We flew from Detroit to Amsterdam and on to Basel, Switzerland on September 10 arriving the morning of September 11 in Basel to begin our Viking Cruise on the Rhine from Basel north to Amsterdam. Friends Dale and Bobbi Norton flew and sailed with us. Great time, great weather, lots of walking, wonderful food and treated like royalty. Over 500 pictures taken but here is a sample. Captions later.
Day 1 Boarding Viking longboat Hlin in Basel, Switzerland
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| Bobbi and Dale |
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| Bob and Rose |
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| Basel across from boat |
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| Basel |
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| Bobbi, Dale and Rose on the boat |
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| Our first tour...the Black Forest of Germany |
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| Add caption |
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| Our mandatory safety instruction with Breisach church in the background |
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| Lunch on the Aquavit aboard the boat |
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| St. Stephans in Breisach |
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| Our first cocktail hour on board with Bobbi and Dale |
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| Sante" |
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| One of the many locks our boat went through |
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| Fortification dam in Strasbourg, France, the only French town we visited |
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| Typical Strasbourg houses in the old section |
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| Gingerbread specialist |
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| Cathedral of Norte Dame in Strasbourg |
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| Beautiful interior |
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| An amazing mechanical clock in the cathedral |
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| Sunset on the Rhine |
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| Looks who is on the cruise with us! Really great people. |
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| While Dale, Bobbi and I were on the upper deck Rose joined a group and they won the name that tune competition! |
Our Heidelberg Visit
Rudesheim Stop
The Beautiful Rhine Gorge begins
The following pics are from Cologne.
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| Modern architecture in Cologne |
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| Cathedral in Cologne |
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| This Roman floor was found fully intact after excavation to rebuild after the war. It is about 15-20 feet below present street level. Amazing that it survived all these centuries! |
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| This is the actual size finial on top of the large spire of the cathedral. It would sit on top of the following picture. |
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| The finial in the prior picture would sit on top of this above the small ladder on the upper right. You get the scale! |
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| The picture before this one shows the top section of this picture. |
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| Only one facade of the cathedral. Look back at each prior picture and imagine they are stacked on top of each other with the finial being the very top. Compare the size of the finial to my friend Dale standing by it. Kind of puts a different sense of size on this! |
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| Even in Cologne the Irish pub is a fixture! |
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| A photograph of Cologne after WW II. |
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| This describes the picture below. An amazing Roman ruin under the streets of Cologne |
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| A view of Cologne from an observation tower across the Rhine. |
The following pictures show the low lands of the Netherlands.
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| We begin our tour of Windmills in Kinderdijk, Netherlands |
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| One half of one arm of the windmill. |
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| These huge Archimedes screws now pump the water that windmills used to do. |
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| The living and bedroom of a windmill |
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| A beautiful sunset on the Viking boat Hiln sailing on the Rhine |
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| Our last day on the Viking longboat cruise |
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| Our Viking boat top deck is dwarfed by the ocean cruiser anchored behind us. |
