows.

old time carousel in the Residenz

There was plenty of time during the free period to go back and take photos of the things we had seen during the guided part. Which was good for me since I was probably the only one in the whole group who didn’t take pictures during the guided part of the tour after getting yelled at for the one from before it really even started. It doesn’t take that long to get through the entire part of the building that is open to the public on your own, whereas it took the better part of an hour just to get around that one room with the guide.

fancy floor

All of the rooms had lots of artwork, some of it built in with sculpture and paint and other hanging in paintings and tapestries. Even some of the floors were intricately ornate.

Residenz church

Besides the main building there was also a church, which was a private one for the residents of the Residenz. It was smaller than the cathedrals we went to on other tours, but still quite ornate. This church had plain glass in the windows rather than stained glass which a sign in the church said was so those windows would look the same from the outside as the rest of the building. Apparently symmetry was an important tenant of baroque architecture. Besides all the ornate décor it also had a pipe organ up on a balcony at the back of the church, which seems to be standard for churches of that era. Like the church itself, the pipe organ was also smaller than the ones at previous cathedrals we saw in other places.

statue

After the free time ended the walking groups met up with their guides outside of the building and walked back into town with the guide stopping to give the history of various things we passed. One statue she said tended to get what she called sticker tattoos from the local college kids advertising all sorts of things likely not appropriate to the statue’s original purpose.

the 3 missionaries on the cathedral

Killian’s Cathedral depicts 3 Irish missionaries who came to town in 686 and attempted to convert the duke who ruled the town at that time to Christianity. For some reason I can’t recall from the tale the guide told this involved him either leaving his wife or disposing of her, something she of course did not agree to. Before making his decision on whether or not to convert he made a trip out of town. While he was gone she secretly disposed of the 3 missionaries, whose bodies were not discovered until many years later. Upon the duke’s return she said they had left so life went back to normal for them as if the missionaries had never come.

tram

Rail-based trams frequently passed by on the main streets of town. A lot of the European cities we visited had them as part of their public transportation systems.

decorated street

The tour went into the main shopping area of town and through part of a Christmas Market. Across from the market a festively decorated narrow street led through what used to be where all the shoemakers had their shops. It was also part of the historical Jewish area of town.

walking across the old stone bridge

That led to the street with the old stone bridge at the river end of it. The part of that street close to the river is supposed to be for pedestrians only other than taxis, but a random car drove down there looking lost.

chapel and Christmas market

The ship stayed at that port for quite a few hours after the end of the tour so we went from the bridge back to the Christmas Market and wandered around there for awhile. Pretty much all of the Christmas markets in all of the various towns are next to a church, but then again the towns are all full of churches so it may be hard not to be. The one at this market was just as big as many of the others, but called a chapel rather than a church because back in the middle ages commoners built it without the prince bishop’s permission so they weren’t allowed to call it a church. It’s a restored building, but the golden Mary on top is original having survived the bombing that destroyed the rest of the building.

Viking ship in the locks

The river runs freely under parts of the old stone bridge, but at one end of it there are locks, in which another Viking ship was going through while we were there. After getting out of the lock channel it tied up to our boat. River boats often dock 2 or more deep tied to one another, especially if they are from the same company.

looking down from the stone bridge

The old stone bridge is scenic from both above and below. The walk alongside the river back to the ship was pretty scenic too. It’s called the Old Main Bridge. Built between 1473 and 1543 it’s one of Germany’s oldest bridges and one of the city’s most iconic landmarks.

stone bridge

It replaced an earlier Romanesque bridge from 1133. The German army tried to blow it up while retreating during World War 2, but were largely unsuccessful due to faulty explosives. The damaged portion was restored after the war. The bridge has 12 arches and spans 185 meters (just over 202 yards) across the Main River.

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