Speyer

The next few days saw us having events together on a single day.

 This “Rhine River Mash-Up” should not be confused with 1956’s biggest selling album, The Bavarian Boys Sing ‘German Regions We Have Known’ , it’s just that due to itinerary scheduling, and the need to cover as much of the Rhine as possible, Viking utilizes both days and nights to the best extent possible. Usually that means Ports during the day, then jamming everyone back on board in enough time to scoot down river to the next Port where the process starts again. But what happens when the fun stuff is at night, and some really cool stuff is on the River during the day? Well, they “mash up” three days and make into one big, long, confusing (to those of us that usually have zero nightlife)

daaaaaay,

night,

daaaaaay – what do you mean the Castles have started already! event,

night

This confusing explanation will soon become apparently simple. And will unfold over the course of several Posts as it would be waaaay too long for one!

                        Short Version:

            Dock in Speyer, one of those great little towns that no one has ever heard of.

            Hurry back to the ship for some Scenic Cruising, but really to get to the second Port in one day, Rüdesheim, where there are several evening events scheduled! Back to the ship….ZZZZZ.

            Next morning, cast off the lines much later than usual because the Rhine River Castles ‘event’ part of the cruise starts this morning like…… NOW! (more on that later) and if they cast off too early the Castles would be inconveniently too early for some (most!) of the losers (oops! I mean passengers) that blasmusiked (oompahed) mit den Bavarian Brothers a little too much the night before.

            Then on to Koblenz for the afternoon and evening.

                                    Get it?

                                    Ok…… here we go, I can hear the crew up on deck getting ready to dock in Speyer, so please have your Ship’s ID and your Tour Tickets handy because they do not wait for you!

Speyer is an example of a simple little town that owes its existence to the fact that it sits on the banks of the Rhine and has so for 2100+ years. We all know that us Humanoids have roamed around for much longer that and we will all assume that Fred, Wilma, Barney, and Betty were all here before all of this ‘recording’ was set down, but/so for our purposes we’re going to start in the Roman times. Around 10 BC the Romans set up a camp here in an attempt to protect the northeast corner of the Roman Empire from the wild Germanic barbarians.

            Barbarians figured a lot into the olde tymes around here but guess who is calling who a barbarian? Yup, if ‘you’ were not part of one of the three great (?) civilizations, Greek, Roman, or Christian, you could be thrown into that mix of humanity called a Barbarian. Hah! That’s like the pot calling the kettle black! It’s fair to say that we all at one time or another have been guilty of being barbaric, but still the name is of a historic origin and will suffice for now.

            After that 10 BC camping trip the place wiggled back and forth among the peeps of the area until about 300 years had passed and then a Bishop came to town. Whatever your leaning is towards faith and religion, there is no disputing the effects of the Roman Catholic Church on world history. The Faithful were scared to death of being sent to Hadestown for all eternity and would do just about anything to keep themselves ‘safe’ (except acting the way they should) so in order to make up for their ‘faults’ they gave lots of money, land, jewels, and other trappings of success to the Church in a way to buy their way out of the Big Negative. Hence, the riches of the Church grew and grew.

            Around 1030 Conrad II, one of the Holy Roman Emperors, started a cathedral in Speyer, now a World UNESCO site. Speyer is also the location of one of the first significant Jewish communities in the Holy Roman Empire and remained so for a thousand years. This is testified by just tracing the Ashkenazi surname of Shapiro whose variants include, Szpira/Spiro, and Speyer. Unfortunately, it is also one of the first sites of a pogrom perpetrated by one of the first armies to head to the Holy Land for the First Crusade. I promised back in the beginning of these Posts some five years ago that I would do my best to keep it “light”, but when History throws something in your lap and it is needed to balance out the equation, then I feel disposed to include the things that, left unsaid, would just leave gaping holes in any complete explanations. I do hope that you will agree. On the brighter side, soon after the Iron Curtain fell in 1989, the Jewish population began to grow again in Speyer and their first service since WWII was held in 1996.

            Another ‘brighter side’ item needs to be mentioned here also. This is our Guides doing, not anything that was coerced….. they did it on their own…. they all did not hesitate to acknowledge what happened in WWII, particularly with having to do with the Holocaust. They took responsibility for their country’s actions and for their grandparents’ complicity with it all and they thanked us, as Americans, for our country’s part in bringing all of that to an end. It is good when the elephant in the room gets identified.

            Speyer was also the site for the Quest for Women’s Shorts. You see, unfortunately the Laundry Gang sort of ‘lost’ Paula’s pair of blue shorts. This was a bit of a dilemma because the packing for this voyage was on the light side (not like an extended ocean voyage) because not only were we to be gone for just fourteen days, but for half of it we had free laundry service that came with our Room Suite. So, being down half of the ‘shorts required’ was on the disturbing side. Besides, those were her fav’s. Nickolay, our Room Steward was beside himself even though it was obviously not his fault. He began his Quest, and he was unrelenting but alas, the Shorts must have jumped overboard as no trace could be found anywhere. The Captain ordered a room-to-room search involving our heavily armed security team. Everyone had to vacate their rooms until the search was completed and many an evil eye was cast in Paula’s direction while the Inspection was being completed. Again, no positive results. The Captain gave everyone onboard a Free Cocktail to make up for the hassles of the Big Inquisition so in the end, Paula became a heroine, and everyone wished for another Search so they could get another Free Cocktail.

            We found a nice store on the main drag that sported women’s clothing and picked out a dandy pair of blue shorts. Problem solved. That evening Nickolay came by with an exquisite box of Lindt Chocolates, courtesy of Viking, as a Peace Offering which was heartily (at least on my part) accepted. It was then that I tried my best to have something go missing from my laundry!

            We boarded the ship around noontime and spent the afternoon up on the Sun Deck on our way to Rüdesheim where we were to have our next excursion, ‘Dine en Rüdesheim’ complete with a great little three-piece band. The restaurant was as authentic as they come, we were outside under the usual coverings that might help if it didn’t rain too much but all was good, and the weather remained under control. The restaurant was located on the Drosselgasse, which has its beginnings way back in the 15^th century when the Port was a bustling trade city. All of the Bier Haus’s were located along this six-foot wide alley that ran up from the waterfront. Today it is still the location of most of the hospitality related business in town. Paula got involved with the ‘activities’ which left me (thankfully) to stay behind and record the moments for posterity. See attached!

                        We boarded the little tram that brought us there and back to the ship we went, everyone again singing ’99 bottles of Bier en de Valls’ as raucously as they could. The Shore Patrol was dispatched to quell the disturbance and threatened to throw everyone in the Brig upon our arrival, but we knew they were only foolin’ cuz we got no brig on board, just a locking closet and we definitely wouldn’t all fit in there!

                        The morning would come too soon, and it was Castle Alley on the Rhine which brings us full-circle here. Next Post will be all of the Castles that we saw, and don’t worry, I shot each one, didn’t miss nary a one of ‘em cuz I was up on time!

Tomorrow…. the Castles of the Rhine!