There was a crooked man walking past a crooked house and good heavens, following him was a crooked dog wearing a bright red coat.
The narrow half-timbered house built in 1571 tilted dangerously to the side. But it had been tilting for at least 500 years, so it was likely to stay in place.
The crooked man with his strong walking stick, smiled and nodded his head in greeting. We had just reached Bamberg and the small village sparkled in the sun. Named a World Heritage site in 1993, it looked like the ultimate chocolate box picture.
Gently, our cruise ship, the elegant Amadagio, docked. A perfect setting for this valiant vessel.
I've cruised on many river ships over the years, each special in its own way, but the Amadagio was in a class of its own.
The parent company, AMA Waterways, owns just over a handful of exquisite ships and each sails the rivers of Europe, both east and west.
Our particular cruise began in Istanbul, made its way through eastern Europe including Bulgaria, Romania and Serbia, Budapest, Hungary, Austria and then on to Germany. Some lucky passengers had been sailing for almost three weeks, but I'd boarded for the last leg, from Nuremburg to Trier.
It was the most beautiful stretch, everybody said.
We'd be winding our way along the Danube, Mosel and Rhine rivers and canals stopping in medieval villages and towns, eating local food, drinking local wines and exploring the countryside.
We spent a day exploring Nuremberg and an impressive town it is too. From the 14th to 16th century, Nuremberg was a free city answering only to the emperor of Germany. Its later history was less charming for it was here, in World War 2, that Adolf Hitler envisioned himself as a new emperor. Literally.
It was in Nuremberg that he held his massive Nazi party rallies, and here many of his "racial purity" laws were promulgated.
He even built his own "colosseum" that was never completed. Standing among the grandiose ruins is a disturbing experience.
Nurembergers who objected - and there were many - either kept silent or were deported to camps or killed. As was the Hitlerian way.
Sadly, as happens in wars, over 90 percent of the city was reduced to rubble by the Allies.
When we were told this by a guide, one of the Australians muttered: "Well, they started the bloody war, it's their fault." Of course, real life is far more complicated.
Because of Hitler's close ties with Nuremberg, it became the place of the war crimes tribunals.
But that is history. Today, Nurembergers proudly call their city the City of Human Rights, and they are one of the most active communities worldwide in striving for peace, understanding and compassion worldwide. As throughout Germany, memorials to lost Jewish communities are prominent.
We stopped outside the Palace of Justice, where war criminals were tried. Despite its foreboding history, it looked remarkably benign. A handsome building indeed.
Then we boarded the Amadagio and sailed into the countryside.
Compared to the open spaces of Africa, Europe is squashed.
No wide-open spaces, but meadows, cows, sheep and tiny villages everywhere.
Our early-morning stop the first day was at the aforementioned Bamberg, impossibly beautiful and looking - as they say in the classics - unreal with its ridiculously quaint buildings. Fortunately Bamberg is famous for another excellent reason. It has nine breweries, with 81 others in the surrounding parts. Between them, they produce 200 varieties of beers. Heaven was a glass of potent smoked beer (Rachbier) after breakfast. It was tangy, but not to the taste of two sniffy New Yorkers.
The two South Africans present felt it rude to leave full glasses, so we imbibed theirs, too.
The feeling of wellbeing increased.
With the other 104 passengers on the Amadagio, who were mostly from Australia and America, we split up into small groups with a tour guide who led us through the cathedral and the highly decorated town hall (straddling the river).
We munched home-made cheese at a market, bought red, blue and black berries and then wandered back to our ship. To lunch. Thank heavens, we hadn't eaten for at least an hour.
Here, I must introduce Peter Whitehead, the cruise director. A tall, lanky Australian lad, guru, guide, mother, father, doctor, entertainer and friend. Knowledgeable and extremely funny, he was an integral part of the cruise. Every woman on board fell in love with the dashing Peter and his wide smile.
"I'd love to take him home with me," mused an attractive 40-ish Texan.
"Me too," said her 84-year-old mother. And she wasn't joking.
That first lunch was a feast and our stomachs rested in deckchairs on the sundeck as slowly we cruised towards Wurzburg. A few energetic souls frolicked in the Jacuzzi.
