Everyone says that European railways, especially the German and Swiss railways, are always precisely on time. Not today – there was track and signal work and our train from Frankfurt to Basel left Frankfurt nearly 30 minutes late, and it kept falling farther behind schedule at every stop. Deutsche Bahn finally declared victory and terminated the train one stop early at the “Basel Bad” station instead of “Basel SBB” so that they could start it on its next journey on time.

Fortunately, our hotel (Hotel Märthof) was between the two Basel stations, so instead of getting on the following train to Basel SBB, our travel agent put us into a taxi which drove us directly to the hotel.

The hotel is a definite step up from Flemings, our hotel in Frankfurt. The room is probably twice as big, which gives us a little room to breathe for the first time on the trip. The location is nice, right off Marketplatz; we have Basel Cards which include free use of the public transit system, but I don’t expect to use that feature. And the Internet is enormously faster than it was at Fleming’s (uploads are much faster than at home, too).

It was nearly 4pm when we were ready to leave the hotel, which didn’t give us enough time to visit museums. The desk clerk suggested we walk up to the Basel Münster, which gave us a goal, and off we went.

We soon found ourselves walking through the University of Basel campus; it was founded in 1460 and still uses some of the original buildings (renovated, of course). Along the way, we enjoyed some new public art (Gänseliesel by Samuel Buri), a pleasant view of the Rhine, one of Basel’s 28 basilisk fountains, and the Natural History Museum‘s Halloween preparations.

Basel Münster is huge (about 200 feet high) and imposing. It was officially finished in 1500 and is the third church on this site. The interior was surprisingly plain, with no altar and no Jesus on the Cross; I guess that has to do with its being a Calvinistic church, but I really don’t know.

There is a good bit of stained glass; this picture of Jesus and the angels in a Star of David caught my eye.

We left the Münster proper and wandered through the cloister and the grounds.

We walked through the shopping district, but there wasn’t much to distract us – I was even able to avoid going into the Apple Store!

The Marktplatz was at the end of the main shopping street; it had the Rathaus (City Hall) on one side and a McDonald’s on the other (at least it was in a nice building!).

It was too late to explore the Rathaus, but I did pick up a brochure for their self-guided tour and we might look at it tomorrow.

I have to mention the “Singerhaus”, which is just across the street from Marktplatz.

The Fischmarkt Fountain is across from our hotel; it’s hard to get a decent photo because of all the trams and buses passing by.

We made a short trip to the Coop grocery store to buy some Swiss chocolate bars and returned in time to meet our group for a fondue dinner at Restaurant Löwenzorn. The restaurant has only been in business since 1874, but the building dates back to the 13th Century!

Today, we spent a few hours exploring the Museum Judengasse Frankfurt, which is mostly devoted to the old Jewish Quarter of Frankfurt, the Judengasse. The population had mostly moved elsewhere in Frankfurt well before the Nazis came to power, and not much was left after the war. The foundations of several houses in the Quarter were discovered during the building of headquarters for the local public utility and, after much debate and protest, part of the discovery was preserved as the museum.

We walked to the museum from our hotel, passing a very interesting mural at the Tailor’s Inn and walking through the grounds of the Peterskirch (Goethe’s father is buried in their cemetery).

I wasn’t surprised to have to go through security to enter the museum; I was a bit surprised at how easy it was to get through. We did have to leave all of our bags and water bottles in lockers, though.

The museum has preserved the foundations of quite a few houses; some were owned by rich people, others housed people of more modest means. They tried to display a variety of artifacts, but they did lean towards the beautiful, like these Hanukkiot (notice that there’s no space for a Shammas candle on the second one – it burned oil, so it didn’t need one!).

For the most part, the artifacts were arranged thematically rather than by house. There was a lot of commentary in both German and English posted to help provide context – the Havdalah Candle holder and Spice Box were near one another.

They didn’t have any Torah scrolls (there were some books and other printed pages recovered from a genizah, though), but they did have a Torah breastplate on display.

The entrances to two mikvot had survived; you could walk down the stairs but, of course, there was no water in either one. The first mikveh below was a community mikveh while the other was in a private home.

There were exhibits about “Jews and Learning” (lots of books), “Jews and Music” (with recordings), and more. I was fascinated by this matzo cover, made and sold by “the widow Rösel, an old clothes-trader,” using discarded clothing as the material.

The Old Jewish Cemetery is next door to the museum. The cemetery was closed to burials in 1928 because it was full.

The outside wall of the cemetery is a memorial to the deported and executed.

Many of the gravestones in the cemetery were uprooted by the Nazis. Some have been re-installed around the inner walls of the cemetery; others were too severely damaged and were collected for honorable display.

We left the cemetery and headed to our final stop, the headquarters of the European Central Bank.

The ECB had been built around the old Grossmarkthalle, the city’s main wholesale market hall. That building had an additional use during WWII – the Nazis used it for the mass deportation of Jews to death camps. The sidewalk outside the ECB is a permanent memorial to those who were deported. There are many inscriptions along the sidewalk from victims, survivors, and witnesses – mostly in German, but a few in English, like this one from a survivor.

There is a plaque with all of the inscriptions, translated from German to English (and vice versa). Reading it was chilling.

We left the memorial to walk to lunch. You could see how the Grossmarkt had been integrated into the overall design of the ECB, as though it was just another building.

It was an unforgettable day.

When we awoke this morning, the River Queen was back at its mooring in Frankfurt where we’d boarded it ten days ago. We said goodbye to our new friends and set out with Dave Natale for his old home town of Braumfels, about an hour from Frankfurt. We stopped a few miles short of Braumfels for a first look at Schloss Braumfels.

We continued into town and took a little walk through the Herrengarten and paid our respects to Kaiser Friedrich III who had visited Braunfels during his brief reign in 1888.

