The Black Forest

Many tales have been told of this forest. I won’t recount them. Our guide said the rugged hills finally became settled when financial incentives were made (“land”). At the end of our mesmerizing ride in a tour bus on winding mountain roads, we were dumped into a created-for-tourists facsimile Black Forest village where seemingly every tour bus stopped. It didn’t engender itself. After starting on the guided tour to the small church on the grounds, it got a little better.

Things were looking up! Until an “elderly” gentleman (i.e., older than me) fell badly on our way to the St. Oswald’s Chapel on the property. He escaped serious injury, thankfully. We meandered past pastures to the little chapel.

Cows outside the chapel. The slope well represents the entire Black Forest. September 2025.

This guided tour yielded one of the two poor guides we had during the six full days of the cruise. (Embarkation and debarkation days don’t have tours.) I remain greatly disturbed that she noted this chapel still saw use—meaning it’s a sacred space to any Christian—yet encouraged our group to grab a convenient rope to ring the church’s bell, all with a conspiratorial tone of “well we really shouldn’t…” The altar area was fenced and locked, but the rope snaked out under the fencing. (I’m also disturbed I didn’t say anything about how it disturbed me.) Annoyed, I went outside where a different kind of disturbance awaited me. When churches consecrate burial grounds and use them for decades and centuries, they fill up. Practically, this requires them to remove the older bones to make room for the new ones! Because these bones still deserve some respect, churches designate a more convenient place to store them, not worrying about whether they mingle. As I left the chapel and walked toward the sanctuary end of it, I saw a small locked grating which accessed a crawl space under the altar-end of the chapel. “Why would this mesh grating have a lock and a crucifix on it?” I wondered. Surprise!

I believe this would be called an ossuary. Black Forest village chapel, August 2025.

A closer look at the ossuary. August 2025.

Detail of framed crucifix on the Black Forest village chapel. August 2025.

Other buildings were less impressive and/or photogenic to my eye. A building Goethe once slept in (lived in temporarily?) couldn’t be photographed well due to all the intervening people. I had better luck when I got closer.

Goethe House, Black Forest village. August 2025.

Typifying a traditional village in the Black Forest, this made-for-tourists village leaned in to the central reason for such villages: commerce. A quick in-and-out of the glass shop sufficed. I didn’t want to break anything worth hundreds or even thousands of dollars. Another building proved more eclectic: a $5000 bicycle with a handmade frame of spruce or fir; steins taller than my wife; cooking utensils of all sorts; knives; Christmas decorations; and fine spirits. We purchased a set of nice flat Christmas decorations which could transport home easily.

Upon our return to the ship for lunch, we discovered a second Viking ship had docked to ours, and now our veranda literally had only four inches between it and the other ship’s veranda. We had known this could happen, and I wonder if a person could book to avoid it. I’ll detail the considerations in case others might be considering a cruise like this:

Our voyage started at Basel and ended (supposedly; more later) at Amsterdam. Thus, we were traveling downstream.
Other than this first docking, our captain turned the ship around every time it docked. Significant rain had fallen in the weeks before our cruise; the Rhine therefore had risen much higher than normal and the current was particularly strong. Pointing the bow into the current meant the ship wouldn’t be knocked around as it would if the basically flat stern were facing the current.
The ship always docked on the east/north side of the river. Even the stop labeled “Strasbourg” in the brochures actually occurred at Kehl, Germany.
Our ship always docked first. Whenever two Viking ships were docked in tandem, the other ship was the one on the outside, furthest from the shore—not ours.
Putting the previous bullets together, our cabin on the port (left) side of the ship meant we always faced the shore with no other ships in our way…except the first stop. We only were docked two (or was it three) times with another ship en tandem meaning we were unlucky the first docking, but lucky all the dockings thereafter, and the ship docked more than once per day sometimes.

Your mileage may vary: we likely would have faced the river all the time if the water flow had been low. If rains haven’t fallen, it’s possible the ship cannot clear the bottom of the river when it comes to certain sections. In those cases one must re-pack all the suitcases, get bused to a different ship, and carry on with the cruise. That would be extremely time-consuming and eat into a leisurely but short and expensive cruise. The same can occur if too much rain has fallen, and the river runs so high the ship cannot clear the bridges it must go under. It’s a crap shoot and a fairly expensive one. We were affected by one of these unplanned events. It should have been planned, and I’m glad it worked out okay. Stay tuned for the end of the cruise.

