Miltenberg

Heubach Loch

Tommy Temerson

Zither

Traveling from Ruedesheim to Miltenberg last night and this morning we switched from the Rhine river to the Main river and traversed 11 locks.  They are long, narrow locks  that appear to be able to hold 2 ships of our size (we are 443 ft long) or one of the cargo ships we've seen towing a barge behind.

After breakfast we had a concert by one of only 5 professional zither players in the world, Tommy Temerson.  He boarded our ship at a lock near Frankfurt and left at the last lock before we got to Miltenberg this afternoon.  I don't know how many of you know what a zither is (Sarah excluded :-} ), so I have included a photo.  In explaining it, he said that it is like playing 3 guitars at once.  The instrument has42 strings - 5 for melody and 37 accompaniment strings. There are only about 2,000 people in the world who play this instrument.  The concert was excellent and I bought his cd of the concert to support his work.

On the "sun" deck

We docked in Miltenberg about 12:30. It is overcast, the town appears to be built on the side of a hill and it is also Sunday, so nothing is open except the beer halls. Ray & I decided to stay on the ship today.  The walking tour was only to admire the houses and sample the beer.  We can do both of those things at any of the villages we will visit along the way, and it's more fun to walk around town when the shops are open.  I'm glad we stayed on board because it also appears that the shoreline is under construction from where we docked all the way into town.  I think they may be creating a river walkway, which will probably be very nice when it's done.  There are lovely white swans swimming around in the river here.

One of the things the town is famous for is the soft cookies made here. Our Chef gave a demonstration of how to make these easy "Vanillekipferl" this afternoon when everyone was back onboard.  We also got to sample some.  The demo wasn't much compared to the cooking demos on ocean cruise ships, but it was a half hour diversion and good cookies.

A local chef is on board to cook dinner for us tonight.  Ray is a little concerned that it might be lots of sauerkraut and other thongs he won't eat.   Me, I'll try anything.