For What It's Wertheim
Having looked recently at the website, it seems that the Grand Tour on Viking already goes to a different port on this day, and no longer stops at the tiny Wertheim (pop 22,473) where we spent the morning along the Main, at the junction where the Tauber pours in. That's too bad for the current cruisers, as you can see from the shot above showing the town and castle from the riverside. It's very charming, and perfect for a three hour stop.
For example, despite all our high water issues earlier in the cruise, things were ok here, which is shocking, as Wertheim is flood central.
Those are flood levels for different years. Also note--windows are very high on this building. There's a lot of that in Wertheim. But when things aren't flooding, the town on its peninsula between its two rivers can also provide swan-i-rific views.
Other views are more perplexing, like this roofline that seems to be growing its own garden. Who knows, maybe old buildings just get "hair" in weird places, like old man suddenly having to shave their ears.
And then there are buildings with odd details, like a monkey carved onto a church (at least I remember it as the church, and I don't care to be corrected because al churches need a monkey or two).
And then this memorial, either to a beloved lamb that looked like a dog or to a dog that looked like a lamb. Or to a really bad sculptor, I'm not sure. There is something charming about it, though, no?
Fortunately, not all the art is puzzling. There are signs that practically rival those in Bamberg, like the filigree on this swan sign.
Or these nouveau doors that took us back to Budapest for a brief bit.
As you might notice, I haven't been relating too many Wertheim stories. Please don't blame that on our tour guide, who, despite some tired husband-vs-wives jokes (sort of a currency on a cruise, alas, when the median age of a traveler is 70), certainly knew the town. One of the more fascinating moments was when he pointed out a nondescript second floor window to say, "A very important thing happened in there--that's where I was born." So we certainly got the inside view of things--turns out his father was a prisoner of war in WWII and was taken to Texas for awhile, even!
One of his favorite spots was Spitzer Turm, Wertheim's answer to the Leaning Tower of Pisa. It's not as badly off plumb, and its issue is the over-saturated ground levels, but that's not the fun stuff about the 800 year old tower. Most of its history it's been a prison, and if you were unfortunate to spend time there, you got dropped down to its bottom by a rope and left there. Speaking of the oh so sexist yet sweet (ugh) tales, "quarrelsome wenches" would be lowered in there together as a punishment.
It's easy to imagine neighbors getting testy with each other as it's a definitely tightly built town, which, at least for me, means great photos, if perhaps also a breeding ground for petty bickering.
The little Main street was cute, if very quiet, as this was a Sunday morning.
And it was easy to imagine they didn't value a sense of strict parallel geometry when building their half-timbered charmers. (Note: if things appear crowded in my photos, that's just because there are 150 Viking visitors all looping about town in different directions.)
Born to Ruin
After the guided tour, we opted to head up to the ruins of Burg Wertheim on our own. The castle, built in the 12th century, was destroyed during the Thirty Years' War (did you know 20% of the German population died during this war? the 17th century knew how to devastate). So heading up you get views like this one
and you get to look back into town and see views like this. So you've got a good excuse to stop
On the way you glimpse goats that I assume are there as cheap, organic lawn mowers. This being Europe, they are on strike for better work conditions.
And then once atop you can stop into the cafe and get food or a drink, but we just looked around and took lots of photos, of which this is only one I will share, of the view along the Main. You can tell why this was a smart place for a fortification.
Random Wertheim Photos that Don't Fit a Clever Subhead
I don't think dog-loving me needs to explain why I took this photo.
Archie and Nora are no doubt very jealous. And so we could feel better about that, we had to have a drink. Why not a pils and hefe at the oldest tavern in town, the Zum Goldenen Adler? We hung out in the beer garden, as it was just about noon and day drinking outside is less unseemly. It was a cute little spot, but a few other tourists, alas, decided it was a good smoking spot, too. Us Americans are so spoiled by the no smoking rules in bars and eateries.
That's a whopping 6.50 Euros of beer there. It's a great thing their beers are so much lighter. Speaking of lighter, there was a market set up right by where we got our little shuttle trains back to the boat, so we had to check that out. Each tent was a different vendor, so there was cheese and baked goods and oh my good, who knew there was this many varieties of nougat in the world and you could buy it like it was a deli.
There were so many options I just shrugged and ran. OK, maybe try one teensy sample and ran.
A Boaty Afternoon and Evening
We had a lot of river to cover to get to Koblenz, tomorrow's port, so set sail at 1 in time for lunch. Mine looked like this.
As you can tell, a bunch of smaller bites of things, heavy on things that could have salad in their name, even if their nickname might be fattening. Oh, and to fatten up this section of the post, I didn't include a photo from our morning sail before we got to Wertheim, we passed a wine region so proud of itself it put its name up on the hillside like it was South San Francisco or something.
Did I get any of the wine from here? No. One more reason to go back.
Some passengers of the Vali took the optional biking trip for this day, and we met them at Freudenberg for their pickup. It's one of the cool things you can do for extra moolah if you're not cheap like us. That did mean we got some great close views of Freudenberg and its castle--we are about to head into castle country, folks, so be careful and don't get rooked!
And have I made it clear enough how much we thought of our cruise director Stein? He kept us all happy even changing ships. I wish I had a less blurry photo of him, but my guess is it's just because he was always on the move, doing something for someone on the ship.
And now it's dinner time. Since all the soups had been super I couldn't pass up the regional specialties kick off erbsensuppe mit rauchwurstchen, or potato, sausage, and the color-giving pea. Hearty and luscious, as you might expect.
I stuck with the regional menu, despite it looking like we suddenly we're sailing much farther south in Europe, just from the dish itself.
The menu insists that schwabische maultaschen is German spinach and cheese ravioli, and anything with chanterelles too I'm going to order. Think of it as a dumpling that's been on a diet, maybe. Chryss, meanwhile, had that seared cod with all of spring below it---parsley puree, peas, fava beans, and more chanterelles.
But then a walnut caramel cake with malt ice cream (that's like beer in your dessert!) with some orange sauce for a hint of acid? That sounds good (and is) too.
That gives you just enough time to sneak to the front deck and grab this photo, a haunting dreamscape.
And to help take off a tiny bit of the calories (while, perhaps, having an after dinner drink or two too), we hit the lounge as it was Pop Around the Clock night, and our combo Jazz Bite--Emilia and Iliyan--took us on a musical history tour. So we danced, as many other passengers did. There are all sorts of fun in the world, and definitely most of them mean you have to keep up worrying over looking silly.
Go back to Ain't Europe Grand (Tour) with Chryss and George Day 13
Go forward to Ain't Europe Grand (Tour) with Chryss and George Day 15
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