Breisach

Good morning, France! (From the German side of the Rhine River). August 2025.

Our first morning aboard the Viking Hlin, I woke early. Apparently three evenings of my patented jet lag adjustment routine (copious amounts of beer, large amounts of food, and moderate exercise) had done the trick. I left my barely awake wife in the stateroom and wandered the early dawn on the top deck. Something about boats and trains indulges the romantic. He wakes happy that someone else has navigated the vessel to a new location while he slept. His sleepy dreams continue when the curtains are drawn: what will I see? Where am I? This occurs in a manner no plane will ever match with its tube-through-time approach to travel.

Turning to the starboard side of the deck, the barely risen sun illuminated a nice cathedral in Breisach, still mostly in shadows.

Breisacher Münster St. Stephan Roman Catholic Church. August 2025.

After realizing our definition of ‘breakfast’ would forever be altered by our onboard experience, we headed out on a bus ride to and through the Black Forest. Its history was narrated capably by our erudite and dryly humorous guide, Johannes, raised in the Black Forest. It reminded me of certain challenging terrains in North America where high foothills exist prior to the Rocky Mountains or the North Cascades (primarily on the lee side of the mountains). Unfortunately, the polarized windows of the bus, and the fact my wife sat in the window seat, made photography impossible.

Next post: a ‘typical’ Black Forest village.

Locked…and loaded

Lock on the Rhine River at night. August 2025.

Our first night on the Viking Hlin, we went through a series of locks en route to Breisach, Germany. Having started with beer prior to our shuttle ride to the Hlin before 3 p.m., by nighttime I could properly be called “loaded.” I had, after all, discovered what selections would be available on board, sampling most. By the time we were going through the locks, I snapped a few photos and collapsed happily into bed. (Our stateroom more than met our standards: a decent-sized bathroom and plenty of storage; very surprising.)

Doors and windows of Basel

Roofline, Basel, Switzerland. August 2025.

I’m fascinated by doors, windows, and any other portal between Inside and Outside. Part of it’s architectural, but over years I’ve learned I have a near obsession with any door or window which says “different” or “sturdy” or which carry an emotion perhaps symbolic of the wall it pierces. And if our eyes are windows to our soul, what then are a house’s windows?

Our first full day in Basel began with the sumptuous breakfast buffet I’ve come to expect from upscale European hotels. Afterwards we embarked on a walking tour of the historic part of Basel, reached via a short trolley ride from in front of the hotel. Several hours later I had collected six or seven dozen photos. On our second day, we wandered a little park across the street from our hotel, and trolleyed into Basel again where we visited a small but good botanical garden. So many strange doors and windows! (including these…)

Residence, Basel, Switzerland. August 2025.

Converted carriage door to residence entry. Basel, Switzerland. August 2025.

Clashing architecture. Basel, Switzerland. August 2025.

Upscale residence (backs onto the Rhine River). Basel, Switzerland. August 2025.

Overlooking the market square, Basel, Switzerland. August 2025.

Entrance to a cylindrical chapel in a little park across from our hotel. Basel, Switzerland. August 2025.

Touchdown Basel

If I understood our guide correctly, all of the fully-green-shuttered buildings are a high school. Although she claimed Friedrich Nietzsche and Carl Jung attended it, Nietzsche appears to have been schooled in Germany (Prussia). Jung may not have attended here either, but he at least spent some of his youth in Basel. Basel, Switzerland, August 2025.

I’ve visited Europe only twice, and I’ve already learned to dislike the flights over and back. Flying to Basel started off with annoyance before we even left home: whether because our United flights were actually mostly on Lufthansa or because they were booked through the Viking Cruise company, I couldn’t print the boarding passes. Instead I encountered a endless loop where I was shunted from United’s website to Lufthansa’s and then back to begin the process again. Thus, we arrived at the Raleigh airport far too early to accommodate my fear it would take a lot of time to sort out after waiting in a long line. Neither supposition proved true. Our Raleigh-Washington, D.C.-Frankfurt-Basel tickets in hand we whiled away the first hour by walking the full length of the terminal twice which allowed me a moment of irritation when I saw this sign:

When quicker isn’t the way you’re going. August 2025.

