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)