To continue with our travels, the next stop was in Heidelberg. Like Strasbourg, this is also a very beautiful city, and we began our visit with a trip to a hilltop fortress, which gave us this gorgeous view over the city.
The fortress is mostly ruins these days, but it’s very picturesque. This is part of the moat. By the way, the moat apparently never had water in it, as it was used for hunting exhibitions.
One of the sights that everyone loved was the largest wine barrel in the world. It’s so large that it never, apparently, held just one kind of wine, instead being filled with whatever combination was handy. 😉
Once we’d left there, we had a quick visit in the city itself, though we didn’t have time to go inside the cathedral there or much of anything else. Still, it was pleasant just to stroll around the streets for an hour or so.
That same day we cruised a little farther down the Rhine to Rüdesheim. This is a wonderful smaller city, very picturesque and friendly.
The narrow streets were perfect for strolling and people-watching.
One interesting thing that happened concerned our ship. We had docked where we were supposed to be, but then the Helvetia’s sister ship, the Viking Sun, arrived. Where would it find a spot to dock? Why, right next to us, of course! That meant that people from the Sun had to cross through our lobby area in order to get to shore! LOL! This is apparently quite normal on a river cruise, as we did the same thing through another ship as we were disembarking on our last day.
