Our morning begins with a tour of Nuremburg that includes highlights of former Nazi strongholds, and the location of the Nuremburg Trials. You may recognize this infamous photo that was taken in 1937 of the Hitler Nuremburg rallies. 
These rallies were held annually in Nuremburg, at a purpose built venue. The venue included a reflecting pond to make the colosseum look larger than it was, and a huge flat field where once a zeppelin landed. Hitler basically created his stages to give the illusion and feel of power. His goal was to generate fervor amongst the crowds, ma
king the people feel the strength of the group at the same time as the helplessness of the individual.
The Nuremburg rally grounds were originally huge, over 50 square km, but are now preserved on 8 square kilometers. Soccer practice goals line the edges of the once packed zepellin field.
Along the tour route, we came upon St John Cemetery, or the equal cemetery. The plots here were laid out in a grid, with each plot being the exact same size as the others. It is orderly, and very well maintained, and actually quite beautiful. It dates back to the 1500s, and is extremely well preserved and tended.
The in-laws had stayed overnight and caught up with us at the bug Christmas Market. Nuremburg claims to have the largest and first one in Germany, and can trace its beginnings back to the 1400s. The market had some beautiful handmade wooden toys and puzzles, and of course I had to purchase something for our granddaughter. There was also food, mostly meat. The guys basically ate their way across the market. I got an order of some beautiful local mushrooms, sauteed in garlic and served with crusty bread. That was plenty. No more meat for me for a while!
We said goodbye to the in-laws and headed back to the ship at midday to begin the trek over to the Danube. We spent the night on the Main-Danube canal, a 106 mile long canal connecting the Main River to the Danube. It runs through southern Germany, from Bamberg on the Main to Kelheim on the Danube. The creation of this commercial waterway allows boats to traverse between the North Sea and the Black Sea, and connects 15 different countries. It is one of the largest civil engineering projects ever undertaken. There are a total of 16 locks taking boats up and over the Alps (the lower ones) reaching an altitude of over 1300 ft above sea level, and making it the highest such waterway in the world. We joined the ship at a point about 1/3 the way through the canal and journeyed 2/3 of it to the Danube. This included the highest portion of the canal. It’s an interesting ride in many ways. For instance, the locks are 12 meters (+/- 40 ft) wide, and our boat is just over 11 meters wide. It was pretty disconcerting to open the balcony curtains and see concrete directly off the rail.
It was a bright sunshiny day as we left Nuremburg, but once we pulled into the first lock it looked as though there was an eclipse. The walls of the lock were 25 meters (about 80 feet) high. This was the first of 3 such locks taking us up 24.7 meters each and over the European Continental Divide. There is considerable history on this lock, dating back to the year 793 when Charlemagne decided to open a route through the center of Europe for his battle fleet. He had a channel excavated between 2 rivers in Bavaria (tributaries of the Danube and the Main) but heavy rains collapsed the banks, and he abandoned the plan. In the 1830s, Ludwig I of Bavaria began a canal following much the same route as the modern canal, and his remained in use until WW2 but could not compete against the railways and was abandoned. The project was picked up again by a Bavarian company, with the intent to build a much larger canal that would be able to accommodate commercial vessels. The bulk of the work took place between 1960 and 1990, and the official opening of the canal was in 1992. As a result, people can now comfortably cruise all the way from the Netherlands to Romania!
