2016/05 Europe cruise - River Main |
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We left the Rhine nearby at Mainz and started up the River Main towards Frankfurt. The crew went into action, dismantling the whole sundeck. The rails were folded down, the seats collapsed, the sunshade laid flat, and all but a few inches of the captain’s bridge retracted into the deck. The River Main was taking us to the Rhine-Main-Danube canal, which has low bridges. The idea of the canal goes back to the 800s and the time of Charlemagne, but the canal wasn’t completed until the 1990s. All of Viking’s longships that ply this route are designed to fit just within the canal’s lock and bridge dimensions. For the next few days we would be climbing to over 1200 feet above sea level, just to the east of Nuremburg.
After all that fresh air on deck we had trouble staying awake. Luckily, we could tune our TV into the lounge web cam and listen to the evening entertainment from our cabin. We also had a bow cam, BBC and CNN news channels, itineraries, and weather forecasts. Wi-Fi was slow and, like the TV, could be shut off when under bridges and in locks. OK for email but forget about Skype.
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Main lock (8.28) |
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Wednesday May 11th
It was a sunny day but we awoke in darkness with the boat deep in the bowels of a lock. We’d be traveling until lunchtime and we had a visiting speaker in the morning, a glass-blower from Wertheim. It didn’t sound very exciting but Karl was not only very skilled, he was 
funny too.
His family have been glass blowers for nearly 200 years and he studied with the Seattle artist Dale Chihuly, whom some of you may be familiar with. Karl’s specialty is working with borax-based pyrex glass. He says his sculptures are more resilient than Chihuly’s as well as being cheaper. He told us that his secret ingredient is a mouthful of Jägermeister before each blow.
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Glass Blower 1 (26.26) |
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Glass Blower 2 (17.54) |
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Glass Blower 3 (17.40) |
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His most serious story was about the family’s escape from East Germany when he was a small boy. They taped his mouth shut while moving through the woods and trying to evade the guards who’d shoot anyone they caught. He doesn’t blame the Russians but said he still has a problem with the Germans who supported the Communist government. The family has prospered since setting up a new factory in Wertheim.