I can’t wait to do the Germany Wine region at the harvest as the wine experts (of one I am not) refer to it.  They are a fun group and have taught me loads of info on wines, growing regions, the weather conditions, and of course the tastings of wine without being stuffy or snobbish. We enjoyed the first trip so much that we came home and formed a small group- 12 of us into an informal wine group- and surprise, surprise they all love to travel and I hope to get them blogging here soon. My friend Heidi visits Germany yearly as she has a sister there and she was the first friend (before my travels with the Professor) that I visited Germany with.  I do have to admit that we were the tourists that did Oktoberfest in Munich (and lost my wallet and passport in the Black Forest- another story another time) and needless to say had a great time in the beer tents. Neither of us could speak a word of German but sang along anyway.

Now, I love, love, love traveling by River Boats. They are small, elegant, intimate (130-160 guests who end up knowing each other well at the end of 10 days), travel up and down the rivers and get into the smaller towns in the countries. Most of the time they travel (sail?) at night but on the days that  they move during the day it is wonderful to sit up on the top deck and watch the countryside pass by, glass of wine in hand, and view all the castles and monasteries that were built a zillion years ago to defend the area. You can step right off the boat into the town squares, bike from town to town, or take the planned

( included in the price) daily shore excursion to the Heritage Castle, museum, vineyard, any other special attraction of the area. This will be my forth river boat trip. We have been twice on Uniworld and once on Viking River Cruise but can’t wait to try Avalon’s new River Boat.  We had friends (8 couples) who traveled on one of Avalon’s newest ships who did a two week Avalon trip last fall in Europe from Amsterdam to Budapest stopping at vineyards along the way.  Avalon has bikes that you can use and this was a very sporty group. I don’t know about wine tasting and biking from town to town (or was it vineyard to vineyard) but it had to all be good for the ol’heart muscle!  We were with the Taster’s Guild Wine group doing the Douro River in Portugal so missed going along but  that is another trip and another show coming up soon…