Here in the United States we celebrate Thanksgiving. A national day for families to gather together to celebrate the blessings for the past year. I was so blessed to have shared my incredible journey in September with family and friends. 

While the first days were what I had worked and looked forward to, the rest of the journey was quite memorable also. If you have been following my blog those first days we were visiting the home village and area for my husbands paternal line, the Kornmeyers of Böhringen, Baden, Germany. A possible journey for the Kornmeyers heading to America may have been down the Rhine River, That was my original motivation for taking this trip from Basel to Amsterdam.

The day before we had checked onboard the Viking River boat Kara for our cruise. Our stateroom/cabin had been changed but we were still one of the closest rooms to the lobby which made it very convenient. We later learned that the ship which normally holds 190 passengers had only 69 for our cruise, and needless to say our service was excellent and there was never a line. I believe this made for a more relaxed and cozy experience. The first dinner on board was excellent , oh how I wish I’d gotten the recipe from our chef. With all the walking and excitement of the day I slept through any locks that the ship went through on our first night of travel on board the Kara. Apparently others in our group were not so lucky.

Day 6

We awoke at our first stop and started the day with a quick breakfast and soon found that we preferred taking our meals in the Terrace lounge where our servers were most often Eddie and Ada. Eddie was from the Philippines while Ada was from Poland. It was always fun since I almost never meet another woman with my name. While it is spelled the same it was pronounced Ahda. A woman not even half my age, well really not even a third. Maybe our name is being revived.

Our first excursion was a bus trip into the mountains to the Black Forest. Where we found a resort way point that had been a historical coach stop centuries before.

The Black Forest cake Demonstration was just on how the cake is assembled and there was no tasting, darn. I would have loved to have seen a demonstration on how that large beer stein was made. There was of course the hand carved wooden cuckoo clocks.

Our trip back to the boat on the bus was through Freiburg, a place that Roy and I had visited about 50 years ago and it has definitely changed.

After lunch onboard the afternoon excursion was our Viking tour to Colmar. The bus took us past Neuf-Breisach a “star fort” town that was built after the Treaty of Ryswick in 1697 once Breiisach, on the opposite bank of the Rhine, became a part of the Roman Empire and France lost the town. During our planning for our trip pre-pandemic I had hoped to visit Neuf-Breisach to see and learn more about star forts that have a unique means of protection through a series of earthen berms built around the town in multiple concentric series of a star shapes. Next time.

Jack or Jacques our tour guide did a marvelous job introducing us to the home town of the famous Bartholdi, the sculptor and creator of Liberty Enlightening the World or as we Americans call it the Statue of Liberty.

Our first sojourn into Alsace was très bon! Next time Strasbourg! Hope you enjoyed and please leave any questions or comment below. I love hearing from you.