In Answer to the Christmas Cards

Casa Grande, Arizona

I've had numerous calls, emails, and texts from my readers that I never posted anything from our river cruise on the Romance of the Rhine & Mosel.  You asked for it, here's an abbreviated post.  Of course, I've already forgotten a lot of the information we were given. 

Our flight from Phoenix via Denver and Toronto had a few hitches resulting in sprinting through the airport to make our connections but we arrived in Antwerp on the morning of November 11.  One of the places I wanted to visit was closed because of the holiday but we wouldn't have had enough time to visit it anyway.  




Jorn, our program director, took  us on a walking tour of Antwerp after breakfast.  It was raining, but not hard enough to use our umbrella. 






The shopkeeper of the chocolate shop came out and gave everyone samples of their chocolates.

It didn't take long before we were enjoying Jorn.  He had a way of telling you the "whys" of things we saw.

After showing us this keyhole, he told us this was for the drunks that came home and couldn't find the hole for the key. Your key naturally falls down into the correct spot.





Bill and I walked back the few blocks to the ship to have lunch.  We had some free time to rest or go back and explore the city on our own.  Naturally, there was too much to see, so we'll rest later (in 15 days).  

The oldest wooden escalator in Europe was right next door to the boat so we decided to take a ride on it.  It is free and we saw people taking their bicycles on it.  

At the bottom of the escalator was a big clean tunnel where families would be walking.    

I thought it was strange that people took their bicycles up the escalator when there was an elevator, but people in Belgium are different. 

The tunnel took you under the river.  The wind was blowing and I stayed here long enough for a picture of me with our river cruise boat on the other side of the river.  It didn't take long to walk back under the river in through the tunnel.

It was time to get back to the ship as it sailed to Kinderdijk at 5 pm. Looks like the weather is clearing. Just enough time to enjoy the lounge before the port talk for the following day and of course followed by dinner. 


I'll blog about Kinderdijk later but wanted to put in this picture of our Christmas Day with our friends, George and Linda and Harry and Carlena.  We enjoyed the day so much.



Turtle Safely,.......