One could be forgiven for expecting the Nuremberg Ring to be somewhere in Nurenburg, well it isn't! In fact it's some 400km away. Anyway we didn't come to Nuremberg for that reason, so it's no hardship but did hear some of the New World cousins expressing their opinions.
However we had an early call, fifteen minutes sooner than advertised for our tour, so it was minor panic stations to get ready in two minutes - this is a consequence of having breakfast delivered, most of the cabins don't get this, so they are already dressed and ready. I, like our equally surprised next-door neighbours, had to throw something on rather quickly! Then off we went into town, a good 4 miles away, but congestion made this a long trip into the town. We then rapidly bussed past all the important sites of the city, both old and new, including huge factories for MAN (Guess what the N stands for?) and Siemens' transformer factory.
Our guide Chrisotophe was yet again a PhD student, this time of history and politics, who was just a delightful person, he imparted such a warm and knowledgeable feeling on us. He talked at great length about the whole Nazi, / Hitler /Third Reich period from 1933 to 1945 that irretrievably changed the face of Germany. His, like all Germans today, attitude and understanding is so accepting of what happen it is quite cathartic.
Later on we viewed (from the bus) all the ancient sights but there wasn't enough time in the morning to do these. We did see the infamous Nuremberg Trails courts, before we went on to the Zeppelin Fields - an enormous space that Hitler used from 1933 through 1938 to hold rallies for 300,000+ of his followers. It was part of Hitler's concerted plan to keep his supporters on side, including psychological methods of subjugation, all on a scale which is quite astonishing - the parade ground was enormous, the 'amphitheatre' was bigger than the Coliseum in Rome, his other plans were even greater in scale but thankfully didn't happen because the war started and the plans were put on hold. Forever, as it turned out!
Our plan was to go on to the Document Centre which is (now) attached to the 'Coliseum' building and contains all the pertinent material pertaining to the atrocities. Unfortunately there was a mix-up between the administrators of the museum and the administrators of the cruise company, and we were not permitted entry. Our guide was at pains to say he had already told us the majority of the story, and we were happy to believe that, as his detail had been quite exceptional - so we resignedly accepted we would not go in - we returned to the ship for an early lunch of bratwurst and other German delicacies - most of which we found OK but not special - in fact our local farm shop had much better sausages. More interestingly we had lunch with one of the guides (not ours) who was such an engaging young man, full of the (free) German education system and it's ability to work for the greater good of Germany - shame our lot don't take the same view?
Our cruise director announced that he had been able to resurrect the visit to the Document Centre, but unfortunately that interfered with out afternoon plans, so we didn't go back on this part of the tour. Instead we headed off up North for a short while, across and back heading South through the nearby container yards with many thousands of stacked containers carrying goodness knows what, and then along the road towards a nearby village. Ŵe passed through this after stopping at the local Italian for Gelato, and onwards back to the canal. It was then a four mile walk back up the canal to our boat, 9 miles in total.
Next we watched sailaway on the front bit with a few of the resident lushes, before heading to the pool for our afternoon constitutional. A quick shower and dress for dinner - suits tonight - and we went to listen to Matthew talk about the disaster of today and plans for tomorrow.
Dinner was surprisingly good and quite probably the best so far, even the boy was on better form! One of our 'ladies' insisted on telling us about her children - "I've got three - one of each - a boy, a girl and a gay" - we're never quite sure how to respond to these appalling sorts of comments, but the next sentence - "can you fix him up with someone" - made us laugh anyway! We got many good comments about our dress - always from the ladies.
After dinner we were happily sat 'up front' when the cruise director warned of an impending lock - it turns out to be the highlight of the locks experience, some 27.4m in height ... we squeezed through the letterbox entrance into a concrete chamber, whilst the crew hurriedly opened the top deck, and bar staff brought round champagne (well, not-champagne) for us to celebrate the passage - it was quite magical as we rapidly ascended the chamber, eventually emerging from it into sunlight. A wonderful and unexpected experience!
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