Our flight to Dulles departed at 3:10. Obviously this flight would get into Frankfurt prior to ours which would leave Dulles at 6:10 p.m. for the same city. Why Viking wouldn’t book this escapes me. And as it turned out, our plane from Dulles left the gate 60 minutes late, then spent 30 minutes on the tarmac for reasons I no longer remember. We therefore landed in Frankfurt at about the same time our connecting flight took off for Basel. Our worries were minimal because we knew this would be Viking’s problem, not ours, and indeed, a Viking rep handed us new tickets as soon as we cleared the gate upon landing. Our new flight would be on Air Dolomiti, an Italian airline. The least pleasant of all our flights over and back.

Despite the comfort of our seats (premium economy with no seats in front of us, only an emergency exit and about 15 glorious feet of space), we slept fitfully and as I suspected arrived fairly tired to Basel. My first impression: “Wow, we’re landing in France!” I had not noticed Basel sits at the juncture of France, Germany, and Switzerland. Suburbs from the city lie in the other two countries—our guide lived in Germany “so I can have A/C which I can’t get in Switzerland.” Exiting the controlled area, one follows large arrows to either France or Switzerland. A stop by the Viking desk in the airport, a short wait for two other parties (who didn’t arrive), and we were shuttled the 15 minutes to our hotel close to the Rhine River, but in a newer part of the city.

I then educated my wife on my coping strategy for the six-hour time jump: drop off your luggage, find the bar, quickly enjoy some of the best beer you’ll never see in the United States, and follow it with a full, preferably heavy meal. Guaranteed to put you to sleep quickly and jump start your rhythms to the new time zone. Accordingly….

The three beers of most interest entering the bar. We started with the Schweizer Helles on the right. Hyperion Hotel, Basel, Switzerland. August 2025.

An old friend from 2019, Grimbergen. This is the amber or “double amber” as it was called on our cruise. Hyperion Hotel, Basel, Switzerland, August 2025.

Perhaps now we should warn the teetotalers: there will be many references to beer in this series. It’s Europe, the cruise docked on the German side of the river, and we ended our vacation in Antwerp, Belgium, one of the most beer-obsessed countries on the planet.

Suitably sated, we toddled off to our room, marveled again at a completely computer-driven elevator system, and acquainted ourselves with a few vagaries in European plumbing (such as the toilet being on the opposite end of the room as the sinks and the shower).

What the world needs…

A better barstool. The Golden Angel pub in Antwerp, Belgium. August 2025.

What a simple moment of ‘doh!’ when I saw these. Why aren’t there easy to use foot rests on every barstool? Sure, a bar rail is handy when it’s available, but many a shorter-legged person can’t reach it from a barstool. Here in Antwerp I saw several variations on this theme. C’mon, America! Get with the program.

The perfect vacation

Rhine River at Koblenz, Germany. August 2025.

Vacationing has meant several things over the years. As a child it meant adventure. Dad would plan a two-week sojourn through the beauty of the American West, plotting the journey for months, and utilizing guidebooks (well, the AAA one) to find both motels and sights to see along the way. By the time I reached “summer job” stage and such vacations no longer were possible, we had seen most of the national parks from the Rockies westward, plus the Grand Canyon, and the tourist hot spots of Southern California (Disneyland, the San Diego Zoo, Knott’s Berry Farm, etc.). We visited San Francisco in 1968 where I saw my great-grandmother on her deathbed and hippies in The Haight. And we always tried to loop through either Seattle or Woodburn, OR, to visit one set of grandparents. Back then, vacationing meant lots of hours in a car reading or imagining things as the countryside went by. It meant rolling with the punches when the road Dad wanted to drive was under construction or the motel he wanted looked better suited to hookers than small children. It mostly meant seeing state after state, park after park, city after city which I had never seen before, and which in my short life presented amazing memories and lessons.