Later, I explored the Amadagio and discovered lounges and secret places where you could sit and watch the countryside slipping by.
There was even a gym for those worried about their increasing girth.
Our next stop, Wurzburg, the capital of Lower Franconia, is famous for its wines.
Interestingly, the hills were steep and the rows of grape-vines ran down the sides in straight lines.What about erosion? I wondered.
Why not contour farming?
"It's so that each vine gets the maximum sun," our guide explained. "It works well," she added. "We've farmed this way since 1200."
"Ah. Since 1200," I muttered.
A chilled glass of white wine - "just to taste" - energised me for our tour of the imposing Residenz Palace where we trotted past centuries-old art and antiques and even a stuffed boar or two.
I looked around for Asterix and Obelix, but they must have been hiding behind the richly-woven drapes. Then next on the cruise menu was Rothenberg with its intact medieval walled city.
These are places of cobbled streets and half-timbered houses and endless little street cafes where you can sit and guzzle scrumptious pastries and sip strong coffee.
Dogs woofed and owners, discretely armed with pooper scoops, placed errant droppings into neat bags that were then deposited in strategically-placed bins.
The streets were so clean that you could have eaten off them.
I did a fair amount of brisk walking, with and without guides.
The Amadagio supplies local guides in each town and they were excellent. Not one dud among them. They were all relaxed with the German trait of warm hospitality.
Intelligently, we were given time to sit and imbibe a coffee or beer before becoming over-churched, museumed or just plain exhausted.
Each day we'd stop in one or two beautiful towns and each time, I would have to shake my head to make sure it was real.
The churches had onion domes, the cathedrals were grandly ornate, the streets winding and cobbled.
In ancient Franconian Miltenberg and Wertheim (famous for its glass blowing), we sat in the squares and decided that these were the towns that inspired Walt Disney to create Disneyworld.
We visited castles, stood on ramparts and looked over rivers, fields and hills. And in the distance, the snow-tipped Alps shone.
I should mention the food aboard the Amadagio.
It was sinful. Unlike other cruise ships on which I've sailed, each meal time you could sit where you liked. This meant passengers got to know each other. Clever.
During my table travels, I dined with an Australian sheep farmer (what else?), a paediatrician, a professor of French and Italian literature, two legal eagles from New York, a builder of aircraft and a plumber called Monty from Sydney.
One afternoon, an EU diplomat, Dr Marcus Urban, gave a fascinating talk on the European Union.
He looked like James Bond.
On subsequent days there were violinists, a chamber orchestra, a glass-blowing demonstration, singers and Kalin, the ship's onboard musician cool with Bach or the Beatles. To say the ship rocked would not be an understatement.
In Mainz, several passengers took off for the famous university town of Heidelberg, which I'd visited a while back. Mainz buzzes, but the huge sandstone cathedral, the Martinsdom, is still the heart of the Old City or Altsadt.
Inside the cathedral rest the remains of venerable archbishops past, their faces represented realistically on their imposing tombs. They were all extremely multiple chinned, I observed.
The masses might have starved but the bishops looked after their inner parts as well as their souls.
Far more beautiful, for me, was the Stephanskirche on the hill with its incredible Marc Chagall stained glass windows.
In 1490, Mainz son Johannes Gutenberg invented the original printing press which we duly visited at the Gutenberg Museum then popped into the remarkable Museum for Antique Ships and Shipping with its ancient and newly-discovered Roman boats. In Mainz you find Roman walls dating back to 350AD and there are exciting archaeological excavations everywhere.
The pace of a river cruise is gentle and each bend in the river brings a new surprise. Here is a castle perched on a hill, there are cyclists waving as they peddle along. Then we passed another picturesque village and a small graveyard with old stone crosses.
School children piled out of barn-like rustic schools and a white-bearded farmer attempted to harness what looked like a recalcitrant bull, but I wasn't close enough to check accurately.
The tiny hamlet of Cochem, known for its winemaking, is carpeted in vines and, yes, they all run straight down the hill.
