Travel Blog: Our Musical Interlude in Rüdesheim

Our next to last stop on this cruise was the small town of Rüdesheim am Rhein. Most well-known for its specialty coffee, made with the locally made Asbach Uralt Brandy, we found a couple of other gems of this very old town while we were here.

It turned out that our docking position had been changed as we arrived, and we ended up a good 15 minute walk from the old town. But that didn't pose much of a problem; in fact, it was a good thing, as we were able to walk off at least a bit of our lunch.

Once we left the bus, our first destination was Siegfried's Mechanische Musikkabinett, or Siegfried's Mechanical Musicbox Museum. Firstly, it is in a restored castle dating back to the 1300s, and secondly, we were all amazed at what he had collected in this museum.

Siegfried loved old music boxes of any size, and in the 1960s he started collecting them. The most impressive ones we saw were a Hupfeld Violina Orchestra and a Weber Maestro, both of which had many different instruments playing under the direction of a paper roll a la player piano.

We did also see a player grand piano, and watched as it played a beautiful composition by Franz Liszt, the Liebestraum.

A display outside of the castle

The Weber Maestro. It sounds like a
whole orchestra!

The oval sections on top open to show multiple
violins that have 'fingers' pressing on the
strings to produce certain notes. Amazing!!!

This piano can be played like a regular
grand or can be set as a player piano.

We were fascinated by some of the things we saw, and amazed at the ingenuity that managed to get these instruments to play by themselves.

After our visit to Siegfried's, we walked the few metres, literally, to the Rüdesheimer Schlosshotel where we were given a 4-course lunch complete with a German band for entertainment. As soon as they started playing, we were both reminded of parties at Monica's parent's house, and the CDs they used to play. It was a great meal.

Chicken Schnitzel came after salad and
potato cream soup

And in between courses, some of us were dragged out to help the band play Edelweiss on the cowbells.

Resistance was futile, and I ended up with the big bell to start the song. Good thing we had a conductor.

It was a lot of fun, and they let us go back to our tables for dessert and Rüdesheimer Kaffee when we were done.

There we were, helping the band!

Apple cake and vanilla sauce for dessert

And the crowning touch, Rüdesheimer Kaffee

Our Tauck team gave us all tickets to take the Seilbahn, or cable car, up to the monument outside of Rüdesheim, the Niederwald Denkmal. This monument was built in the late 1800s to commemorate Prussia's victory in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-1871. It is a huge statue, easily visible from the river. We were last there in December 2017 when we visited on the Christmas Markets cruise. At that time, there was at least one Santa Claus riding the cable cars along with the visitors.