End River Cruise, 9/13/1994 Back On The Train

Alps Come Out Through
Low Clouds

By Bob Van Leer

(LUCERNE, SWITZERLAND, Sept. 13, 1994) - We finished our Rhine River trip this morning with a short cruise to Mainz. The Rhine gorge flattened out to low--lying fields along the river.

Our two-day cruise took us a distance of about 100 miles. The boat made 5 miles per hour against a very brisk current. And the boat docked in a number of places. Our tour was not the entirety of the boat's route. It started before we got on and continued upstream after we got off.

  The signing on the river is remarkable. There are kilometer posts on both sides of the river and these are further split up into 10ths, also marked with posts on each side of the river.

  We passed the fabled Lorelei rock, the graveyard of many ships, but it does not live up to its billing a far a scenic attraction is concerned. But the rock, and the whole river, has a special significance for this country of 80 million people. Language is a problem here in more ways than one. Multiple translations have to be given for the various nationalities involved. On our boat, announcements were made in at least four languages, German, English, Spanish and French.

  The weather today was mostly bright and sunny which made up for the clouds and rain we had further north. After disembarkation at 9:45 a.m., we went by bus to the old city of Heidelberg. It is a city of 130,000, of whom 30,000 are students at the University of Heidelberg. It is the oldest university in Germany. The castle dominates the city and we went for a tour of it. It is easy to see from the castle how it could dominate the whole Neckar River valley. Life was not all business at the castle. One wood wine cask still preserved held 45,000 gallons of wine.

  The English company that puts on this tour, Abercrombie & Kent, is planning to expand its U. S. marketing effort. As part of this, the company is taping for a video to be made of this tour. We are now getting used to the three-person taping crew with their big cameras and are mostly not posing for them anymore which is what they want. We went from Heidelberg to Mannheim, also on the Rhine, to catch a train to Lucerne. But we can't go direct, we have to change trains at Basel.

  The Rhine from south of Heidelberg going south forms the border between France and Germany. At Basel there is a three-way border adding Switzerland to make a triangle. At Basel we changed trains for the last leg of the trip to Lucerne on the lake.

  After we crossed the border into Switzerland, the style of construction changed. Switzerland is what we expected. Everything we see is neat and tidy, with one exception. Even the Swiss have problems with graffiti.

  We stayed at the Palace Hotel, another fine old hotel on the shores of the lake. Our room overlooks the lake. After we moved into our room the cloud partly lifted and we had a magnificent view of the Alps mountains to the south of us.

  Tomorrow is planned to be a light day. The only scheduled activities are a boat tour of a lake and a walk through the old town, with the afternoon free.
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