Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 Monday, 5 June. Most of the other passengers were off the ship early for an optional tour to Heidelberg. We had lived there for three years (1969-1972) and visited often since then, so we skipped the tour to make time for a visit with our German friends, Ernst and Gisela Marenbach.
We had arranged for them to meet us at the ship in Mainz at 10:00. Now we hoped they would be early because the ship’s departure had been moved up two hours (from 14:00 to 12:00) since we’d set the time. Sure enough, our friends arrived at 09:30. Unfortunately, Gisela had a terrible cold in addition to a longstanding chronic back problem. We took them on a brief tour of the ship, but mostly we sat in the lounge and talked. They left around 11:30, and the ship sailed half an hour later. The day had started out cold, windy, and overcast, but by now it was partly sunny and pleasant. The ship left the Rhine and entered the Main soon after sailing. The Main was noticeably narrower, and we soon began encountering locks. We passed through three by the time we sailed through downtown Frankfurt about 16:30. We had been stationed here for a year (1972-1973) and were quite familiar with the city. But as we approached the Iron Bridge (Eisenbrücke) and the Cathedral, the bank looked very different. Not only was it lined solid with tents and kiosks (apparently in preparation for the World Cup), but a row of modern apartments had been built between the Cathedral and the river. A giant television screen was being erected in the middle of the river so spectators could watch the World Cup games from the banks on both sides.
The ship continued on to Offenbach where the passengers who had gone to Heidelberg boarded about 17:30. While Jane played bingo, I went up on deck with my camera after dinner (about 20:30) as the ship was going through the lock at Klein-Krotzenberg. It was still light enough to get a picture of the steeple of St. Nikolas church, where many of my ancestors were baptized, married, or buried. Hours later, and a couple locks farther up the Main, we passed Niedernberg, from where my only Bavarian ancestors came. Of course, by then it was too dark to see anything. |
