Avalon Visionary Rhine River Cruise - Day 4 - Cologne

Oct. 30, 2012 – Cologne, Germany

Eau de Cologne.  Bet you thought this came from France.  It didn’t, this perfume came from Cologne, Germany, a beautiful Romanesque city built on both sides of the Rhine River.  The most famous eau de cologne is 4711, however, the first cologne made here was Farina.

The Cologne Cathedral is the landmark twin-spired Gothic cathedral that is seen on all of the postcards and in pictures of this city.  Supposedly, the remains of the three magi are buried within this structure.  It took over 600 years to build this massive church.  During World War II, there was an agreement that no historically significant buildings would be destroyed.  The very first 1000 bomber raid by the Royal Air Force was conducted on Cologne on the night of May 30 and 31, 1942.  It was expected that it would knock Germany out of the war and damage the German morale.  The RAF only had about 400 aircraft and the Royal Navy refused to let coastal command aircraft take part in the raid.  Cologne was not the first choice.  Hamburg was, but inclement weather caused the change in destination for the bombing.  Seven official administration buildings, 14 public buildings, 7 banks, 9 hospitals, 17 churches, 16 schools, 4 university buildings, 10 postal and railway buildings, 10 buildings of historical interest, 2 newspaper offices, 4 hotels, 2 movie theaters, and 6 department stores were completely destroyed.  The only military installation damage was the barracks used by members of anti-aircraft gun crew.  Damage to homes and apartments was considerable with 13,010 destroyed, 6,360 seriously damaged, and 22,270 lightly damaged.  The number killed was 469 of whom 411 were civilians and 58 were military. 

Because the main train station was next door to the Cologne Cathedral, there was some damage to the structure.  There has been continual restoration done on it since the end of World War II, and it has still not been completed.

Cologne was a former Roman city and has an historical heritage. There is a complete tile floor from a Roman home in the Roman-German museum.   The remains of an ancient  Jewish quarter was discovered in Cologne in 2007.  The remains of a synagogue, a hospital, bakery, community hall and mikveh (a bath house used for ritual purification) were discovered.  Archaeologists are enthusiastic about the dig, but Cologne residents remain skeptical. 

Of course, Charlie and some of our traveling buddies had to try out the local brew, Kolsch, the local beer brewed in Cologne.

Later tonight, we leave for Koblenz, the Rhine Gorge and Rudesheim. 

Avalon Visionary Rhine River Cruise - Days 2 & 3 - Amsterdam

Oct. 28 & 29, 2012 – Amsterdam

“One day this terrible war will be over.  The time will come when we’ll be people again and not just Jews! – Anne Frank  11 April 1944

On Sunday, Oct. 28, we awoke to an overcast sky and a windy, blustery day.  On our agenda for the day was a trip to the Anne Frank House.  We walked from our hotel, the NH Grand Hotel Krasnapolsky, through the Dam Square and about five or six blocks to this incredible museum.  I had pre-purchased our tickets for an assigned time to go through the house, and it’s really a good thing that I did.  The queue wound around the house and down a couple of blocks for those without tickets.  There must have been over 100 people waiting to purchase tickets. 

I had watched the movie, “The Diary of Anne Frank”, a few months ago, but seeing the close quarters that this family and their friends lived in for over two years during the Nazi occupation of Holland during World War II, was so moving.  One of the things that amazed me was that no one spoke while they were going through the house.  It is like being on sacred ground. 

The Anne Frank House’s museum is unique.  It is the hiding place where Anne Frank wrote her diary during World War II.  There is a set route through the house that you must follow.  A couple of the many things that made such an impression on me was the size of the small rooms and the narrowness and steep of the stairs.  There were eight people who occupied a space of less than 800 square feet – Anne, her parents, Otto and Edith Frank, her sister, Margot, Hermann, Auguste, and Peter Van Daan (pseudonym  for van Pels in the Diary), and Fritz Pfeffer  (pseudonym for Albert Dussel).  These people had to stay indoors 24 hours a day.  The curtains were always kept closed, so the neighbors could not see them.  Below the house is a warehouse that continued to operate while they were in hiding.  During the day, when the employees were there, all of them had to sit still and not make a sound.  They could not run any water nor flush the toilet. 

There is no longer any furniture in the house because Anne’s father who survived the concentration camp did not want to replace it after the Nazis had emptied all of its contents.  However, the walls of this house can tell so many secrets, and just by being in it and seeing the close quarters and how they had to live was such a moving experience.

Today we took a leisurely canal cruise all around the city of Amsterdam.  There are houses here that are actually crooked from the years of the marshy sub-soil under them settling.  Our ship sailed at noon and we are now en route to Cologne, Germany.  More tomorrow.

