Dusseldorf - Sunday - Sept.19

 Remember .. I'm 9-hours ahead of you, you should receive each day's post around 2-3pm PDT ..

During dinner last night (Sat.) we started cruising towards Dusseldorf through the night for ~ 130 mi.

Woke up and the German farmlands were rushing by.

We watched these scenes unfold at our sumptuous breakfast table.   You must know, from experience or heard from family or friends or have read my previous travel blogs, that - ships/boats serve excellent food!!

You do NOT want to miss a meal!   Don't worry - the excursions and sight seeing give you plenty of calorie burning opportunities!

To give you an idea of where we are, this is a picture I took of the map on the TV in our room:

Germany has 16 federal states.  Dusseldorf is in the North Rhine-Westphalia state.  A very industrial part of Germany .. as you can see below :

Many coal fields and steel plants.  Jan and I stood out on the bow taking all this in.

We docked around 2-pm and queued up for our excursions.  We opted to take a walking tour of old town Dusseldorf.  Here are a few pictures:

Between Napoleon and the Prussians this old part of Dusseldorf was burned down four times!

If you remember from our previous Danube River cruise in 2019, I love the store front signage.

and, of course, church sculptures or gargoyles :

After the tour we decided to walk back along the waterfront instead of taking the bus.  Good decision!

This is a Rhine River water height gauge :

It was Sunday, so it seemed the whole city 620,000 strong were out for a stroll and/or a bike ride!

We encountered a small carnival along the water :

We finally came along our ship :

Once onboard, we came out to the sundeck and took a picture of what was close to us :

Later tonight, after dinner, we came out and found the moon had appeared in the same location :

and looking back at the carnival scene :

We were treated to a wonderful concert after dinner by the group .. La Strada .. that had driven over 3-hours from Belgium to perform for us.   Music from classical composers, operas, gypsy music, movie tunes, Irish folk songs .. it was excellent.   So much sound from a trio!

What a fun day!  And it's only going to get BETTER!

Tomorrow we get to see Cologne and its beautiful cathedral!