Day 10 - Tuesday, May 9, 2017 - Melk to Roth, Germany

The ship was only going to be docked at its next destination, Roth, Germany, from 1pm - 5pm, before departing for an overnight journey to Nuremberg, arriving in the morning. Our group was scheduled to leave the ship for the airport at 7am the next morning so there wasn't a lot of wiggle room.

We were able to get an 8:30am ICE (Inter-City Express) train from Wels to Nuremberg. The ICE trains are very nice, like the Amtrak Acela trains that run from Boston to NYC. There is onboard WiFi which is very convenient. We then got a regional train from Nuremberg to Roth.

Unfortunately, when we got to Roth, there was no cell service to let the ship know we were there. We later found out that there wasn't cell service where the ship was traveling. We found a taxi to take us to the port and when we got there found an Avalon ship but not ours! A crew member said that our ship was about an hour behind. There was no place to sit and wait, it was chilly and I didn't have a coat - we just had the clothes from when we left the ship on Sunday morning. We asked the taxi driver to take us back to the central part of the old city which he was more than happy to do, dropping us off by the Schloss Ratibor.

There was an information office in the castle (schloss) and the woman there was very helpful but didn't have much success contacting anyone due to the poor cell service. However, she said that the tour from our ship should be arriving in town around 3pm.

At the Italian restaurant next door we had a nice lunch of pizza, salad, beer and cappuccino.  After lunch we took the self-guided tour of Roth. The castle was built as a hunting lodge by Georg the Faithful from 1535 to 1538, quite a short construction time. Unfortunately for the Catholics, he was a follower of Luther and the Catholics either had to leave or convert. The Catholic church in town was converted to an Evangelical (Lutheran) church.

Around 3pm, as Carmen and I were coming out of one part of the castle, we saw Ginny and our tour group coming across the other side of the courtyard. Ginny and Carmen ran towards each other, shouting each other's names - it was quite emotional to be reunited and know we could continue on our journey as planned.

 
Courtyard of Schloss Ratibor - that is a sun dial up on the wall

 
Market square in Roth - note "Tudor" style

When we got back to the ship, we were greeted like the "Prodigal Son". Lots of hugs and everyone asking how we were. The captain came down to greet us as well. "All's well that ends well".

We found this cute decoration on our bed.

We enjoyed the "farewell" dinner with our friends before packing and turning in fairly early.




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