We visited Breisach, Germany for Day 1 of our cruise. After getting settled in our veranda stateroom and having dinner, we spent the evening and following morning walking around the city, located right next to where our ship was docked. Here are a few photos with brief commentary.

There were lots of swans near the riverbank (we counted over 30). Later we saw one fairly large swan really struggling as it managed to paddle upstream because the current was so strong because of the high water in the river.

This is a view of St. Stephens Church up on a hill overlooking the town, which you can see from almost every direction. We hiked up to visit the church, but it was not open that day so we weren’t able to see inside.

There were lots of narrow hilly streets and alleys between buildings, especially going up the hill toward the church. Some had cars on them, and others were just for walking.

Here’s a rooftop view of the town from up on the highest hill near St. Stephen’s Church which offers nice panoramic views of distant Black Forest mountains which we visited later in the afternoon.

During the afternoon of Day 1 from Breisach, we went on a tour of the Black Forest. That was more interesting than I thought it would be. There were stories about the location of Hansel and Gretel.

Apparently, stork nests are quite popular in several towns in this area. There is a Stork Camera webcam on the Gottenheim steeple where you can see what’s going on in the nest. You might need to translate the German page).

There was lovely scenery during our ride through the countryside with  interesting houses, pretty fields, and wild flowers. We enjoyed a nice hike on a Black Forest trail along a stream flowing down the mountain as we crossed little bridges and zigzagged up the path.

Here’s a place where they make cuckoo clocks that has dancers appear every hour. The Black Forest Cake was pretty good too. Here are some cakes on display, and we had it for desert on the cruise that evening.

There was a cute little outdoor cafe restaurant at the main intersection in town after we walked up the hill from where the ship was docked. It looked interesting, but we didn’t eat there since we had lunch and dinner on the ship that day. Also, there was a popular ice cream place across the street that seemed to attract a lot of people since it was such a lovely sunny day in the low 70’s.

Click on the following photo to view the Breisach photo gallery (about 15 photos) at my SmugMug photo web site, which also includes my Black Forest photos.

The automatic slideshow displays each photo for 2 seconds with a 1 second fade transition. There are options for full-screen mode in the lower-right corner, and a pause button in the lower-left corner. There are also arrows on the left and right sides to move manually forward and backward through the photos.