Austria!

We are now in a new country! Officially! you can tell because of the cute little houses and the weather has turned to custard! freezing cold and raining with sleety wind. the country side is hills with lots of trees. its a big joke to the Australians because suddenly there are t shirts and magnets etc saying no kangaroos here! or no kangaroos for the next 20,234 miles etc! obviously a play on words but I fell apart laughing! /RQFoHF81JuE/s1600/melik%2Band%2Bsalzberg%2B002.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="">

Going Through the Lock System

I know I keep talking about going through the locks, however these are important as they control the flooding of the rivers and also allow boats to go uphill! All the ones so far had us going down with the water, but now we are in the Danube Canal connecting the two rivers, part of those locks have the water coming in and we are rising 20-30 metres (thats a lot for the uninitiated!) It was late one night (10.30pm - the lovely oldies had to stay up past their bed time) and we encountered our first one of these. We were allowed outside (a no-no when going through locks cause the walls are about 10centimetres away each side!)up on the top and took photos! it was a wonderful experience because you started out with these towering walls up each side of you, and then suddenly start rising up quickly! the big discussion was the gate, did it go up?, sideways? split open in two? swing back on one side? big debates by all these amateur engineers - i said swing back, dave said slide sideways .... well ..... guess what! it went down! under the water! It needed a few metres clearance underneath for the boat to go over the top! all operated by two men at the computer back in Nuremberg or somewhere hundreds of miles away. I hope you can see cause it is at night!

Om Pa Pa!

oh yay! what do we need to do in Germany I ask you! beer and ompapa band!! the beer tasting was fascinating as we learnt all about the history, how it was made in the old days etc, and then talked through some samples (the Bavarians like one called wheat beer which was milky and rather yuck!

Then came the band! really good, amazing muscians and very cool outfits (the legs were rather white tho! i guess they must be cold to wear in winter). then they called up people to help play the metal chimes and once again - guess who! he was totally out of time tho, and too busy trying to jump around at the same time. (App. he didnt hit hard enough also!)

Nuremberg

Well, this place was extremely interesting! we went on the WW2 tour, which concentrated on Hitler, Nazi Rallys and Nuremberg Trials after the war. this was the Nuremberg House of Justice where the trials were held of prominent Nazi war criminals - best known ones being Goering and Hest. it was held in Nuremberg app. because it was in US hands, (not Russian, they wanted the trials in Berlin which they controlled) and the House of Justice was about the only building still intact in the city after the bombing! plus it had a prison right behind it.

We then moved onto Zepplin Field, which was the place where Hitler and the Nazi Party held huge rallies during the 1930's as a big propoganda exercise to brainwash everyone. It is huge! (could hold up to 200,000 on the field and another 60,000 in the stands around) the rallies were held once a year and took place every day over a week! Now it is falling down concrete with weeds everywhere. app. it is now used as a race track once a year for cars, and for rock concerts! the city doesnt know what to do with it, cause to put money into its upkeep looks like it is supporting what it stands for etc. It was a spooky place to be, cause I kept hearing Seig Heil! and tramping of thousands of jackboots parading past (yes my imagination ran overtime).

After that we moved onto the Congress building, which was started by Hitler in the 1930's as a ampitheatre (think the coloseum in Rome!) to outshine all others in history! yes he was slightly mad even then! they had to stop work on it at the start of the war (money and manpower needed to advance the cause of the third reich!) and of course it never got finished! it has been left as it was -

On the end of this congress building they have built a Documentation Centre . This was an amazing place to go through. It goes through the rise of the nazi party (esp. in Nuremberg who embraced it totally), the rallies held there,with old nazi film footage, and then onto the war itself, Jewish holocaust etc. In the final room it was all about the Nuremberg trials with actual film footage of the trials! talk aboout absorbing! here was Goering denying he knew anything about the death of Jews at concentration camps etc (he said he thought they were being deported out of the country!!). Any way 13 of the men were sentenced to death (hanging), some got prison sentences and 3 got let off! didnt know that did you??? there was an actual photo of all 13 in a newspaper article showing them dead on slabs of concrete with the ropes still around their necks, to prove to the world they had died! quite gruesome but dave loved it! unfortunately you oouldnt take photos! ( I am sure you could google it) this documentation Centre was one of the highlights so far, as it was done so well but also included the German perspective during the lead up to the war etc.

Small Towns on the Rhine

Once we were out of the Gorge, the river widened and we got to stop at a few old, small towns along the river. The first one was called Ruedesheim, and it had a Museum of musical instruments ( actually more fascinating than it sounds!)

The last one was all these animals and dolls playing carnival type music, from the 1920's. I dont know if you can see it, but the monkeys looked positively evil! they would terrify any kid watching! After that we went up a cable car to above the town, and overlooking the Rhine where there was wine tasting from the huge steep vineyards. Awesome views.

Miltenberg

Rhine Gorge

today was apparently the most scenic of the trip, with 4 hours through the Rhine Gorge. this is the place you see on postcards, with tall bush-covered sides and lots of ruins and castles and churches perched up high on the top of hills overlooking the Rhine. for us it was a fine day, but coldish and blowing. We sat up on the sun???? deck for those 4 hours (me covered in a jacket and a blanket) just watched and gazing in awe at the spectacular sights we were slowly passing. the only way to show you is through photos, but even then it doesnt do it justice. OUr cruise director was up on the top with us (as was most of the boat, tho the wind drove most inside after an hour or so), and he gave a running commentary about it all as we passed , plus we were given a map and a written sheet about the sights so no excuse for ignorance! It was easy to see how wars were won and lost in this area. I didnt expect vineyards perched on the sides of steep hills tho, and they were fascinating too. very steep and we found out there was a green patch inbetween each vine to stop erosion. aslo there were brick or stone walls (similar to retaining walls) and we thought they were also to stop erosion (retaining walls ) but found out it was also to keep the heat in the soil to heat up the vine roots.Considering these walls were probably built a thousand years ago, this was pretty clever understanding of how plants grew!all the steep fields you can see in the photos are planted with grape vines. Imagine harvesting them. some of the castles made you wonder how on earth they built them up so high, and into the rock on the side of the hill. Watch out for the photo of a castel with a little cage hanging out the side, as app. this was where criminals were put by the count of the castle and hung over the side to deter others from committing crimes! sorry about the amount of photos but i couldnt decide which were the good ones, so put all in! this was dave on the end of the camera!