Day 7: Cruising the Main and touring Aschaffenburg

Today we opted out of the Heidelberg tour (since we have been there before) and we stayed on the ship in the AM...along with 19 other guests.  We felt like we had a very large ship all to ourselves.  

One of the differences between the Rhein River and the Main River (pronounced Mine) are the bridges. The Rhein doesn't have bridges because they have to be UNESCO  approved.  The Main does have bridges but they are low.  To compensate the bridge (where the captain controls the ship) of these ships are on hydraulics that they can lower when needed.  They also move all the table and chairs off the sun deck while we are on the Main...so no walking up there, we went to the gym to make sure we still got our steps in. 

Before we get to our final destination in Budapest we will go through 68 Locks.   We have gone through 9 so far.   I am surprised how this crew can get through these without ever hitting the side AND there is only about 12 inches on each side of the boat.  We are impressed.

The food on these ships is really good, and there is way too much of it.  (which is why we walk every day)  each night they have the "local" menu , which is food that you could get if you ate in town.  We have been trying it each night, and it has been great!

This afternoon we toured Aschaffenburg and the Johannisburg Palace.  

 The Palace now houses a museum and these cork replicas of Italian buildings is the current display.   They were pretty cool.  It is no wonder you can't get cork for wine bottles anymore!

 Then we toured the gardens of the palace.  

 This is the grape arbor that King Ludwig walked through to get to his breakfast house.

A lot of  ducks and swans on the way back to our ship

 Our Ship