Monday 3rd

Monday 3rd
Well our cruise is finishing. We have been docked here in Wurzburg since Sunday and this ship is not going anywhere until Tuesday or Wednesday next week. The river is still rising and all the rivers are closed to shipping. The floods have been a disaster throughout Germany, Austria, Czech Republic, all areas we have been in.
We have not been stopped from doing things, however, as we have been bussed around. Yesterday. In the morning, we had a look around Wurzburg and into the Prince Bishops palace. Another grand and opulent building. After a light lunch on the ship(after the previous day's effort we decided against the roast that was available in the restaurants) we headed to Rothenberg. Glen and I stayed there in 2010 so it was familiar to us, left some euros behind in the Christmas shop. This is getting into wood carving territory and saw a beautifully carved altar piece at the cathedral.
Rothenberg was 30% destroyed in WW2 but was quickly rebuilt in the old style with the help of donations from overseas, America and Japan in particular. Wurzburg, on the other hand was 90% destroyed and was rebuilt in the sixties in the typical plain style of the time.
The drive back from Rothenberg was interesting, lots of wind turbines and solar panels, both on the roofs of buildings and huge solar parks in the paddocks. Apparently they rely heavily on Nuclear powered electricity generators which will be phased out by 2020 so there will be lots more wind and solar generation.
Our usual information session before dinner gave us the news that we will have to leave the ship on Wednesday and head for a hotel somewhere in the country. On Thursday we will head for Amsterdam. It is dissapointing that we are missing out on so much of the rivers, but we are being looked after and still seeing lots of land based things.
After dinner we had a glassblowing demonstration by a guy from Wertheim who was not only good at what he does but was entertaining as well. We are going to Wertheim on Tuesday and he has a shop there, coincidence do you think?