Friday 12th July I'm desperately trying to catch up on this blogging. The problem is that every day is so full that there's barely a spare minute to read let alone blog. On reflection, the real problem is dinner. On most trips I have blogged of an evening or first thing in the morning. It's actually 6.30 am as I am writing this now. On this trip, we enter the dining room at 7.00 pm, and after four courses and conversation with fellow travellers, it's close to 10....

Thursday 11th July When I returned to the boat on Wednesday afternoon, it was to the news that the lock workers strikes were spreading and that we would now leave immediately instead of at 11.30 and sail all night in order to get to Miltenberg by 8.00 am. The idea being that we would be bussed into Miltenberg, while the boat moved ahead to avoid the scheduled strike at a lock on the approach to Wurzburg. We had heard of another ship being held for 7 hours and ...

Overnight we travelled from Traben-Trarbach to Koblenz. Have a look at a map of the Moselle River some time and you will see that while a crow could fly in no time from one to the other, by river it winds so much it takes over 8 hours as the river twists and turns back on itself and we negotiate lock after lock. We woke up in Koblenz. Our cruise manager Rik (Dutch) advised that there would be a camera shop in Koblenz where we could replace the CF card, however w...

Monday 8 July Berkastel to Traban-Trarbach “We left our heavy curtains open and the sliding glass door opting for fresh air overnight. We were woken by voices on land as we docked about 4.30am.” That’s all Ches had time to write. We had travelled from Trier to Bernkastle overnight and having woken so early, I set off to walk this very small town and the larger town of Kues across the river. There is nothing quite like walking a town before ...

A warning note about the next couple of days. There are no photographs of Trier and only a few from the most photogenic town on the whole trip Bernkastel-Kues. With only one hour left in Bernkastle, my camera memory card died. I had half an hour to return to the boat, grab my phone and rush madly around town trying to snap some of the highlights. I also had to wait till be stopped in Koblenz to buy a new one and even then, only after a morning trip to the most ph...