Who Ever Heard of a Sea Day on a River Cruise?

Yes, we actually had a full day of sailing scheduled for today! But a couple of days earlier, Tour Director Taryn put together an 'Adventure' for anyone who wanted to go along. It sounded interesting, but when the numbers got over 20, we thought it might be a bit unwieldy to keep track, so we stayed on board and got caught up with a few things, like the blog, and just watched the river go by. We couldn't be up on the sundeck as it was still closed for low bridges, but the Panorama Lounge was always available.

In the morning, when we let the adventurers off the boat at Wertheim, a local glass artist came on board to give us a glass blowing demonstration, and, of course bring some of his art to sell. We were amazed that he could actually do this on the ship, but it worked very well, and he made a Christmas ornament and a candle holder that he gave to some guests.

After he left the ship at the next lock, it was just sailing along the river and going through more locks, and sailing, and locks, etc. On the whole cruise we are going through something like 68 locks, with 64 of them on the Danube-Main-Rhine Canal.

In Rothenburg yesterday we bought a local specialty called a 'Schneeball' or snowball, that Razvan recommended we try. It's hard to describe, but it tastes like shortbread with a flavoured cream like in sandwich cookies, in this case lemon, running through it. The only way this could have been baked, and it definitely wasn't deep-fried, was for the strips to be baked, coated in the cream, cut into strips and rolled up all before the shortbread could set. I'll have to look up the recipe sometime. I had no time to eat it yesterday, so I sat outside of Arthur's on the back deck and ate part of it.

We picked our adventurers back up in Miltenburg and continued on our way.

Tonight was the Grand Gala Dinner that started off with Portuguese Oysters on the half-shell. We thought they were okay, quite large and a bit chewy and very briny. They were served at Cocktail Hour.

Dinner consisted of 6 courses, with 3 wine pairings. It was delicious, and nothing was too large, but we were still full when we left the table.

Smoked Duck Breast

Porcini Essence Soup

Seared Scallop

Land and Sea - Beef Tenderloin and Grilled Shrimp,
and no that wasn't white asparagus, just
potato puree

Flambee Creme Brulee for
Dessert

Served with Petits Fours

It was all most of us could do to get up to the forward outside deck to watch the river go by.

Another lovely day with lots of food and not much exercise. We will be in Ruedesheim tomorrow.