I'm writing this almost a week after we arrived in Nuremberg. We did so on the Friday morning and Ches and I elected to repeat the city walking tour rather than the WW2 tour. This begins with the drive in from the river and then a circuit of around 2/3rds of the walls. I don't know how much of these walls survived WW2 bombing and how much are modern reconstructions. Either way, the walls are among the most impressive town walls anywhere. Towers linked by roo...

For the heritage club cocktail party (previous Uniworld cruisers) and the farewell dinner, I wore my new bright paisley jacket. Now I honestly hadn't expected to draw attention to myself. I just love bright clothing and felt good wearing it. What did happen was that almost everyone in the lounge bar followed my progress and the bar manager came and asked me if it was "bespoke". When I said "no", wanted to know where she could buy it for her husband. Among ...

Regensberg Regensberg is another town that we visited in the summer of 2013 and my memories of it were closer to the mark. This time we docked closer to the old town center and it was only a 500m. walk to the old roman walls and gates that now form part of the foundations, where our real walk began. This was where the Romans became serious about occupying the regions and keeping the barbarians (you know? Huns, Visigoths and Goths) back from the Europe they h...

Passau has pretty well brought my relationship with my hiking boots to an end. Despite wearing two pairs of socks and rolling one of them down into the top of my right boot, the chafing and bruising on my shin bone is intense. Only be walking and placing my right heel on the ground first gives any relief. So what do you do when you have set your mind on climbing the cliff behind Passau to photograph the town from above … you grit your teeth. We visited Pa...

Bavarian Forest Following the morning walking tour of Passau, there was a quick lunch and by 1.00pm we were in coaches heading 30 minutes into the Bavarian countryside. We had made this trip in 2013, however decided that a ride in a covered wagon through a snowy countryside could be extra special. Our guide was Eva, the same guide as in 2013. We knew who it was from her first utterance. She can't help herself, she laughs as delivering corny punchlines and ...