Gliding Up The Elbe

For the past few days we've slowly made our way up the Elbe on the flat-bottomed M/S River Allegro cruise ship.


There are about 90 passengers, 20+ crew members, and a pace as bucolic as the scenery. This river formed much of the boundary between the divided East and West Germanies, and even after two decades of reunification the western banks are more verdant and abundant (improved ag practices?), although many more sheep graze on the eastern shores. The river is only about 50 yards across in most places, and between its major towns there's not much more than bullrushes and rocky patches, with the occasional hilltop schloss peeking between sycamores groves.

No complaints about the service. As is standard on these cruises, the help is all over you. If we're not on the receiving end of at least four "bon appétit"s at each meal from various waitservice staff, Maître d's and hotel managers, we are strangely disappointed. The cuisine has been excellent, with creative, varied and abundant international fare. All my entres and desserts are specially prepared, resulting in one happy, if rotund, camper. It's challenging to allow a large salad to suffice for lunch when an intriguing menu is offered in followup. Oh, well.

Three stops along the way presented interesting historical insights worth reporting. The town of Wittenberg is immortalized for its most famous resident: Martin Luther (the King is silent). Here is where Catholic religion as the world knew it did an about-face, resulting in multiple Protestant national varieties and the birth of 500 years of Reformation. This the church door on which Luther posted those 95 theses in 1517:


Everywhere you turn there is something commemorating Luther. There's a Luther tree, a Luther house, a Luther street. Even the town was renamed Lutherstadt Wittenberg. It's lucky his last name wasn't Lipshitz.

It's hard to be unimpressed by the impact of this one professor and theologian, although his rabid treatises later in life supporting antisemitism were as influential to German national philosophy as they were deplorable.

Yesterday, we docked at the city of Torgau. Here is where, in 1945, the advancing American troops from the west linked at the Elbe with the surging Russian troops from the east, and the war with Germany ended. We visited sites where the action occured, and met two local witnesses, one of whom had been a 14-year-old defender of the town as a member of the Hitler Youth. He poignantly recounted the last moments of the war, when he and the other remaining city defenders, all children, were told to put their rifles down and return home to their mothers. This is the memorial the Soviets built to mark their part in the victory:


Today, it was on to Meissen, known for its famous white gold: porcelain. We spent a bit of time at the Meissen factory, where we watched artisans create lovely, if rather costly, tchotchkes. This is the only trip I can remember where the tour guide recommended that we all visit the gift shop and NOT purchase something, as many individual items for sale had price tags many times the value of this trip. I never saw so many overfed people try to navigate an emporium with such care. You break it, you own it. The town itself is charming, with traditional winding cobblestone streets, delicious local brotwurst and a towering castle complex overlooking the river.

Tomorrow, further upstream to Dresden.