Finally, after a few days docked Gernsheim we sailed at midnight and woke up back where we had started on Saturday. This time we were across the river from Mannheim in the town of Ludwigshaven.

Our trip today was to the town of Heidelberg, a place I had visited before, 37 years ago, and remembered fondly. Once again, the local guide, Bela from Bosnia, was both informative and characterful. We had opted for "Active" tour which in this case meant taking the funicular (at a gradient of up to 41%) all the way to the top of the hill and then hiking down.

From the top we had a view over the city and valley below.

But that was the only view we had. We had a nice hike down the hill through the forest but without views it was just another forest.

And then we were approaching the castle from above.

We walked through the castle grounds but didn't go into any of the buildings.

From the castle balcony there was a good view over Heidelberg and the river Necker.

We didn't have a lot of free time before we had to reboard the bus but it was long enough for Linda to buy a couple of Christmas ornaments and for me to buy a couple of T-shirts.

As soon as we were back on board the ship, we set sail and for the first time on the trip we were sailing during daylight. We had lunch in the bow area to make the most of the view.

This was a fairly industrial part of the Rhine. Occasionally we had a view of both the new and the old.

I took advantage of the circumstances to record my fastest run ever. I jogged around the track on the sun deck for half an hour while Strava attributed the speed of the ship to me.

At dinner time we docked in Rudesheim where, due to the number of boats and lack of docks, we were berthed outside another cruise ship and had to cross it to get to shore.

We had been here on a coach trip a couple of days ago so no sightseeing was planned. However, it had been organised for us to go into town to a restaurant where they would prepare and serve us a Rudesheimer Coffee.

This was made by putting sugar cubes in a mug, drowning them in the local brandy, setting it alight to caramelise it, pouring in the coffee and then topping it with cream and chocolate flakes.

I'm not a coffee fan but I enjoyed this one, mostly because the other tastes drowned out the coffee.

After this, we wandered around the town of Rudesheim for a while before heading back to the ship.

On the way back to the boat we caught up with some of the local wildlife.