I couldn’t capture that as a younger adult. Vacations at first mostly entailed going home to visit my parents and my friends. I tried a brief camping trip along the Snake and Salmon rivers, but the spectacular views couldn’t make up for my inability to build a fire and thereby have any food to eat. (Or perhaps one could say, the views couldn’t make up for my ineptness as a camper.) A bit later as a newly wedded teacher, summers were for further training, loafing at my in-law’s lake cabin a couple times, and once or twice attempting to emulate my father’s grand tours of the West. I thereby got to see parts of Arizona south of the Grand Canyon for the first time and see some lesser known but equally impressive sights. I explored my own state, Washington, better. The 10 to 11-week length of our summer breaks diluted the compressed wonder of a two-week vacation.

Life changes and a relocation to greater Philadelphia put the kibosh on traditional vacations. Just living there was a new experience. After two years there I discovered a new type of vacation which brings a different kind of satisfaction: the introductory tour. I had met a new love (who married me the next year), and I had entered corporate America where two weeks is the only significant time off you get. I took this woman on a whirlwind nine-day tour of Washington and meet-the-folks. My bride-to-be loved the state and my parents loved her. I repeated the tour in 2017 for a dear couple of friends from North Carolina.

[Disclaimer time: despite the fact I’ve lived in Washington for only four years since I left it back in 1992, I still consider it one of the best places on Earth. My values have to do with variety. In my mind only California comes close to the diversity of climactic zones and has the varied population densities ranging from the Seattle-Tacoma-Olympia wash of people to areas where it’s difficult to find the next house from the one you’re standing beside. Want desert? Check. Alpine? Check. Rainforest? Check. Scablands, Arctic, Temperate forest? Check, check, and check.]

Less than a year after our marriage in 1995, we vacationed to New Mexico for two weeks. We wandered from Albuquerque north, were unimpressed with Santa Fe and hightailed to Taos. In ’95 it had started to build up, but only a little. We stayed at an honest-to-God auto court, and breakfasted at a old West-style cafe on the square. (Revisiting in 2022 saddened me when I saw all of that charm washed away by touristy stuff.) That second week of the vacations, all my tensions dropped away as we shot into southwestern Colorado for two nights before striking to southern NM and the Carlsbad Caverns. Until a couple weeks ago, I held this up as our standard of Best Vacation Ever.

Then we cruised down the Rhine River for eight days on the Viking Hlin, and visited Basel, Switzerland, and Antwerp, Belgium, at the beginning and end of the voyage, respectively. Viking is known for catering to old folks like us (no one under 18 is allowed) and for its all-inclusive approach. We could have been very happy just eating the food, drinking the beer and wine with lunch and dinner, and taking the included tours, but it made sense for us to add two optional tours, take care of gratuities in one tidy little package, and buy the Silver Sipper beverage package so that we could drink beer, wine, and cocktails just about any time we wanted. Given the slant toward the retired and soon-to-be-retired, I must say my initial introduction to the ship gave me a jolt:

“Welcome aboard” kinda takes on a whole new meaning with a tag like that! August 2025.

I’ve nothing against people living the love lives they desire, but still I was thankful there occurred no hot gay sex (that I know of ) on the Hlin. It reinforced my initial reaction after two nights in Basel before boarding, that European cities seem to take a more blasé view about tagging. There seems to be an unwritten rule that it isn’t done on cathedrals and other historical buildings, but other than that…sure, indulge yourself.

As with my Hawaii series [tag: Hawaii] and my Virtual Vacation series [tag: Virtual Vacation] about Michigan and Ohio, this will be a lengthy series of posts recounting how two neophytes who never traveled abroad for pleasure decided to do so in retirement. For now, I’ll end with two photos about our first few hours onboard.

The appearance of swans became commonplace by the end of the cruise. They paddled up for treats just as ducks do in cities throughout the United States. Rhine River just downstream from Basel, SW. August 2025.

On the first night I met one of my new friends: Köstritzer schwarzbier. If you think you don’t like dark beers, give schwarzbier a try. Light-bodied, crisp, but it has a nice roasted taste lacking in traditional lagers. One of the handful of beers offered on board. I wish there had been more! And yes, Europeans are civilized: each beer has its dedicated glass. Viking *Hlin* , August 2025.

Goodbye, Hawai’i

At the beginning of this sporadic accounting of our Hawaiian vacation last fall, I mused on 100 Days of Hawai’i, and I threatened to go all “grandpa” on y’all. As this parade of entries has wound down, I think the ol’ grandpa genes kicked in more. Therefore I’ll keep this short, sweet, and hopefully mildly entertaining.

