DAY 8--CRUSING THE MAIN-DANUBE CANAL

The Danube River is Europe's second longest river (1771 miles) after the Volga. It flows from the Germany's Black Forest to the Black Sea in Turkey. The Romans envisioned linking rivers from the North Sea to the Black Sea. Later, in 793 AD, Charlemagne used an army of men to attempt to link the Main and Danube rivers but was not successful. It wasn't until 1992 when the Main-Danube Canal was completed, providing a constantly navigable connection from the Rhine Delta to the Danube Delta in eastern Romania. We sailed along a portion of this 106 mile long waterway while traveling from Regensburg to Nuremberg.

Before we left Regensburg,we were treated to some fun Bavarian music by a four piece German band in the Piano Lounge.

Prior to Regensberg, our ship had passed through 14 locks, most of which were big enough for four ships our size. This final part of our journey includes passing through 9 more locks, all only big enough for 1 ship with a very tight fit. You can readily see how narrow this lock is.

Look how high the walls of the lock are. Our ship needed to be raised to get up to the level of the canal on the other side of the lock before it could move on.

W stood on the Sun Deck to watch the lock operation. There is less than a foot between the side of our ship and either side of the lock. You can see the water in the lock is almost as high as the water on the other side of the gate. No sunshine today but also no rain.

On this portion of the journey, our ship has crossed the European Continental Divide at only 1,332 feet above sea level and the highest point on Earth that is currently reached by commercial watercraft from the sea. From this point forward, in each lock our ship needed to be lowered to proceed.

Look how much lower the canal is on the other side of this lock. This is one of three locks where our ship needed to be lowered 82 feet. We were impressed with this engineering feat as well as the skill of our captain as he gently maneuvered our ship into these narrow locks.

Today was our last lunch on board ship. To celebrate, the pastry chef made this cake to help us remember of our journey along the Danube.

We thoroughly enjoyed the Captain's Farewell Dinner this evening. Our dessert was a Baked Alaska with a green sugar swirl on top. Yes, even the white chocolate sign was edible.

After dessert, we were served a beautiful plate of petit fours to share. The cuisine on the ship was excellent!

It was hard to believe our river cruise was coming to an end. We have thoroughly enjoyed our journey along the Danube. Tomorrow, our ship will be docked in Nuremburg by the time we wake up for breakfast. When we leave the ship, we will board buses for our tour of Nuremburg while our luggage will be transported to Prague on a truck.