Page 4 - GC-Nov-Dec-2024

4 • The German Citizen • November-December 2024
Our Trip to the Fatherland - Rheinland-Pfalz

By Daniel Schwarz of Rheinland-Pfalz (Rhineland- Buffalo, NY home.
he title of this article is liter- Palatinate in English), along the Each day of our cruise we
Tally true, since my father Rhine River and on the Moselle stopped at a different community
Berthold Schwarz emigrated from River. The itinerary included stops and had great shore excursions ei-
this southwestern area of Germany in Cochem; the historic city of ther walking or busing into the
to the US as a young man in the Trier and an optional bus to Lux- towns and experiencing the sights.
1920’s. Our trip was on a scenic embourg; with full-day stops at Having been to Germany many
river cruise aboard the S.S. Victo- Bernkastel; Boppard/Koblenz; times, the cruise and beautiful
ria, a beautiful UNIWORLD ship. Rüdesheim; Speyer; Karlsruhe/ scenery was perhaps the most im-
My wife Louise and I were 2 of the Mannheim and bus to Baden- pressive for us. This was especially
110 passengers and 40 crew. This Baden. The cruise ended in Frank- true along the many curvy horse-
9-day cruise was called “Magnifi- furt am Main, where our flight orig- shoe bends of the Moselle River
cent Moselle & Rhine” where the inally arrived from our Toronto, Valley, where the steep hills rose on
cruise sailed from Mainz am Rhein, Canada international airport, that is both sides of the river, some up to
the capital city of the German state most convenient for us from our 60-degree angles. There were of
course many small villages, beauti-
ful small churches with tall,
pointed steeples, quite a few histor-
ical castles on mountain tops, and
an almost continuous display of
manicured vineyards, as can be
seen in the photo.
As we cruised along the
Moselle River, we either sat on
comfortable lounge chairs on the
expansive open air top deck of the
ship or looked out of our huge
stateroom window, to enjoy the
breathtaking scenery as a continu-
ous slideshow of picture postcard
views. We started to take photos,
but realized they could not capture
the magnitude of the vistas, or the
impressive steepness of the hilly
vineyards. But we kept trying ture with a pre-cruise day in the center) at the Hyatt Regency
anyway. historic city of Mainz am Rhein Mainz. This was a modern hotel on
We began our Germany adven- and stayed in the Altstadt (old city the riverbank in eyesight of the