After the visit with my cousin our first full day on Maui, we loitered for three days as described recently. Two serendipitous events occurred to ensure an encore visit with my cousin and her husband. First, I left my camera and that package of very expensive Kona coffee in their car after our first visit. And second, I realized there was no way we wanted to get to the Kahului airport by 7 a.m. if that meant a one-hour drive and dropping a rental car. It would have seriously impacted the lazy vibe we were working on! I rebooked the flight for the next day, booked a hotel near the airport, and told my cousin so we could meet again for another visit since they lived near the hotel and the airport. This gave us a day to leave the Kapalua condo leisurely, stop at various viewpoints on the southern coast, and spend a lot of time at the Maui Aquarium.

Our last good view of the coast (from land anyway): the Papawai Scenic Lookout. The western end of Maui is on the left, a tiny dab of land in the center is Molokini, and at the right edge is Kaho’olawe. September 2024.

Even in the populated middle of Maui where things are fairly dry (see above), the mountains showed how they catch the clouds and their rain.

Looking west at dusk from Kahului. The Dunes at Maui Lani golf course in the foreground. The mountains are the reason one drives *around* the coast to Lahaina and Kapalua. September 2024.

Except for a few photos I couldn’t resist posting while on the vacation, I opened this lengthy travelogue with aerial shots of Oahu and Hawai’i. It seems only fitting we say goodbye to Maui and the Hawaiian Islands the same way.

Our plane skirted the northern coast of Maui, then banked to the east and the mainland. My last view of Maui and the Hawaiian Islands. September 2024.

Maui coastal shots

Looking back near four months now I cannot recall what we did of note for the three days after we connected with my cousin during our first full day on Maui. Only two salient things leap to mind: hanging at the nearest pool on the second day and driving the north coast a bit on the fourth. It seems as if we must have done something else…didn’t we? Our fourth day also represented our final full day on the western end of Maui. We had been told the natives didn’t really like tourists going up along the north shore, but we took a ‘chance’ and except for a bit of display for what I think represented a Hawai’i Separatist Movement we experienced no animosity. We certainly saw spectacular scenery as the road dove to near sea-level and then ascended to the tops of cliffs.

Our rental car, the ocean, and a spectacular sky above. Molokai in the distance. September 2024.

Once upon a time I might have tried snorkeling but not now, and certainly not in this partially protected bay. (Little dots are people snorkeling.) September 2024.

Unfortunately for my pictorial record, few pull-offs existed. At this one you can see a good representation of the north coast. The hill in the background has an incline in it as the road we’re on continues. We drove down to near-sea level in the bay out of the photo to the right. September 2024.

By my estimation I took around 100 photos of the coast and/or sunrises/sunsets while we lingered on Kapalua Bay. Dawn would start with the low-contrast promise of sun:

Pre-dawn, last morning on Kapalua Bay. Molokai to the left. September 2024.

And sometimes not so low-contrast…

This photo taken 20 minutes prior to the above it. Maui, September 2024.

I guess most of the time we stared at sunrises in the morning, sunsets in the evening and in between we ate and stared at stuff like this…

Breakers just beyond our shore, nearing sunset. Kapalua Bay, Maui, September 2024.

More products I don’t usually see

Our second morning at our Kapalua condo we decided the odd mix of “general store” and “deli counter” at the Honolua Store #89 which we had seen our first night going to dinner bore further scrutiny. For one, eating muffins two consecutive days for breakfast held no appeal. Two, I needed that coffee as explained in my Kona coffee post. Three, eating purple pancakes had “yes, you have to do this” written all over it. They’re purple because of ube, a species of yam––I can’t remember why the syrup is purple:

Purple pancakes for breakfast. Honolua Store #89, Maui, HI. September 2024.

While waiting for my purple pancakes I saw a display card for something I didn’t want to have:

Just couldn’t get behind Spam, despite its popularity. Honolua Store #89, Maui, HI. September 2024.

After breakfast we purchased numerous supplies such as chocolates, coffee, more beer, and other fixin’s and such to encourage us to mostly just stay in place and stare at the ocean.