The afternoon was an optional excursion that we decided to go on to the castle ruins. A 45 minute bus ride got us to the town of Heidelberg. Heidel is German for goat and Berg means mountain, so we went to Goat Mountain. Our guide took us on a tour of the castle (now abandoned) and told us the history. The ruins were amazing, and big. One of the outer defensive walls is over 21 ft. thick. We got to go in one section of the castle to view the world`s largest wine barrel, named the Great Tun. It originally started out as a bet between German princes. This barrel is huge. It is 8.5 m wide and 7 m high. It holds over 222,000l and has a dance floor constructed on the top of it.
Once the tour was done, we walked through the old town. They had two Christmas shops, and we visited both of them. We picked up a couple of ornaments for ourselves. The guide recommended a local biergarten that makes their own beer. We had some time to kill before our bus arrived to pick us up, so we sat in the biergarten having a beer and eating a pretzel. The pretzels in Germany have been very good. We hopped on the bus and went back to the ship. The tour bus rides have been our least favourite part of the trip. A note on our bus driver, Andy. Not the best one. He constantly drove down the middle of the road, and he started his turns late. He almost hit a few parked cars. The road up to the castle was very narrow and close to the edge. We thought he was going to tip us over going down an incline on an angle. Because Jennifer gets car sick, she did her NFL linebacker routine to get the front seats on the bus, so we had front row seats for the heartstopping drive.
Finally time for dinner. Again, the chef and the kitchen did not disappoint. Every night, we have a starter, sour, entrée and dessert. There are typically 2-3 choices for the starter, entrée and dessert, and 2 choices for soup. To make everyone jealous, here was tonight`s choices:
Starter
Spicy marinated mango with shrimp
Mozzarella and plum tomato marinated in virgin olive oil and aged balsamic with basil and onions
River Queen Cobb salad with lettuce, watercress, poached chicken, avocado, bacon, onion, capers, cucumbers, drizzled with blue cheese-walnut dressing.
Soup
Clear oxtail with sherry and cheese sticks
Cream of Hokaido pumpkin with roasted sesame seeds
Entrée
German style roasted Barbarie duck breast with cassis sauce, served with red cabbage and truffled celery root mousseline.
Casserole of red mullet and sautéed squid with persillade served on lobster tagliatelle and glazed plum tomatoes
Breaded eggplant scaloppini with tomato sugo and spaghetti with pecorino cheese.
Dessert
Rhine River Swan – Pate a choux pastry with white chocolate mouse served on raspberry coulis
Ice cup ``Rudesheimer Kaffee`` - vanilla ice cream and Absach brandy topped with whipped cream and chocolate chips
Selection of cheeses from the board with crackers and various condiments.
Looking out from the tower across the town.
What time is it?
Its beer time!
Mmm…duck
Sounds like your having a great time. Dad liked the football reference. Keep enjoying yourselves.
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