Day 4, Mainz
We woke to find the boat moored in the centre of Mainz, and at 09:00 took the included walking tour of Mainz which included a visit to the Gutenberg Museum.
Dan & Krisie decided not to join the tour but to explore on their own.
The Gutenberg museum, with its display of Gutenberg's earliest books, was fascinating. The highlight was our guide donning an apron to demonstrate printing a page on a replica of Gutenberg's first printing press.
As usual there was free time after the tour but we headed back to the boat for coffee, meeting Dan & Krisie on the way.
Today was the first it was warm enough to eat lunch on in the open on the prow, and we had Symington's Altano Blanco 2020 (Portugal, Douro) a very nice white blend of six local varieties.
After lunch was a talk by Captain Dennis Visser. He'd started as a deckhand and worked his way up to Captain. He and his family had owned and operated a cargo boat on the Rhine, but had to sell it during the pandemic. He was Dutch and had to learn English to work for Viking.
He said he didn't like school. His teacher told him that no-one would pay him to gaze out of the window. "Now I am in the wheelhouse," he said, "I'm paid to spend all the time looking out the window."
He works two weeks on and two weeks off, "So I only work half the year," he said. "And half that time I'm sleeping, so in fact I work only a quarter of the year."
He has a crew of eight: four sailors, a Chief Engineer and two engineers, and a First Officer. Captain Visser operates an open wheelhouse policy and invited us all the visit him, which we did.
We missed the Viking Explorer Society Cocktail Party because Dan & Krisie, as first time cruisers, could not go with us.
Dinner's Classic German Tafelspitz was more appetising than it sounded - or looked. We had Poggio al Sole 2020 (Italy, Chianti Classico).
After dinner entertainment was a guest violinist playing modern music from the movies and TV.
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