Cologne

Today was foggy to start again. We spent a leisurely morning on the boat and arrived in Cologne after lunch. On exiting the boat we met our local guide who would take us on a walking tour of  the old part of the city.

You can see the cathedral in the background of this shot. 

   Apparently, over 90% of the city was destroyed by Allied bombing during the war. There are a couple of stories that attempt to explain why the cathedral was left standing while everything around it was demolished. One was that there was a back room deal between the Germans and the Allies to spare the cathedral. Another was that the Allied pilots needed the cathedral as a marker for their bombing runs and left it standing. 

We discovered that Gaffen Kölsch indicates a place where you can get beer. 

The cathedral is very dark due to the action of pollution on the limestone. They only clean a few of the statues using a laser method. 

The inside of the cathedral is quite magnificent. 

This golden container supposedly contains the remains of the three wise men and was the reason that the cathedral was built. 

These choir loft seats were built hundreds of years ago and were protected by a heavy box during the war. The seat shown in the front corresponds to Marilyn's seat in her choir. 

After our church visit we were very thirsty and decided to try out Kölsch, the local beer. It comes in very small glasses, 200 ml, so you need to have 2 or 3.

Marilyn and I did our own walking tour after the official one so we could explore a bit more of the city. After getting slightly lost, we found the Rhine again and made our way to the Lindt chocolate store. We ended up with this haul, some of which won't make it home!

Tonight's dinner wasn't quite as fancy as the Captain's Gala but it was still an excellent meal. We are trying to eat smaller, somewhat healthy, meals during the day to make up for the extravagant dinners!

Beef Tenderloin Carpaccio and River Duchess Salad

Local Pork Tenderloin

Brownie Cheesecake and Cheese Plate

Leaving Amsterdam By Canal

 After being up for 36 hours or so, we slept quite well last night! We're still a little lagged but feeling human again. This morning started out grey again and rain was threatening. Our first outing of the day was a canal cruise. I had seen some smaller cruise boats with food and champagne and was hoping that maybe we might be doing that but, sadly, we had the regular boat with no champagne. The water level views of the city were very interesting and it was amazing to see how tight the fit was under some of the bridges. 

Our canal boat docked close to our next destination, The Rijk's Museum. It has recently been remodelled and is a magnificent building that holds many masterpieces. Like any museum that is famous, it gets really crowded which isn't my personal favourite! This is what most areas with famous paintings looked like.

We did manage to get up close to some Rembrandt and Vermeer paintings in between the restlessly shifting hoards. I was surprised to learn that you could take non flash photos as well. It's amazing to get really close to a famous painting and see the actual brush strokes. When you look into the eyes of a subject in a Rembrandt painting it seems like they are looking back at you. 

We arrived back at the ship in a steady rain but it was ok because lunch was being served. Food always seems to make things better! During lunch, the ship left the dock and we were on our way to Cologne. It will take a full day to reach our next destination. Here are a few shots as we travelled along the Amsterdam/Rhine Canal. It's a very busy working river with constant barge traffic along with the river cruise ships. 

We spent the afternoon between the upper outside deck when it was briefly sunny and the lounge when it was grey. The lounge, with its basically unlimited supply of beverages, was quite relaxing. We've had the pleasure of meeting many people already. There are a lot of Australians and Americans on board and we are enjoying their company. 

Tonight's dinner was the Captain's Gala. It's a little fancier than other dinners with more courses and matched wines.

Scallops with shrimp risotto, lobster bisque, and saffron

Beef Consomme with Truffles and Puff Pastry

Ravioli with Cherry Tomato Sauce

Veal Loin with Domino Potatoes and White Asparagus

Champagne Mango Mousse with Raspberry Sorbet

Another great day in the books! Tomorrow we have a walking tour of Cologne and I've heard that they specialize in beer and sausages!

And, We're Off Again!

I was all excited that I could do a post to the blog from my Iphone from the airport last night. Typed it up, added a picture and hit post. Vanished into the ether! It wasn't too exciting, just airport and pretrip stuff but annoying none the less

After an uneventful 7+ hour flight we landed in Amsterdam at 6:45 a.m. in overcast weather. The Uniworld people were very efficient at collecting up various people and herding us onto a bus that took us to the River Duchess. We were a bit surprised to see how crowded the docking area was with other river cruisers but this form of travel has seen a big upturn in the last year.

Soon after we arrived at the ship, we went to the lounge to have a coffee and rest a bit. But, before we even sat down I felt a chunk of something in my mouth and it wasn't food! When I looked I knew it was a filling! This was not good. I had had the exact filling replaced a month ago because it was annoying me. Little did I know it would get really annoying in Amsterdam. Luckily, the staff on the ship was really helpful and they had me set up with a nearby dentist within a half hour. The dentist was excellent, there was minimal pain and we were back walking in less than an hour.

After the dental pit stop, we started walking as we couldn't get into our cabin until 3:00. By this time we figured it was better to just stay up and try to go to bed at a more or less regular time. We ended up walking 12 km while exploring numerous streets and canals. This past weekend was King Day which is a big deal and the city seemed hung over. There were lots of piles of garbage and many, many bottles and cans and papers in the street. We did get to see quite a few scenic locations in spite of the mess.

We wandered into a really nice looking cheese store.