Avalon Visionary River Cruise - Day 1 - Amsterdam

October 28, 2012

 

It’s cold here!!!  Was 39 when we got off the plane yesterday, and it didn’t get above 45 all day.  It was a little overcast, but cleared off by early afternoon.  Sunny and cold I can take.  Got a note from a friend yesterday afternoon.  She and her husband have been living in Basel, Switzerland, for the past year.  She said it was snowing like crazy there.  We don’t arrive there until next Sunday, so we are just hoping we have enough warm clothes with us.  I did remember to pack gloves, hats, etc., so by layering on the sweaters and turtlenecks, we should be okay.

Daylight savings started last night, and we got that extra hour of sleep.  Neither of us slept on the plane over, so we took a 3 hour nap yesterday after we got into our room.  The hotel is beautiful.  We are staying at the NH Grand Hotel Krasnapolsky.  Take a look at the pictures on their website.  We met four of the couples who are with us for dinner last night at an Argentinian steak house.  There are lots of them in Amsterdam for some reason.  We had, at first, thought we might want to have Dutch food until we saw the menus at some of these restaurants.  Pork belly didn't sound very appealing. 

The hotel is located at the Dam Square which is one of the largest in Amsterdam, and there was a carnival there today.  We did a little shopping and just walked around after our nap.  Our hotel is also located at the edge of the Red Light District.  Of course, last night after dinner, we had to take a stroll through it.  WOW!!  is all I can say.  This area is huge.  We were warned about the coffee shops that aren't really coffee shops, but pot houses.  Saw one seed store that had seeds from every type of marijuana plant that you could possibly want.  This is like no place we have ever been. 

We are headed to the Anne Frank house this morning, and then have to be at the ship by 3:00 this afternoon.  We overnight onboard and have a sightseeing tour and canal cruise tomorrow. 

What's On Your Bucket List?



WHAT’S ON YOUR BUCKET LIST?

Charlie and I were recently talking with a banker friend of ours about some of his clients who are planning for retirement.  Not surprising to us is that travel is the number one thing on most people’s bucket list.  However, most people don’t write down their bucket list of things they want to do, and have no idea how to budget for those big travel items on their list.

Omaha Beach in Normandy

Should you create a wish list of to-dos before dying as the characters Edward (Jack Nicholson) and Carter (Morgan Freeman) did in the movie “The Bucket List”?  Assuming the answer is yes (not sure why it wouldn’t be), what’s the best way to do that?

 

John Nelson, the author of “What Color is Your Parachute? For Retirement” said, “We create a bucket list because we want to be happy.  Some of the latest research on happiness suggests we need to pay attention to two very different kinds of happiness: ‘experiencing’ and evaluating,” 

I suppose I have two lists:  My I Have and My I Want to do…

If you haven’t written down your Bucket List, start out with what you have done and then move on to what you want to do.  Here some of the things are my lists. 

I HAVE…

      1.     Kayaked in Ketchikan, Alaska

2.     Written three books

3.     Stayed in a 400-year-old farmhouse in the Black Forest

4.     Watched a meteor shower from a ship in the South Pacific

5.     Taken our grandchildren to Disney World without their parents or siblings for their fifth birthdays

6.     Walked on Omaha Beach in Normandy

Eiffel Tower in Paris

7.     Learned to play the clarinet and piano

8.     Climbed Acropolis Hill to the Parthenon in Athens twice

9.     Viewed Paris from the Eiffel Tower

10.  Watched a lightning storm at sea

11.  Seen the Mona Lisa in Paris and the Sistine Chapel in Rome

12.  Visited the graves of Michelangelo, Dante, Marc Chagall, Rafael, Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard, Robert and Elizabeth Browning, Queen Elizabeth I, Queen Mary, John Keats, Rudyard Kipling, Handel, and many others

13.  Ridden in a gondola in Venice.

14.  Seen Michelangelo’s David, statue of Moses, and the Piata  

15.  Started a business

16.  Visited Russia

17.  Gone whale watching

18.  Visited the White House

19.  Met someone famous – Most notably, we had dinner at Reba McEntire’s home.

20.  Visited 32 of the 50 United States, including Hawaii and Alaska

21.  Taught myself an art from scratch – first there was crochet, then knitting.

22.  Visited the birthplace of my ancestors (England and Scotland)

23.  Been to all of the U.S. Virgin Islands

24.  Visited Kiribati (the first place that celebrated the Millennium)

25.  Put my feet in the waters of the Atlantic and the Pacific, as well as the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico.

 I WANT TO…

      1.      Take a safari in Africa

2.     Go to the Holy Land

3.     Be the keynote speaker at a major conference

4.     Visit Iceland

5.     See the ball drop at Time’s Square on New Year’s Eve

6.     Take a river cruise in Vietnam

7.     Rent a villa in Italy for a month

8.     Take my grandchildren to Washington D.C. and show them why we live in such a great nation.

9.     Take painting lessons

10.  Lose weight (don’t we all that that ambition)

11.  Visit Antarctica

12.  See a volcano while it is erupting

13.  Write a cookbook

14.  Stay in a chateau in Provence in France

15.  Visit the Galapagos Islands

 

There’s so much more that I want to do, and so little time.  Now, you know what’s on my list.  What’s on yours?