Sunday December 15th, 2024

We had 2 excursions today but both from the same port. We docked in a Kehl which is a bus ride to Strasbourg. We were docked on Germany right near a bridge and halfway across the bridge you are in France. The sun was out when we left the boat which is a nice change.

The half France, half Germany bridge.

The sun created nice reflections on the canals in town. Strasbourg is actually considered an island surrounded by canals.

Most of the houses in town are the Bavarian style with the timber accents.

Strasbourg really decorates all their buildings for Christmas.

It also has a huge cathedral in the center of town and several streets have Christmas markets.

They take pretzels to a whole new level. They put different things on the pretzels like sausages, ham & cheese, tomatoes and then they also do sweet pretzels with chocolate and Nutella in them. The tree was in the center of one the squares and is 100 feet high.

We walked around and saw a few things different but mostly the same things at the markets. There were tons of french pastries and we did some window shopping. The sun did not stay for long and we actually had some rain showers.

We took the bus back to the boat in time for lunch and we had to be back for our afternoon excursion which was leaving at 3pm. We had lunch and then went to a talk on disembarkation and Monday’s ports. At 3pm we boarded the bus for a 30 minute ride to Gengenbach.

The town is very quaint and what they are known for is their very large Advent calendar. They put on a kids production with singing and dancing every night at 6pm and then open the advent window for that night. We had 2 hours to kill before the show and we spent most of it in a cafe where Kathy had a local beer and I had hot chocolate.

Kathy found a friend.

At 6pm we watched the show which is all in German so we understood nothing.

The advent calendar windows.

We made it back to the boat just in time for German dinner and ate with the same 2 couples that we had dinner with last night.

Tomorrow is our last port in the black forest and our last Christmas market. I’m glad to say we have done the Christmas markets but not what I expected and would probably not do again. The ship and the crew have been wonderful.