War and Peace

The Prince Bishops of Würzburg lived in the Marienberg fortress on one side of the River Main…

until they built the "Residenz" at the top of the slop on the other bank in the 18th century, in an attempt to emulate the style of Louis XIV.

We only got just a peep inside the front entrance, enough to see that it is, indeed, very grand.

In fact we didn't get quite as far as the place where they take your money, at which point we would also have learned that you're not allowed to take photographs. They probably wouldn't have minded me getting one of the formal gardens at the side before we left.

Würzburg has the mix of architectural styles that seems characteristic of the region.

But little of what you see is original. The abiding memory of our visit will be that of the air raid suffered on 16th March 1945, when in 20 minutes 90% of the city was destroyed by the RAF. There is a model in a special room of the Town Hall depicting what the city looked like at the end of that night.

In the years following the war, a massive reconstruction programme took place, of both buildings and reconciliation. The room contained plaques describing the situation of Würzburg under the National Socialist regime, the mass bombings that the Nazis themselves had engaged in, and links to the peace project based at Coventry Cathedral. There was a poignant reflection by one of the mayors of the city, and one of the most powerful comments was made by our excellent guide as responded, impromptu, to a question. "You reap what you sow", she said.

The Main thing

Yesterday we discovered that the name of the town Mainz, which we were visiting, has nothing to do with the name of the River Main, onto which we have now come. The river’s name originates with the Romans calling it the “Minor” Rhine. We drifted up it through the night and tied up at breakfast time in Miltenberg – "the Pearl".

The usual castle stands guard over this mediaeval town.

The other reason for the survival of its delightful buildings would probably be that not a lot happens here! At the far end from the castle stands an imposing gatehouse, marking the beginning of the main street.

Last night after dinner the on-board pianist allowed me to play a couple of numbers on the ship’s Yamaha electronic grand piano. But it was a big disappointment – some of the keyboard contacts were faulty and the action had deteriorated, and I’d be playing a soft, expressive section when suddenly one of the notes would boom out loud. So when, this morning, we found a music shop few yards down the main street, a visit seemed in order to make up for the experience.

We chatted for a while with the owner Harald, who also runs a studio and a music production company, and that was good fun. I think he enjoyed it too, even though I didn’t actually buy any of the wares on offer in the shop.

The buildings here benefit from showing very little sign of an overall town plan. Walking down the main street you encounter various churches and squares,

and a somewhat higgledy-piggledy collection of edifices which rather reminded us of Nantwich and Chester, only coloured ochre rather than black and white.

There was time to enjoy it all before strolling back to the ship for lunch as we untied and continued up-river towards Wertheim.

In some senses, Wertheim was more of the same.

However, it was less linear and more haphazard. It also had a very steep walk up to the obligatory castle, which has watched over the confluence of the Main and the Tauber since the 12th century.

Of all the castles we've seen in our few days so far, this was the first we walked up to. Even at 5 p.m. it was hot!

The view from the top was spectacular, and showed why this spot had been chosen.

The walls gave evidence of the purpose for which they had been constructed.

We found that the castle was today the venue for a rock concert, and the top was throbbing, both with the beat and with all the people who'd come for it (carefully avoided in the photos I've chosen!). We found a bench with, bizarrely, a German version of the story of Percival, one of King Arthur's knights, written on the top. Three lads attending the concert were sitting on it, so we asked them to move a bit so we could read it. That led to us having a great chat with Roman, from Ukraine, and his two friends. Annoyingly, I didn't think about getting a photo of them until after we'd left. But they were part of a very enjoyable day.

Gutenberg

Our little ship arrived in Mainz at breakfast time, and we had most of the day for exploration. One of its attractions is the Gutenberg museum – Johannes Gutenberg was the man renowned as the one who kickstarted letterpress printing in Europe, and among the main treasures of the museum are two copies of the original Gutenberg Bible, from the mid-fifteenth century.

(Photo courtesy of The Gutenberg Museum website)

The museum is about printing in general, with info, among many other things, about how the Chinese did it as early as the 5th century.

Mainz struck us as a bustling town, with a lively market in the cathedral square.

It has an interesting mixture of architecture from modern and less modern times.

The cathedral itself is Romanesque – the equivalent here of Norman style.

Very imposing, as is the interior.

However, wandering around, we thought it felt more like a museum space than a worship space. St Stephen's church, up the hill, had a very different feel, with blue stained windows by Marc Chagall, giving a blue cast to all the light in the interior, including that around the organ pipes which seemed almost suspended in space.

We set off again from Mainz around 4 p.m., and soon found ourselves going through the first of what will be a number of locks. But how different these are from the one Erin Mae has encountered, even on the Aire and Calder.

They're big enough to take the ship, of course and, at 20 metres, wider than Erin Mae is long! Glad we won't be facing too many of those when we resume our travels on the UK network!

Castles in the air

In France it's the chateaux (so I believe). Down the Rhine gorge in Germany it's castles.

Most of those we passed today seemed to date from the 13th centre or thereabouts, though misfortune or the French resulted in many of them needing numerous phases of construction or repair over the centuries.

They appeared at regular half-mile intervals, each overlooking its village or small town. The family of one of them had enterprisingly set up a fortified toll post to make a small fortune from the traffic on the river…

The rest of the architecture along the banks was mostly typical of era and region.

