Europe 2017 – Page 3 – Beauperi Investments

Posted on August 15, 2017August 15, 2017 by beauperi

Off the Boat at Last

Saturday, 12 August, 2017 – weather: Grey and Rainy, but improves

We have signed up to go to a castle tour and wine tasting today in Wrzburg. The weather is again dismal and it is tempting not to go, but I do it any way. So after brekkie I hop onto the bus. Julie walks into town.

I hope you noticed the weather conditions by the state of the umbrellas with the group. We are not allowed to carry water bottles, hand bags, umbrellas etc. which we put into a large locker before starting the tour. Additionally, we are not allowed to take any photos so there aren’t any. To summarise it is a huge place with the usual excess in terms of fittings, tapestries, etc.

When that tour is over and obligatory stop in the souvenir shop, we go to another part of the “residence” and down into a wine cellar for a wine tasting.

They set that room up for a wine tasting, but not for us

The secret passage to another part of the wine cellar

Pouring the first wine a muller thurgau – not my favourite

The Second Wine – a Sylvaner, again not for me

The third wine was a Riesling and was advertised as semi-dry which I was assuming to mean sweet.

The Riesling was actually quite good, I actually liked it, not bad for a white

One point about the bottle shape is that it is “reserved” for use in this area of Germany, only, except Mateusz Rose.

I return to the boat on the bus and relaxed. In the mean time, Julie is prancing into town. Some of her photos.

Julie returns and it is time for lunch.

We had an electric violin concert. The guy was quite good but when I asked him about “The Devil Goes to Georgia” he had never heard of it

It is a quiet afternoon after that. Slowly the weather improves a little bit but you would hardly call it great. Any way, by special invitation we are dining in Portabello tonight. It is an Italian restaurant in the river café area.

We start with a bubbly (Prosecco, of course)

Marinated prawn and arincini – my favourite part of the meal

Rocket soup for Julie, quite good but very sweet

Beef in Barolo sauce. I managed to get a half glass of Barolo, my favourite Italian wine

All in all, Italian is not my favourite cuisine and this meal largely represented what I don’t like about it. Plus I had to dress up Plus they were serving Duck, one of our favourites, in the main dining room although we are able to do something about that.

There is music in the lounge and some raucous dancing, I go to bed when they start playing rap crap.

Posted on August 13, 2017 by beauperi · 1 Comment

Still I wonder, who’ll stop the rain

Friday, 11 August, 2017 – weather: Grey and Rainy

For those of you that wanted more details about the special Rudisheimer coffee of yesterday:

Recipe for world famous Rudisheimer coffee

We get up and face another ugly looking day weatherwise. It is just grey but alternates between grey and rainy all day. There is a scheduled Oktoberfest on today but my enthusiasm is getting watered down, again pun intended.

After breakfast, we hang around in the lounge. After 11:00 we have a Zither concert by Tomy-the-Great.

Tomy played a number of Zither favourites culminating in the Third Man Theme

As we proceed down the Main, I take a number of photos, here are some.

Miltenberg is the jump off point for all of those going to the Oktoberfest. It has been described to us as beer, bratwurst and entertainment. Julie does not like sausages and does not drink beer, often anyway. I can’t drink beer because it cases me pain. Plus it is raining. So it was an easy decision to stay on the boat. However, there is time for a short prance for Julie. Some photos.

After everyone leaves, lunch was put on in the River Café. We had some quite satisfying fish and chips. I take some photos about our progress up the river including a sequence on the Lock action.

Sailing into the Lock with our little Hero on duty

A difficult lassoo from 10+ feet and he did it first try with ease

Our hero returning with the water pouring into lock

Relatively early to bed tonight/

Posted on August 12, 2017August 13, 2017 by beauperi

The Rhine Gorge

Thursday, 10 August, 2017 – weather: Rained all day

We are to enter the Rhine Gorge at around 6:00 AM so we are encouraged to get up then to view the entry. I wasn’t going to do that but since I am awake I put on some clothes and go out. Well, it is pouring rain and it is hard to see anything, so I go back to bed.

After I get up we have a good breakfast, similar to yesterday, and go out to see the sites, especially the world famous Lorelie.

Its out there somewhere – the rain makes it very hard to see

Refer to this link for the Lorelei

As we travel along the Rhine Gorge, there are lots of old castles and towns. So here are a few photos of some of them.

We dock at Rudesheim. There is to be a tour around various parts which starts with a small train ride into town to the Music Museum. I was going to go but all the rain dampened my spirits, pun intended, I decide to stay on the boat, maybe I will never leave it. But Julie goes on the train. There is a long queue to get into the museum so she prances around town. Following are her pictures.

The special coffee – the following are the steps

It continues to rain all day. Eventually the troops start arriving, walking back from town rather than waiting for the return train. Julie eventually is one of those. Around dinner time we turn off of the Rhine onto the Main River. From here we pass through a number of locks, of various sizes, I think there was the mention of 68 or something like that. We pass by the towns of Mainz on Main and then Frankfurt

Dinner tonight is downstairs but there is an ala carte menu.

Lots of folk, including Julie, danced to disco

The dj played such outstanding songs as YMCA, Macho Man, Nutbush City Limits, etc. I stayed up fairly late until he started playing rap, rap, eat my cr*p. It was time to go.

Somebody stopped by with an Irish Coffee.

Posted on August 11, 2017 by beauperi

Lazy day on the Rhine

Wednesday, 9 August, 2017 – weather: grey, again

Lazy for me any way. For some reason we are up early and have to wait for breakfast. It was worth the wait.

Freshly made Bacon, mushroom and cheese omelet for me

We are parked near Cologne (Koln). There is a walking tour of Cologne which Julie goes on but I stay back on the boat. Some of her photos.

In the mean time, a girl comes around and informs us that there is another event on board that had not been mentioned. It is a lesson in taste and aromas.

The colours are test tubes that have hidden odours in them. we were supposed to guess – I could not identify any of them

Our ship proceeds up the Rhine to our next pick up place. The buses from the Cologne tours are there waiting for us.

Scenic Pearl arriving to pick up all the bus people

Then it was pretty much straight to lunch downstairs,

The plan for this afternoon / evening is to go to Marksburg Castle for tour, food and entertainment. I decide that I do not want to go on a 90 minute bus trip so stay back as does Julie for the same reason. All in all around 25 passengers stay behind and enjoy the cruise down the river.

They invite us in for dinner at Portobello which is the converted River Cafe

One good point about this is that the meal is ala carte rather than the frequent smorgasbord.

The main body of troops gets back around 11:15 and Don Roberto starts playing music. I stay up too late until after midnight.

Posted on August 10, 2017August 10, 2017 by beauperi · 1 Comment

Cruisin’

Tuesday, 8 August, 2017 – weather: grey, again

Although we were on the boat overnight, we still have not left the Amsterdam docks. Additionally, there are a couple of tours around Amsterdam scheduled until we finally get cruising in the afternoon. We start the day with breakfast downstairs. It too is a smorgasbord which is really quite good for that sort of thing.

The two scheduled tours are a canal cruise and a windmill tour in a bus. I decide against both of them and so does Julie, but she decides to go on another prance around Amsterdam. Some photos.

An important destination because of Julie’s Son

Grotesque. Julie wanted to buy it, I am glad she did not

I had had brekkie but decide to get a cheese platter from the River Cafe

Julie returns just in time as we are actually going to start moving on the water. Sure enough we get going. But in the mean time lunch is on downstairs – once again a buffet lunch.