My apologies up front to all German speakers for the lack of diacritics in this blog. This is due to my lack of understanding both of how to find them on my phone keyboard and how to use them correctly if I did.

Our journeys today began before we even woke up. At about 5am there was a bit of a hum. Linda looked out the window and reported that we were moving. When we woke up a few hours later the view had changed. No longer staring at a warehouse, instead we could see a riverside promenade and cafe. The ship has moved downstream about 30km to the small town of Gernsheim.

After a buffet breakfast, it was time to explore the town. Being a Sunday, everything was closed so this would be limited to exploring the parkland nearby.

Linda took a book and went to find a sunny park bench while I headed off for a jog. My plan to run the walkway alongside the Rhine was immediately thwarted by a barrier with a sign bearing the dreaded word "Hochwasser" (rough translation, using all the vestigial memory of my fourth form German: "high water"). There would be multiple signs of this, the result of floods throughout southern Germany in the last week, over the course of the day.

The riverside path blocked, I instead ran inland, up a small canal with stop banks and paths on both sides. I was soon out of town and running through typical German farmland.

Eventually, I decided I had gone far enough so I crossed a bridge and ran back down the other side. It turned out this was the more interesting side. I passed a fishing lake.

Next, I passed what may or may not be a lake most of the time but definitely is at the moment, complete with a children's playground stranded 20m out from the shore.

Finally, I came across Linda's park bench and we walked back to the boat together.

We then swam in the boat's swimming pool. This is an 8m infinity pool with a built in jet so you can swim against the current. We need one of these at home.

Lunch was notable for two things. Firstly, we would have been better off having the light lunch in the lounge rather than the full lunch in the restaurant and, secondly, for the Caviar and Blini bowls that Linda discovered and enjoyed.

After lunch we embarked on the first organised tour of the trip. This is a different experience for us, usually we do everything ourselves. Instead, we'll be getting on a coach with only a vague idea of where we are going, sticking an earpiece in our ear and following a man with an umbrella.

It didn't start off well, the coaches were late and then the coach we were on had broken air-conditioning.

Our first stop was the imposing mountaintop winery of Shloss Joannisberg, renowned for its Riesling wines.

Our guide was a young student (in the brown trousers) who was very knowledgeable about the Shloss and it's wines.

At this point Linda's sixth form History was invaluable, as it turned out that the winery used to be owned by Furst von Metternich, who was instrumental in the Congress of Vienna back in the 1800s sometime. Forty years later, Linda couldn't remember anything about him but I did - despite never taking History, I did help Linda study for her UE exam and remembered it well.

We tasted four different wines throughout the tour, starting with the driest and working up to the sweetest.

The visit to the cellar was followed by a view of their special bottle storage cave with bottles dating back 300 years (and reportably still drinkable).

Back above ground, there was a good view over the vineyard and Rhine.

Back at the buses, our bus has been abandoned due to the dodgy air conditioning and we all squeezed on the remaining two. We were still behind schedule so only had 45 minutes at Rudesheim, time to do one of the two main attractions - the cable car and the Christmas Shop - but not both.

We decided to divide and conquer. Linda went to the Christmas shop while I spent 10 euro on a ticket for the cable car. However, I discovered that they were even better than Zurich airport at Disney-style hidden queueing and it quickly became clear that I wouldn't have time to get up and back so I abandoned the queue.

We slept for most of the hour long bus ride back to the boat and then had to rush to change before the daily briefing and dinner.

Today was one of two dinners that were advertised as "formal", where said advertising only commenced after you had paid for the cruise on the basis of the previous advertising of "no dress code". Benny, the entertainment director, summed it up as "you can choose to participate or not. If you want to, wear the best clobber you have with you". I had bought a shirt in M&S especially for this, so we dressed up.

After dinner, we continued our tradition, now two days old, of walking around the top deck of the boat and watching the sun go down.