Rudesheim Busses and Brandy

Rudesheim 6 th May

Today started with us arriving at the city of Frankfurt at breakfast time this was unexpected as we were due to go through there in the very early hours .
Rumors spread throughout the boat as to what the problem could be. The speculation varied from river levels to mechanical problems , but before long an announcement was made that we would be informed of the current situation at 9.30 in the lounge .
At 9.00 a further announcement called us to the lounge and here we were told that during the night there had been a 4 hour delay at one of the locks due to a power outage and as a result we would need to be driven on  hastily organised coaches to Rudesheim  a one hour trip and the boat would meet us there.
The weather was not good to start with but Crackers his hen ,Lyn and myself scored the front seats on the coach and  with the rain steadily falling off we went.
After half an hour the rain eased and eventually the sun came out and we were all enjoying the country side and seeing things from a different perspective. We had been informed that lunch would be provided at Rudesheim as the boat would not get there till around 4 .PM .

Arriving at Rudesheim we went straight to Siegfried's Mechanical Musical instrument Museum here we saw all sorts of different machines that played or imitated just about any musical instrument you could imagine . The museum is housed in a building that dates back to the 16 century and is typical for houses in the village. We then were taken to a local German restaurant for lunch .
 
Here the fun began there was a band playing folk songs and Bavarian type music but when they started playing songs that were more familiar to us we all joined in. The whole place started to rock , there was a conga line formed and wound its way around the tables headed by a trumpet, a bass drum , someone with cymbals , followed by a large Tuba then came the passengers probably more that half the four bus loads were involved .
Of course there had been some drinking by then and we were presented with a large mug of coffee laced with a locally brewed brandy along with a generous dollop of whipped cream this added to the enjoyment. The  meal was great a large slice of roast pork with cabbage and mashed potato  followed by a dessert of icecream cake .

All this had been organized  at short notice during the night and to Andrzej the cruise directors credit the day turned out to be the most memorable so far.

After lunch we had free time and wandered the many shops  taking more photos of half timbered houses . We found our way to a cable car that for a small fee took us to a lookout overlooking the township and the Rhine river , here we saw the Panorama arrive from upriver and we made our way back to the boat seeing many ducks and swans on the way.
The boat then travelled down the Romantic Rhine passing lots of castles and the famous Lorelei  rock where reputedly young maidens lured sailors to their doom but thankfully they weren't operating as we passed .

This evenings entertainment was provided by the crew and we fairly cacked ourselves laughing at their antics with the whole crew participating. Both the cruise director and Captain gave us a song , they are both talented but perhaps should not give up their day jobs.
We were in party mood so continued with some dancing and adjourned to bed in extremely good spirits .