Our first stop on the cruise was the small port city of Breisach directly on the Rhine. From there we had the option of a 45 minute bus ride to the extremely small city of Riquewihr in France, or a 45 minute bus ride to the Black Forest city of Freiburg im Breisgau. The town of Riquewihr, a small and gorgeous medieval town untouched by the destruction of WW2 looked interesting but is EXTREMELY small and you can go through it all in just a few short minutes, so we decided to go to Freiburg, a very large university city.

In the end, it didn’t matter much, as with the river locks, and scheduling to get between cities we only had a grand total time of one hour and forty-five minutes to wander around on our own, which we did. The city is nice, just as I remember it… from last year! All we had time for was wander around the scattered Christmas Markets and then we got back on for another 45 minute ride right back.

After getting back on the boat, it speeds quite quickly North along with the flow of the river we encountered some locks lowering us down. The ship pulled into a big concrete lock, and the door behind us closed, and the water started draining down lowering us down below to the lower level of the river, and then we continued on our way north!

Images of Freiburg here!