We were met at the boat this morning by model trains which took us into Wertheim. We know that Wertheim is famous for glassblowing but I didn't know there are basically four types of glassblowing - one which specialises in making glass eyes. According to the glassblower who gave a demonstration on board the boat last night, Peter Falk (of the Columbo TV series) had his artificial eye made by a glassblower in Wertheim.
Of course, over the years Wertheim has become famous for something else - floods. There is a building in town which shows how high the floods have reached recently. What it doesn't show is that when oil heating was used in the town, the oil from underground tanks had mixed in with the flood waters and had caused terrible damage and pollution. Since then, underground oil tanks have been forbidden in the town.
I saw my first Stolpersteine memorial stones today. They are bronze plaques commemorating the victims of the Nazi regime and are at more than 1,100 locations in 17 European countries. The seven I saw in Wertheim commemorated members of the one family.
The town centre was free of traffic this morning because it was market day. What happens at the markets is important - and has been for centuries. Houses have been built with their windows facing the market square so people could see what was going on. The bakery - with its door facing the square, has had a window cut into a corner of its first floor so the inhabitants could also keep an eye on the market square. Maybe see who was being executed as a witch.
Today, they would have seen one of the people from the boat faint. She was taken back to the boat by taxi but later as we arrived back at the boat, there was an ambulance there and she was being loaded into it. It seemed she had had a medical event related to an existing health condition; it had nothing to do with the lurgy that is making its way through the passengers on the boat.
She wasn't back on the boat by the time we sailed but later down the river we made an unscheduled stop and there at the dock was a taxi. Soon after we were underway again, the crew announced that the passenger Linda) who had been taken to hospital in the morning was back on board.