Day 4 - Hard choices in Rüdesheim
As promised, today we saw a lot of castles. Basically as soon as we woke up (which was at 5 AM because the ship started SHAKING as it sped up to pass a barge) we saw castles. We spent the entire morning out on deck cruising through the UNESCO world heritage site that is the upper-middle Rhine valley. In this area there's hella castles. The ship offers binoculars for people to check out, so we got a pair and used them to look at all the castles and fun buildings in this area. This was pretty funny because I think people were jealous we had binoculars, but they are loudly advertised in the lobby. I think people just ignore the signs. Anyways, here's a few castles:
We also saw a lot of trains!
Trust us we saw more but the internet it too slow and the photos wont upload.
And we saw tiebacks being drilled in!
Lunch today was all Christmas market themed, and we just about died from over eating.
Tried to use saurkraut as a kimchi sub to cut through the meat.
We docked in Rüdesheim after lunch, and were faced with a difficult choice: Go on a hike to a cool monument from the 1800s, or go see a mechanical musical instrument museum. The hike is the first "Active" excursion offered by our swole slavic activity director (who also is in charge of the binoculars). It seemed like a nice hike up a steep hillside full of eiswein vineyards, and we really need the calories burned off, and we also like hiking, but we also really wanted to see the musical instrument museum.
In the end it worked out- we took the museum tour (which was really fun but kind of short) and got a fancy Rüdesheim coffee afterwards. During this, we noticed a cable car that goes up the hiking hill. We ended up taking the cable car up the hill and hiked around until it got too dark (aka 4:30), then took it back down directly to the Christmas market. No missing out and no waiting on a big group of variable-experience hikers!!
The monument celebrates the unification of Germany and was built in 1884.
The hike was also nice as the entire hill is part of the World Heritage site. One of the landmarks was called "Hermitage" and we thought it was the Hermitage from Civ 6. Unfortunately it was just this:
The coffee, by the way, is super fun. Its just brandy and coffee in a fun cup and you aren't allowed to mix it, so its coffee then BOOM brandy. They even sell kits with the cups and brandy, but its a tourist thing so the price is up there.
Unlike Köln, Rüdesheim only has one Christmas Market. It was very cute and pretty big, but a lot of the stalls were the same companies as in Köln! No matter, we still got our mugs and enjoyed walking around. This one was definitely more Germans than foreigners too. In Köln everyone was speaking English, and in Rüdesheim it was a lot more German.
Unfortunately we are getting recognized now. They're onto us as the young honeymoon couple, and mein gott do old people love to talk to every and anybody. The worst part is Nick had to do THIS
(sorry if its rotated I cant fix it rn)
and now people remark about it on the ship. Idk maybe they just want to know the cool young people and their memes.
We also have been asked two more FAQs
How is the food?
Honestly its too good and we are eating too much. Three mega meals a day leaves us with no room to eat the bread-and-meat treats at the Christmas markets. We keep eyeing these potato pancakes and twirly potatos on a stick but dinner is too good and we ate lunch an hour ago so...
The only complaint we have is the menu doesnt always match the actual food. Some things are missing, nuts are present when they shouldn't be, or there are no nuts in something that was supposed to have nuts (but the nice maitre d always tells us personally whats going on every meal).
Today we were so full we went to the self-serve dinner at the bar. It was nice as it was the same food but in smaller portions and much quieter.
Are you guys actually the youngest people?
No but yes. There are at least three younger people on board, college age perhaps, but they are with their parents/family. The next youngest couple here are both 29. Avalon, the company we chose, has more appeal with younger people (at least according to Reddit) due to the availability of "active" excursions like the hike. They also have bikes and exercise classes (tbd on what those are like).
We've seen at least 8 other cruise companies and their ships since we left Amsterdam. Some (like A-ROSA) have massive ships for families, but they cant fit under certain bridges so the cruises are shorter. Others (like Riviera) are country-preferred (Riviera was all British people). Others (like AMA and Viking) are just for snooty old people who like marble and dont need treadmills (hi mom).
As of today, we are extremely happy with Avalon as our choice as a young couple. Its still a majority older folks, but its enough younger folks that we dont feel super out of place.
Tomorrow we are going to Heidelberg Castle which has its own Christmas market and some kind of giant wine barrel. Idk we skipped the port talk today to go to the Christmas Market.
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