Churches and houses followed similar patterns, except for this pair:

The building in front is a pub. The one behind, to which it is attached, is the church which owns the pub! This appears to date from when every monastery in this region, which has been growing vines since Roman times, produced its own vintage and sold it to help with the building fund.

Today's stop was at Rüdesheim – an archetypical wine-growing town given over, among other things, to a lot of tourism.

We headed for the most fabulous "Siegfried's Mechanical Music Museum", which has a glorious collection of mechanical music devices.

Boxes of this size (and there were a fair number) made a fair amount of fairground organ-type noise. This wonderful instrument…

worked on a pianola principle but, in addition to the keyboard, had half a dozen violins in the upper section which were also activated by the music roll. Magnificent!

Rüdesheim is also renowned for being the location of the "Niederwalddenkmal" monument, which you reach, if you want to avoid the climb, by cable car.

The top of the hill has large areas given over to woodland, where we got a nice, shady stroll, but the central attraction is the monument itself.

It was constructed in the 1870s to celebrate the victory of Germany in the Franco-Prussian war and the creation of the German Empire, and is topped by the figure of "Germania", holding a sword pointed down as a symbol of peace.

It's been a very nice day – the weather perfect for the things we've been doing. It's set to get warmer!

Heart of Europe

It seems we always go away from home just as the roses are getting in the mood. The red ones…

and the unusual Blue Moon…

and the rhododendron isn't in bloom for very long either…

But we had a date with a cruise ship in Cologne.

It's not a big ship, since this is a river cruise…

but it's quite a bit longer than Erin Mae!

We left Cologne and sailed through the night to tie up at Koblanz, where the Mosel flows into the Rhine. A guided tour took us round some interesting parts of the town, but what particularly captured my best beloved's eye were a couple of sculptures…

During lunch we sailed up to Bopppard, past some castles in this first part of the Rhine gorge.

Boppard is a delightful small town, where we're staying overnight.

It's a bit like parts of Cheshire we've visited on Erin Mae, except that the buildings are various shades of brown and white, instead of black and white!

We've completed only one full day, but already it feels like we've been here for far longer. And with the quality of the food, we're going to have to seriously watch our waistlines and perhaps make use of the fitness suite!

Off and away

This being a year for celebrations, we're going cruising for a couple of weeks. But not on Erin Mae, and not in the UK. We'll be on board MS Charles Dickens, cruising the rivers of Europe, from Cologne to Budapest. We go out via Eurostar on Tuesday, and fly back to Gatwick in a fortnight's time. The weather forecast is looking great, the itinerary is splendid, and we are full of anticipation. We'll try and post pictures from time to time, if the WiFi works as promised.

Meanwhile, we're leaving Erin Mae in the hands of our good friends Brian and Christine, who will probably start out exploring the Staffs & Worcs. The only other occasion on which I was in Budapest, it was with Brian. We were part of a small convoy of minibuses driving out to Romania in the Spring of 1990. The Ceaușescu government had fallen just a few months earlier, and we were taking some material relief to mainly Baptist churches which had been under severe pressure from the regime. Initial contacts were with people in Timișoara, and then we went down to near the border with Serbia. Brian and Christine have been involved ever since with projects there aimed at supporting educational and rural development programmes.

So, if you see them on Erin Mae, give them a wave!

Leading astray

I was doing the final testing following the configuring of Erin Mae's new tachometer, when I ran into another problem – the engine wouldn't stop! You normally stop it with the Stop button, before turning the ignition key back to position zero. Turning the key without stopping the engine first not only doesn't stop it, it also discharges the battery. Fortunately there's a lever on the side of the engine you can use to stop it in an emergency.

I took out the control panel yet again and found that, with all the fiddling around, a wire with a female spade connector was waving at me, having obviously come loose from its connection. But which one! The wire in question was the red half of a chunky 2-core cable which disappeared down towards the engine compartment. The blue half of the cable was attached to two thinner white wires, one of which could be traced to the stop switch, so this was obviously the culprit. But what was the wiring arrangement and where, among the various apparent options, should I re-attach the red core?

The white outer cover of the cable was a bit grubby, but I thought I could make out something written on it. Once it was cleaned I could read, in hand-written orange marker pen, "SUPPLY TO Q2". I knew that to be a breaker switch in the wiring cupboard and, fortunately, I have a PDF of Erin Mae's wiring diagram. That showed Q2 as controlling the horn and the headlight and I'd already noted that a similar chunky cable came up the control panel plinth and was attached in some way to the horn button and headlamp switch. The diagram also showed a straight connection from the ignition switch to Q2 – horn and headlamp are only supposed to operate when the engine is running. A continuity test with my multimeter revealed that the red and blue cores of the cable are joined at the bottom terminal of Q2, which explained things, though it didn't strike me as best wiring practice. The chunky cable is not only taking a 12 volt supply down to Q2 via its red core, but also, via its blue core, taking 12 volts back up again to be used by the Stop switch. Very odd!

The Isuzu marine engine manual shows the back of the ignition switch, and I was able to identify an available terminal which is live when the engine is running, but not needed for engine function. It was obviously a match for the loose wire's connector, so on it went. Nothing exploded or buzzed, the horn now operated again and, crucially, the engine stopped when I pressed the Stop button. Result!

Everything would now have been nearly perfect, but for one thing. The Stop switch has a little red acrylic cover printed with the word "Stop". With all the kerfuffle, it knocked on something, and broke. It's an ex-cover. You can't buy them for 50p, of course. You have to buy a whole new switch for 20 quid.