Day 8

Good Friday. It seems really strange to be away at Easter, and hardly like Easter at all. It's a bit sad not to be decorating for Easter; I still like to do it even though the boys rarely manage to visit at Easter these days. The ship left Torgau whilst we were having breakfast, not due to arrive until lunchtime. In the morning Simon led a lively discussion about the European Union. The Brits of course had various views and points to make, whilst the Americans and Canadians on board had plenty of questions to ask. 

Later, Simon had arranged an egg decorating competition, which was good fun. There were paints and felt tip pens, glitter and gems and about forty of us spent a happy hour in childlike fun. And I forgot to take any photographs! I painted mine like a patchwork quilt (no surprises there then) and added some bling and it came in third place.

After lunch we set off in our coach for the town of Wittenburg, where a local guide took us for a tour of Martin Luther's town. This is the Augustinian monastery that became Luther's family home after he married.

This is the lectern that Luther preached from.

This painting depicting the ten commandments is in one of the rooms. It's a wonderful painting and I wish I could have shown you each individual section as it's full of humour.

Martin Luther and his wife - who was a runaway nun.

Martin Luther's room in which he held discussions with colleagues and students is preserved just as it was. This is the stove.

This tree, like many others we saw in the Czech Republic and Germany, was decorated for Easter.

Another building dating from the time of Martin Luther. It's easy to see the similarity in style to English buildings of the same era.

This is the door of the church on which Martin Luther pinned his ninety five theses. Of course, it's not the same door, this one is metal and relatively modern, but it's easy to imagine what it might have looked like.

Luther was buried in the same church and this is his burial place.

I loved the tiled floor in the church.

When we got back to the ship we found this waiting for us in our cabin. What a nice gesture from the crew.

Small finishes for April

What with holidays and City and Guilds samples there's not a lot of finishing going on around here at the moment. I did finish one sample though, as I had an idea that I wanted to see through. Right at the end of last term, just before we went on holiday, we were doing Broderie Perse. This technique was really popular in Europe in the seventeenth century and one design that people liked to do was The Tree of Life.

Now, don't get excited, there was no way that I was going to get into something as advanced as this! I'm not that keen on appliqué. But I found some wonderful fabric with owls on and thought it would be lovely for broderie perse, so here's my homage to The Tree of Life.

I don't know about you, but my needles get into a muddle. When I watch something like The Quilt Show, or read various blogs, people talk about using a particular sized needle for a particular job, and I wonder how they keep them organised. I have no idea which needle is which after a while and they end up just jammed into a needle case any old how. So I decided to make myself one which I could label and try to be a bit more organised.

I used a bit more of the owl fabric and some felt, fabric and ribbon that I had and put some braid on the 'pages' that I can label with the size and type of the needle. I've only put six pages in, but I could always add more braid to divide the pages if I want more.

I wonder if it will work and help me to be a bit more organised?

Day 7

The boat left its moorings at 6.30 this morning, but I didn't bother to get out of bed to watch it this time. It arrived in Meissen at 8.30 and at nine o'clock we set off on an excursion to Meissen. First we went to the Meissen factory. It's really well organised and has a fantastic museum, and the demonstrations are fascinating.

There was a shop too, but there wasn't really anything that took our fancy, and it was very expensive, so no souvenirs from the Meissen factory for us.

This advert made us laugh, though it's dreadfully sexist.

After we left the factory the coach took us up to the Meissen hill, where the oldest part of the town was built. Yet more lovely buildings and some wonderful views.

This is a specialty of Meissen, a completely hollow cake, though it's more of a pastry consistency.

I went into one of the shops in the town and bought myself a woolly hat. At last, warm ears!

Whilst we were eating lunch on the boat, it left its moorings and carried on up river to Torgau, arriving in the early evening. We went for a walking tour before it got dark. We saw the monument to the meeting of Russian and US troops on 25th April 1945.

It's a pretty town with lots of lovely buildings.

Day 6

After breakfast we set off with a local guide for a Dresden city walking tour. This was a real highlight of our holiday. Dresden was almost flattened by allied bombing towards the end of the second World War, and then the main building during the communist era was soulless blocks of flats. Since the Wall came down in 1989 the citizens of Dresden have worked miracles, much with money from America and Great Britain. Now, there is very little damage left. Some of the buildings have been rebuilt in a modern style, some in a more traditional style, so that it really looks as if it has evolved over time. 

Unfortunately, my camera battery ran out after taking a few shots and I'd forgotten to take the spare battery with me. What a twerp!

Sadly, I don't have photographs of the Church of our Lady, but it was beautiful. It was almost completely flattened and the rebuilding was finished only a few years ago. I was really interested to see a cross of nails on the altar. When I was thirteen we moved to Coventry and I was lucky enough to attend the consecration of the new Cathedral and to be among the first group of youngsters to be confirmed there. Coventry was bombed during WWII and the old Cathedral was completely lost. A powerful symbol was created by a cross being made from nails found in the ruins. Similar crosses of nails were sent from Coventry to Kiel, Dresden and Berlin in the early years after the war as a symbol of peace and reconciliation.

In the afternoon I had a rest and then watched a lace walking demonstration late afternoon. Our evening event was really special. Three musicians from the Semper Opera House came to give us a recital, a mix of classical and light classical music. This was a real treat.

Day 5

We got up really early so that we could watch the ship set off for our first morning on the River Elbe. By six o'clock we were huddled against the cold and watching from the sun deck as the ship cast off and went through the first of two locks we would negotiate that day. We declined to join in a Qi Gong exercise class at seven o'clock and went down for breakfast. Then we were able to sit in the lounge for a while and watch the world go by.

Later in the morning Simon, our PD and Jana, his assistant gave us a German lesson, which was great fun since Simon spoke not a word of German and Jana was Hungarian!

At last, the sun came out and we were able to sit up on the sun deck, huddled up in coats, gloves, scarves and hats and relax. That's what we had been waiting for. Unfortunately, it turned out to be the only occasion when it was possible, as the rest of the time it was too wet and cold and windy. Hey ho!

By lunchtime we had crossed into Germany - there was a battered red buoy in the middle of the river which denoted the frontier. The crew went all out to entertain us with a Taste of Germany lunch. They decorated the reception area and the lounge and served up sausages, pork, sauerkraut, potato salad and other German goodies. And Milan banged out some very loud oompah oompah tunes on the piano.

By the end of lunch we had arrived in Bad Schandau, in Saxon Switzerland, and went on a visit to the Bastei rock formation, a fascinating National Park preserving what had been a fortified area in times gone by.

Can you imagine climbing up these steps?

We drank our cocktails whilst listening to the daily briefing and then went down to the dining room for another lovely dinner. During dinner the ship set off again, landing at Dresden in the early evening.

In the evening Simon had organised a music quiz, which had some really difficult questions. I was quite pleased with myself as I was the only person who knew the name of the baddies in The Yellow Submarine film - the Blue Meanies of course.