Hi, everyone!
Now I am on a big river boat cruising on the Main-Danube canal and the Main river in Germany. The Amacello is as big as a hotel. Their gangplank even has a red carpet on it to make me feel welcome, although the first step was a big one for a little lion. Everybody is very nice and I am making lots of friends.
As we are cruising down the river, the ship stops at cities where we can get off and take tours. These pictures are from our stop to see the old parts of Bamberg. First we went to the market, where I saw some yummy local strawberries, then we climbed up to the bishop’s palace on the top of the hill. The palace has a lovely rose garden and a wonderful view of the city below. All the roofs of the old buildings are red tile, and the houses have big attic spaces because everybody had to store their own food for the year.
On the way down from the bishop’s palace, Grandpa stopped to try a glass of the local beer and Grandma took me shopping at a store that sells locally-produced lace. We found some lace ornaments to take home for our Christmas tree.
In between towns, it’s fun to sit near the bow of the ship and watch the shore go by. Mostly, we’ve been cruising past fields and small towns. Some of the bridges over the canal and river are very low. The wheelhouse of the ship can go up and down, so the ship can get under the bridges. Sometimes, all you can see above the roof of the top deck is the captain’s head sticking up! You can see how close I was to the bottom of the bridge when we went through.
We’ve been through so many locks that I’ve lost count of them. A lock is like an elevator for a ship: it raises or lowers the ship to a new water level, so the ship doesn’t have to go over rapids or a falls like the rest of the water in the river does. We’re going downstream, so we enter every lock full of water and go down as the water is let out of the lock. We’re on such a big ship, the walls of the lock are right next to the windows of the ship on both sides. Sometimes we bump a little bit as we go into the lock, but that’s about the only motion of the ship I feel.
Best of all, my favorite sunbeam found me! I don’t know how it figured out where I was, but there it was, right at the window of Grandma and Grandpa’s cabin on the ship. I was so happy to see it, I took a nap in it while Grandpa was reading.
Love,
Lion-san
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