Monday October 15 (Bernkastel Rues)

This sounds so boring but it was another gorgeous day today! in Germany they call this the Golden October, I have been truly blessed on this trip! 

Overnight we obviously stopped at some locks and each time the boat started rolling as it touched the sides. 

The sensation was exactly the same as a "rolling" type earthquake we experience from time to time at home, lol!

I had another peaceful in-suite breakfast and spent a lazy morning. Octavian returned my ironing all neatly pressed and inside a large cover. 

I had a nice chat to Oana my in-suite attendant, she is from Roumania and was telling me about the winters there, wow, the whole country can get snowed in!!

I went up to Palm Court Bistro for my ususal flatbread for lunch and then headed ashore. 

I made my way up the steps and across the bridge to find the local shuttle service that takes people up to the Castle on a hill behind the town. 


Eventually I found the stop and the shuttle duly turned up, it is supposed to leave on the hour. 

The driver then disappeared until about 2.15 pm when he collected money for fares. he told me in perfectly good English that he does not speak English, lol!

It would appear that the tourists here are mainly German so the commentary was all in German. 

We drove up a very steep hill that looked only wide enough for the shuttle when in fact it is two way and we had a couple of moments when cars came down! 

I got chattng to a couple of English people from another cruise line and we decided to stay aboard and return straight away, there was not really enough for an hour's stay. 

However, we sat for twenty minutes at the top but leaving the shuttle would mean other people would take your seat, lol!


I did manage to get some cool photos so was quite happy. Once the shuttle arrived back in town I farewelled the two English people, they are also going onto Trier. 

I found a coffee shop and had a lovely coffee before wandering through part of the town. It is a small but lovely town with quaint shops, lots of beer gardens and very narrow streets. The Market place was cute with a fountain in the centre. There were crowds of people around enjoying the lovely weather.

I wandered back to the boat with a couple of fellow Crystal travellers and then headed to reception to see if they have a physio on board. 

The other day while walking someone bumped into me and I twisted my right side, I think I might have damaged a rib muscle. 

At the time it did not seem much but it has got progressively more painful. 

There is no physio but a passenger, also named Janet, sitting not far away came over and reminded me about heat/cold she also said that there are two pharmacies on board, it took me a couple of minutes to work out what she meant, lol!

Anway, the masseuse brought a hot towel to my suite, later an ice pack arrived. I also managed to finish yeserday's blog while all this was going on, lol! I used both and a hot shower also helped. I was meeting Sussana and Ben, from Chicago, for dinner and it was a very pleasant meal. It turns out they are cat lovers and currently have two at home. So we had much to chat about over our lovely meal, I had the lamb chops!!

After dinner I went over to talk to Janet and she offered me some IBUprofen to help the pain. I then retired to my suite, wrote the blog and headed to bed, I have an early start tomorrow.