Life on the High Plains

We landed in Kehl and then walked about a mile to get on a bus to head to Strasbourg, France. I have to say this was one of my favorite stops on the cruise.  It was so picturesque and is exactly what you'd expect a small French city to look like. There's another Viking group across the river.  They provide those red umbrellas to everyone on the ship.  I know, we all look like a bunch of dwebs.  Half-timbered houses line the streets.  Beauty and the Beast is what first came to mind--a picturesque French village like where Belle lived. Then we turned onto a street which gave an amazing view of the imposing Strasbourg Cathedral called the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Strasbourg.  It was the world's tallest building between 1647 and 1874. Holy moly!  An amazing example of medieval gothic architecture built between 1015 and 1439.  The spire is 466 feet high. Long aisleways on both sides and the center. Beautiful stained glass from the 12th-14th centuries...

After docking in Breisach we boarded buses for a tour of the Black Forest.  We drove through some very beautiful landscape to the small village of  Breitnau. It was a very picturesque little village with a larger than life size cuckoo clock.  We watched on demonstration of how cuckoo clocks are made and how they have evolved over the years.  No, we didn't buy one because we already own two. Irv and I chose to take a stroll in the countryside to the small village chapel.  Here I am trying to capture photos that may eventually become paintings. The fall colors were breathtaking! Is anything more picturesque than this view? It's called St. Oswald's Chapel. We walked around the outside first. Inside was the St. Oswald's Altar which dates back to 1515.  It depicts St. Matthias, St. Oswald and St. Michael.  St. Sebastian is on top and the 12 apostles are depicted below. After looking around Irv went in search of a geocache and I headed to the cafe for a demo...

Our flight arrived in Basel around 9:00 a.m.  The Basel airport is very interesting because to exit you have two options:  one door exits to France and the other to Switzerland.  We chose Switzerland and right outside was a Viking representative waiting to greet us. We were the first to arrive for the sailing and she put us in a private limo and sent us to the ship.  We checked in and were invited to wait in the lounge until our room was ready (they were still disembarking the previous sailing).  The lounge was stocked with coffee, tea, hot chocolate and a variety of pastries.  Around noon our room was ready and we heading into the bowels of the ship to find our cabin.  (Since we only sleep in the room we decided to not upgrade to a balcony this time.)  The room was very small, but nicely appointed so it would do for our journey. There was one thing about our room that I totally hated and left a bad review for Viking about.  This glass box is...