Tuesday 16 april
We woke early as usual and the ship was still underway passing industrial plants.
Peter completed the blog of yesterday while drinking his tea.
The Cuppa was followed by a more liesurely breakfast as we had a later start to our excursion. The staff are beginning to greet us with our “normal” breakfast order, so we must ring the changes a bit!
We collected our boardng passes and a map of Heidelberg from reception. Peter is showing his knees today as the temperature is set to reach the dizzy heights of 17 degrees! Alison remains covered up.
The boat docked at Mannheim at 9:30, so we were able to depart for Heidelberg at 10:00. We discovered that we were the only british people on the coach, there was one canadian, the rest all american.
We arrived in the city at around 10:20 and the bus ascended the winding road up to the castle ruins.
We were met by a very knowlegeable guide who went through all of the history of the city and gave us a comprehensive tour of the castle, before guiding us back down the hill in the coach and then gving us a short walking tour of the old city area. This consumed most of our so called free time so we were left with a limited opportunity for exploration.
We were then left to our own devices and visited the Jesuit church, followed by a coffee/tea and half slices of cake.
Afterwards we went into a vegan cake shop where a few purchases were made before Peter decided to search for a specific HDMI connector that would allow him to display video on the TV in our stateroom.
We were told that there was an electronics shop at the far end of hautstrasse, so Peter and chris headed off at a cracking pace, with the ladies following behind. After walking perhaps a little too far the men realized that they would be hard pressed to make the coach in time so headed quickly back (empty handed), keeping a lookout for the ladies who could not be seen.
They arrived back at the coach with barely 5 minutes to spare, but no sign of wives! Looking around they were spotted heading back from th direction of the old bridge, arriving back at th coach precisely on time ( but late as far as our american friends were concerned).
We returnd to the ship, went back to our rooms to dispose of the shopping and returned for our late afternoon lunch/tea to find nothing left in the buffet (not even plates). After a short while this was remedied and we enjoyed a delicious buffet.
Chris and Peter then went for an exploration of Speyer, while Alison and Ruth stayed behind on the ship. The men enjoyed a walk along the river bank and then headed inland where they discovered a large cathedral (Kaiser Dom).
They walked back to the ship via an attractve park, arriving back just in time to share the remaining bottles of BA bubbly and then attend the 6:45 port talk before dinner.
Dinner took a rather long time and it was 9:00 before we were able to visit the wheelhouse, only to be told it was too late as the river conditions were tricky. Try again tomorrow at about 8 pm.
When we retunred to our room, we found an apologetic letter from Viking concerning the incorrect transfer information that had been given to us in Amsterdam, together with a small gift, which no doubt will be shared amongst us before we leave the ship!