A Tale of 2 Cities

🐐THE GAMBOL

October 17-18, 2026 • 📍Basel, Switzerland • 🚢 Rhine & Main Explorer +

🎶 TODAY’S TUNE

Let the sunshine, let the sun shine in
The sun shine in
Let the sunshine, let the sun shine in
The sun shine in
Let the sunshine, let the sun shine in (oh, let it shine)
(Come on) the sun shine in (now everybody just sing along)
Let the sunshine (and let the sun shine on in), let the sun shine in
(Open up your heart) the sun shine in (and let it shine on you)

📇 THE STORY

We were up and at ’em again this morning. Had to catch the bus for Freiburg at 7:55 and we made it with a minute to spare.. Actually the bus was going to leave at 8:10 but we were told to be there 15 minutes early. So 7:55 it was. It was a cool and cloudy day, at least there was no rain and there wasn’t supposed to be any rain. Freiburg is about a 45 minute ride from Breisach where we had docked. There was another ship, the Dagur parked beside of us on the inside, meaning we had to walk through the Dagur to get to the dock. We also had to walk through the Dagur to get to the ship. I have decided to try and use ship, it is a Viking Longship after all. The Dagur is going to Basel from Trier. Not sure if they had to have a ship swap and it is looking more and more probable that we will ship swap, but I digress. We are on our way to Freiburg.

Lovely Yvonne gave us the history of Freiburg and Breisach on both the way there and the way back… Seems to me I should have been able to remember some of it, but alas right now it is not so 🤣🤦🏻‍♀️.

Freiburg is right on the edge of the Black Forest. The Romans didn’t go into the Black Forest because of red flying devils. “Der Teufel ist ein Eicherhörnchen.” Literally meaning, The devil is a squirrel. The Hapsburgs did move into Freiburg, thus the architecture. Another interesting feature in the streets of Freiburg is the canal system. The Bächle provides water from the Dreisam and runs through the town. We were lucky enough to see water running in the canal system as this summer it had been so hot and so dry! Another fascinating feature of the streets/sidewalks in Freiburg? Little tiled areas in front of shops with a design letting you know what kind of shop or business it belonged to. Our tour guide was from Turkey, but he was attending the University of Freiburg to get his masters. The Münster was open and we were able to go in after our guided tour. It was also Market Day in the Square and the square was just starting to fill up when we arrived. When we left, the whole area around the Münster was completely filled with people, stalls, goods, flowers-tons of blooming flowers. Jim wanted to try a certain type of bread-Seele and he found it at one of the vendors, however by the time we got back to the Square… it was all sold out and none of the Bäckerei had any. We did buy some Landjäger, a dried sausage. We did not buy enough!

📸 THE PHOTOS

Driving back.. well we were riding back in the back of the bus, to Breisach we decided to eat lunch on the boat and then head out to walk to Breisach before nap time.. Gotta get those steps in !

You’ve seen the street art up above in Freiburg… wait till you catch a glimpse of the street art in Breisach. Breisach has been rebuilt several times due to fires and bombings. All the towers, or Tor, were prisons. They had prisons for the French, prisons for citizens and a very naughty governor, prisons for the military. Jim of course had printed off a self-guided walking tour of Breisach. Onward and upward to the old village. The church had the most beautiful triptych on the alter. Thanks to my friend, Mary Lou and Amy for taking these. I truly, couldn’t believe how many things were still in bloom in the middle/end of October. I know this is Southern Germany, but it seems to me as they should be wrapping up their growing season. I guess Yvonne was right when she said this area is the sunniest and warmest in Germany.

As you can see, when Breisach says “Street Art” they mean actual art hanging in the street! We headed out of the walled city in search of a glass of Solaris a type of wine supposedly made in this region. George pointed us in the direction of the Breisach-Touristik. They had a wine machine with wines from this region: Pino Magma. This wine must be made with 1/3 inot Gris and 1/3 Pinot Blanc grapes. They can have more concentration or they can add to the concentration, but the wine must use at least the 1/3 of each. The reason the wine is called Pino Magma is because of the volcano that is supposedly around here. It was brigadooning most of the day (meaning? it was covered in clouds and fog!) so I can not confirm nor deny there is truly a volcano. We brought a bottle back to the ship, along with a split of sparkly that is made in Breisach. Next it was nap time. After nap, the swans were swimming up close to the ship-greedy little buggers looking for a handout. 🤣.

We joined the group for our presentation for the next day’s adventure and found out we will ship swap on Friday, after spending 2 days in Strasbourg. We are going to France. In the lounge before dinner, little ramekins of crunchies are passed out. Tonight they had the double crunch peanuts we found in Italy when we were there for Carnivale! Dean found another bag and Denisa sent us over a coffee cup full!

Off to dinner with our new found friends. Jim (of Jim and Amy) sneaks down about 5 minutes early to secure a table! For dessert tonight there was a very good Black Forest Cake with cherry compote!

✨GAMBoL glimmer

Tonight was Music Trivia night. Most of the songs were from the 50s to 70s with a few other decades thrown in. I joined my new friends: Courtney, Elizabeth, Elizabeth’s two aunts Sue and Carole, and Elizabeth’s mom Cathy. We came in second, but had oh, so much fun dancing to the full tunes, once the identifying of the tunes was over. Jim chose to be quiet in the room!

#HowFortunateWeAre #RetiredAndLovingIt #MakingOurOwnSunshine

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