We had a full tour of the castle scheduled for the afternoon, but we did go into the outer sections of the castle premises and looked at some of the nice houses (all leased from the Count of Solms-Braunfels).

I found it interesting that some (but not all) of the houses displayed an emblem signifying that they have fire insurance!

The town has its own well, with copious regulations on its use.

We had a light lunch and not-so-light dessert at Cafe Vogel to fortify us for the castle tour.

Dave had arranged for his friend Andrea to lead us on a special tour of the castle; he promised surprises, and Andrea delivered. She had a new practicum (student intern) who was on his first day of his assignment; I wonder what he thought about how the day went.

Andrea told us a lot about the history of the castle and the family. It was first built in the 13th Century and has been in the same family since then. There has been a lot of construction and reconstruction, and it continues today.

Photography is not permitted inside the castle itself; our tour included 14 rooms, each beautifully furnished. One of Andrea’s special additions for our tour was having us wear costumes; we were allowed to photograph that!

Andrea shared many stories with us – so many, that Dave had to ask her to let us leave so we could get back to Frankfurt at a reasonable hour!

It was a very interesting visit indeed.

We returned to Frankfurt and the Flemings Selection Hotel Frankfurt City. We were lazy and had a simple dinner across the street at the Eschenheimer Turm Restaurant – both of us had the salmon Flammkueche. It was inexpensive, tasty, and fast – perfect for the end of a long day.

Today is our last full day on the River Queen. We docked near Ratstatt, just across the Rhine from France, and took a 30-minute bus ride to Baden-Baden (according to our guide, it’s a city so nice, they named it twice). It was Sunday, so shops (and the Casino) were closed and the city center was quiet. We started with a stroll past the Stadtkirche just before they started sounding the bells for Sunday services.

We continued past the Augustaplatz and the memorial to Pierre de Coubertin before crossing the Oos River and reaching Lichtenaler Allee, a 2.3km-long English landscape garden filled with various lawns, trees, flowers, and statuery, as well as museums, theaters, and hotels.

This weeping beech tree is about 130 years old; it suffered storm damage and they’ve propped it to try to save it, but our guide doesn’t think it has much longer to live.

We continued walking, passing Theatre Baden-Baden, which was originally built by the owners of the Casino (as were many of Baden-Baden’s civic landmarks).

Our guide pointed out the Old Baden-Baden Castle, which was abandoned in the 16th Century after a fire caused by lightning.

We walked by the Kurhaus, where the late 19th Century’s A-listers went to see, be seen, and converse. The Casino takes up the right third of the building.

We continued onward to the Trinkhallen, where people used to drink the spa waters – there’s still a fountain there, but it’s marked “not potable water”. The façade has a scene showing old people being given spa waters and becoming young and healthy.

We left the Allee and went into the city centre to pay our respects to Otto von Bismarck.

Our next stop was outside the building where Dostoyevski lived while he was writing “The Gambler” (and losing enormous sums of money at the Casino).

And then it was onward to see Frederichsbad, opened in 1877.

We got a brief glimpse of the “New” Baden-Baden Castle (built in the 15th Century); it’s in private hands, so tourists can’t visit.

Our guide took us past Caracalla, the new bath house in town, and the ruins of one of the original Roman baths.

Our tour finished on one of Baden-Baden’s shopping streets; since it was Sunday, all the shops were closed. Diane and I stopped at Café König for some hot drinks with chocolate (Diane had coffee in her mocha, but I was a purist and only accepted schlag as an addition).

We are en route to Frankfurt for the next part of our trip; it’ll be hard to top this cruise, though!

This morning, Diane went for a walk in Speyer while I braved the vinegar tasting at Doktorenhof. They dressed us as authentic vinegar-producing monks before leading us through a tour of the cellar and the tasting.

Doktorenhof takes local grapes and turns them into wine (which takes a year or so), then adds mother of vinegar and lets it work for a couple of years (or longer) to create their basic vinegar. They also add various fruits, spices, herbs, and other ingredients to make their digestive and aperitif vinegars.

Our costumes were modeled after those that doctors had used during the plague years to keep themselves relatively safe; they soaked the clothing with vinegar and wore masks.

They offered five vinegars for tasting; their owner has special glasses created to help your mouth properly engage with the vinegar. My favorite was the fig vinegar, but they were all enjoyable – something I never expected to say about vinegar!

This afternoon, Diane and I (and a bus full of new friends) explored Romantic Heidelberg. The castle looms over the city.

Heidelberg was not bombed during WWII; apparently the general in charge of picking targets had read Mark Twain’s “The Awful German Language” and it moved him to spare the city (also, he thought it would be a good place for a US base after the war). Our guide, Max, told us the story while we were walking on the Old Bridge.

Our tour of Heidelberg included some treats – we started with an interesting lime and ginger liquor, followed by a Turkish pastry and a plum crumb cake. Somehow, I only got a photo of the liquor.

There was a demonstration in support of Iranian Women’s Rights weaving its way through the main shopping street while we were getting our treats; it had a significant police escort (which was the only way it could get through the crowds).

After our treats, we took the funicular up to the Castle. Parts of it were built by Prince-Elector Friedrich V and Elizabeth Stuart, the daughter of King James I, after they married; that section includes the most famous balcony in Germany, used for televised productions of Romeo and Juliet.

The castle had originally been built in the 13th Century; Louis XIV tried to destroy it in 1693, but the walls were so thick that parts of it survived.

There was an ammo tower in the castle, with all of their gunpowder stored in it. It might not have been the best idea, because it blew up!

I would be derelict if I didn’t mention that the Castle includes the biggest wine barrel in the world, holding 219,000 liters. These days, it holds 219,000 liters of air. Oh, well….

(Photo by Diane Goldman)