I had located a neat sounding Dutch pub that had 30 local brews on tap and we used our map to find it but, alas, when we got there, it wasn't open until later in the day!! We ended up, due to the fact that we were going to fall over from lack of sleep, at an Irish pub. We had Guiness and some snacks. 

After lunch we made it back to the ship and finally got into our cabin. We both wanted to sleep but figured  a short rest would be best. We dragged ourselves to the lounge again to hear the captain and other crew tell us about safety and what we were going to do. Almost lost it! Then our first dinner aboard.  I have to say that the food on these cruises is pretty amazing. With that and the wine I'm surprised I have gotten this much typed. If there are spelling or grammar errors, I'll fix them tomorrow. Here's dinner.

Marinated Seafood

Dutch Pea Soup with Chorizo

Stuffed and roasted chicken breas.

Filet of Sole and I can't remember what was on it!

And finally, just before I fall asleep, dessert!

Trip Stats And Other Stuff

So, you know how when you go on a trip by plane and you want to buy stuff, you always have to keep in mind the weight of your bags and how much will fit? Well, when you go on a driving trip with two people in an SUV, you just keep buying stuff and throwing the bags in the back, or on the back seat or even under the seats. Then you tell the border guy that you only spent $450 on stuff to bring back and that seems reasonable. And then you get home and there are bags full of stuff that you bought everywhere! I never used to buy things on trips. Maybe a t-shirt or something. Now, it appears that I'm going a little crazy. But, what can you expect when you're in Costco in Oregon and there's no tax and you really, really need new sd cards and a portable hard drive? Or you're in a sports store and there's a really good sale, and no tax, on a very cool looking tennis racket. Oh, and the biking shoes that we found in Montana, also no tax. Marilyn bought stuff too, just not the big ticket items. Marilyn also used her organizing skills to lay out all the things that we bought. 

This is the overview. I wasn't in the room when Marilyn was organizing so I was a touch shocked to see all this stuff. I have to admit I don't remember when we even bought some of the things. Maybe I just wasn't paying attention! Or, I could have been taking pictures!

In this section, you can see our bear spray. We thought we should have it in case we met a bear on our hikes. We didn't. Now we have bear spray. I may carry it when we are walking around in sketchy parts of Toronto. Or, we can carry it when hiking on the Bruce Trail. I also got the cool Bearanoia t-shirt in Alaska. At the top, you can see the wine sippy cup that I encouraged Marilyn to buy when we visited a winery in Washington state. I still need to get a shot of her using it. And you can also see the pieces of quilting cloth that Marilyn got in the numerous quilt shops that we visited. Those will be made into quilts at some point. 

On the other side of the table we have the biking shoes. I'm quite excited to try them out. And, of course, there's the Passport 2 Terabyte portable drive. Everyone should have one of these to back up pictures etc. We also bought some food items after checking to make sure we could bring them back. The cans at the back are smoked salmon from Alaska that we got from the factory. You can see some fridge magnets too. We have started getting them from various places that we visit. 

I had to do a separate shot of the t-shirt section. We both got moose shirts, mine from Yukon and Marilyn's from Alaska. But, the best ones are at the top. They are our biker shirts from the 500 000 biker rally in Sturgis, South Dakota. It took some looking to find ones without partly naked people or death heads on them but we managed. I'll definitely be wearing mine the next time we're around a lot of bikers! 

And, that's pretty much it for the pictures. I'll be making a slide show for us and to show anyone who is interested. I will also likely make a facebook album of some of our favourite shots. I think we are considering making a book out of some of the pictures too.

As for the stats, Marilyn's been going over the charge card bills and receipts and we have a few interesting things to report. 

We converted all the gas prices to $/litre so it would be easier to compare.

• Times we bought gas: 37
• Total spent on gas: $1406.21
• Highest price: $1.79/litre in Muncho Lake, Northern BC
• Lowest price: $0.89/litre in Strongsville, Ohio
• Total Distance: 14 280 km
• Total Distance Walked (cities & hikes according to Marilyn's FitBit): 290 km
• Number Of Provinces/Territories Visited: 4
• Number Of States Visited: 16
• Number Of Cities/Towns Visited: 25
• Pounds Gained: Marilyn 0 (zero!), Dave 2

We also were talking towards the end about ways you know that you've been on the road for a long time.

• You walk into walls or the toilet in the middle of the night because you think you're in last night's room.
• You don't look at your watch for the time, but to see what day it is.
• Waking up in the morning and really having to think to remember what city, state and/or hotel you're in.
• When you start talking to/swearing at the GPS as if it was a person.
• When you want to throw the GPS out the window when it says "Recalculating" every time you stop for gas or a rest.
• Learning to be satisfied with McDonald's coffee in the coffee desert of middle America.
• When one person wants the other to take pictures of nice rest stops!
• When you realize that 836 songs on the ipod is not enough for a 36 day trip.
• You come to hate the colour orange as it represents the next 15 km of road construction that you have to deal with.
• You become adept at eating light lunches in the car on long drive days.
• And you learn the zip code trick. This is where some US gas stations ask for a zip code when you use a card to buy gas. Not having one, you have to go into the store or kiosk. But if you take the three numbers in your Postal Code and add 2 zeros, you get a Zip Code that always works. Our L4X 1C4 became 41400!
• Finally, you realize that you've had an amazing time and can't wait to do it again!

Thanks again for reading all of this and following along with us on our trip!
Dave & Marilyn