Dawn - sunrise - sitting in the dining room, hot cup of tea, sun streaming through the floor to ceiling window, our last lock (until Amsterdam) and Sooz in the room sick. The wait-staff had been fabulous about putting together trays for us to deliver to the 'staterooms' for the sick folk - and there have been a few on board.
Sooz didn't miss much today - we were sailing down (up?) the Rhine for most of the day. When talking about it last night, Ivan, our program director, had said there would be a talk on the sun deck (which is finally going to be open and accessible again - all the very low bridges are behind us now) when we started seeing the castles - and it would be like 'ping pong' as we looked from one side of the river to the other to see the castles and fortresses. We had been briefed a little on the different types of construction, so we could appreciate them a little better.
I went up to the sun deck for the talk and view and I have to say I was the coldest that I have been on this trip. The sun was out but there was a wind chill factor which I can't even begin to describe. Of course, because I was taking photographs, I didn't have gloves on (I didn't even bring gloves with me) and I completely forgot to put the hood on my puffer jacket up. Who knew you could get a nose bleed if you got really cold. It surprised me after I'd taken Sooz her lunch tray. I bent over and all of a sudden I realised my nose was running: pesky lurgy I thought, but I was wrong, it was blood. It didn't last long, thank goodness, and it only happened the once.
This afternoon we docked in Koblenz and we had booked to go on an excursion up to Ehrenbreitstein Fortress, overlooking the town. We had booked the excursion months ago and somehow I had forgotten that it involved a cable car ride across the river and up to the fortress. It was definitely better on the way up than on the way down - why did it need to do the little climb up on the hill side, and then a faster descent.
The Fortress was huge and we had a different type of guide for the excursion - an actor portraying a spy guided us through the Fortress telling us about the history and how difficult it was for the French to try to overtake this Prussian stronghold - which they couldn't and didn't.
We hadn't quite finished the formal part of the tour when our guide led us to the side of the Fortress so we could watch the sun set and take dusk photos overlooking Koblenz. The only disappointment was that the hot chip vendor near where the cable car was (and on the way back to the boat) was closed when we got there.