"No, erosion is not a problem," said one of the winemakers. "Anyway, we've been doing this "
"Since 1200," I finished his sentence. "Ah, I see you've been listening to your guides," he laughed.
The Reichsberg castle had to be one of the most Disneylike with its elaborate turrets and towers. I kept muttering "unreal, doll" to myself.
It was during this part of the cruise that we sailed past the legendary Loreley rock that is so small you can hardly see it.
We were, by now, sailing on the Rhine and cruise director Peter told us of Heinrich Heine's poem about the ancient siren Loreley who seduced sailors with her song and drew them onto the rocks.
It was Heine, he explained, that immortalised the mythical Loreley.
Each day had its highlights, but it was in tiny Rudesheim that I fell in love with a one-woman-band instrument that I wanted to bring home. In this quaint hamlet is Siegfried's Mechanical Musical Instrument Museum, a most unusual museum filled with comical antique instruments from centuries past such as pianos with violins, drums and cymbals attached - 300-year-old instruments that squawked out recognisable tunes.
By now, we were well into the heartland of Germany's winemaking areas.
The Amadagio would slip into yet another impossibly beautiful town with ridiculous castles and cobbled streets and we'd take off to hear legends of emperors guarding castles, maidens in distress being rescued, and, of course, taste the "best wines in Germany", a boast claimed by every small village.
In Bernkastel and Zell, elegant Renaissance buildings bloomed beside the more modest medieval half-timbered houses and everywhere we were welcomed with warmth.
That's perhaps the joy of such a cruise. Each day you are in another perfect town or village and being made to feel a welcome guest.
Even in the smallest of places, the Germans spoke excellent English and when I mentioned in passing that I was from South Africa they beamed and asked about Nelson Mandela and the 2010 Fifa World Cup. The world is definitely becoming a smaller place.
At the helm of this vessel was Captain Manfred Mertens. Charming and knowledgeable, he steered the mighty Amadagio as if it were the lightest of feathers. In and out of locks we slid, never once touching the walls. I'd never sailed with such a skillful captain before.
In eight days, not a jolt against a lock wall. That's impressive!
Sadly, I was reaching the end of my section of the cruise.
We'd be landing in Trier then driving on to Luxembourg where'd I'd begin my homeward trip while the rest of the passengers visited Paris for three days.
Trier, the oldest town in Germany, is known for its Roman ruins including the majestic Porta Nigra (the Black Gate). Built by the Romans in the second century, it guards the town as it did almost 2 000 years ago.
One thing about the Romans: they took no short cuts, well, practically speaking. They had enough slaves to do the dirty work. That said, their monuments remain almost as they were built.
Take a stroll past the amphitheatre, a modest 20 000-seat venue and prepare to be impressed.
Then there's Trier's Cathedral (Dom), relatively modern, built in the 11th century.
When I left the Amadagio, I felt as if I was leaving home.
I've not felt this way aboard a cruise ship before. And perhaps that's the special quality that remains most in my memory.
- Carol Lazar took a cruise on the AMA Waterways Amadagio as a guest of AMA Waterways and Getaway Tours.
If you go...
- VISAS: SA passport holders need a Schengen visa to enter Europe.
- GETTING THERE: The writer flew with SAA to Frankfurt and then on to Prague. What a good flight it was! Since last travelling with SAA, the airline has picked up on its service ethic. Gone were the sullen crews of before. Instead they were professional and pleasant. The food was better than average. Fellow German passengers were all complimentary and it felt good to hear our national airline praised.
- INFO: Getaway Tours are offering 20 percent discounted Ama Waterways 5-star deluxe cruises in November and December. This includes seven-night deluxe accommodation in outside staterooms, superb dining, unlimited red and white wines from Europe's great wine regions, special dinners including a gala dinner, daily sightseeing with professional regional guides and lectures. There is a fitness centre, bicycles to explore the villages and, of course, the fantastic services of a cruise director.
- AMA Waterways has a selection of European and Russian cruises for their full programme. Call Getaway Travel 0860-438292 or 021-527-6300, fax 021-551-6398, email: [email protected] or check the websites: www.getawaytravel.co.za or www.amawaterways.com