The world is a scary place at the moment and it’s likely to get scarier. So this week I’m going to share some of the happier times, leafing through the photograph albums of our travels. I blog all our trips so I’ll put a link to the relevant page for each entry. Just click on…
SS Catherine moored overnight at the village of Viviers. As usual, we waited until the passengers had departed for their excursions – one of which was to the famous Châteauneuf-du-Pape vineyard. Oh well. Some more excellent wine missed. We walked up a long avenue lined with plane trees, which were common in many places. The…
Sunday dawned bright and sparkly and not too hot. We’d finished our Seine cruise and sixty-four of us were off the ship early for our transfer to the railway station to take a high-speed train to Lyon where we would board the SS Catherine on the Rhone River. The Tour de France would be finishing…
This morning the Amalotus was moored at a wharf in Phnom Penh. For the lucky folk on the starboard side, that meant sweeping views over the river. At this time of year the water is low, so for those of us in port side cabins we had a rather uninspiring view of the pylons and…
We were supposed to go to the highlight of our trip – as far as I was concerned – today. A walk in the Schwarzwald in the mountains away from the river. But Father Rhine was in no mood to accommodate travellers. Our delay at Mannheim was, of course, multiplied by the hundreds of ships…
Remember I mentioned the Rhine was running high? Uh-huh. So high the river controllers closed the river. We were stuck at Mannheim. We were meant to be higher up the river, at Germersheim, which is why we had to travel further for our shore excursion to Strasbourg. Our tour director was on the phone for…
Today we tied up at the modern city of Mannheim. It was flattened during the war, being an important centre for engineering, but unlike many other German cities, the people didn’t rebuild in the old style. Noted for invention, Mannheim is home to Mercedes-Benz, Porsche and Siemens. We had elected to forgo the bus trip…
Today the Scenic Jade travelled back to the Rhine. Last year we cruised to Rudesheim and then through the Rhine Gorge. This year we did it the other way round, through the Rhine Gorge and on to Rudesheim. Going through the Rhine Gorge was a different experience to the one we had 6 months ago…