Rhine River Trip Spring 2009

For John and me, Spring 2009 has been both sad and glad. The hard thing has been putting our home of more than 50 years on the market. We'll be moving near our daughter in Massachusetts so it means saying good-bye not only to a house but, far harder, to friends.

We also - here's the happy part - realized a long-time dream of a boat trip up the Rhine. Here we've stopped for hot chocolate in the medieval German village of Cochem

Our friend Brother Andrew took the train from his hometown in the north of Holland to spend the day with us in Amsterdam while the boat was docked there. (For more about Brother Andrew, click on "Books" and scroll down to God's Smuggler.)

Next stop was the Dutch town of Arnhem. John and I walked across this rebuilt bridge where in September, 1944, thousands of soldiers - British, American, Polish, German - died during the failed Allied effort to capture "a bridge too far."

Long before we reached the city we could see the twin towers of Cologne's glorious cathedral.

Inside the soaring nave. Outside it was cold, windy and pouring rain. We got drenched walking here from the boat but forgot the wet clothes in this immense and awesome space.

Upriver the Rhine becomes the border between Germany and France. Here in Strasbourg, on the French side, stands this statue of Gutenberg and his printing press which he developed here while working as a goldsmith.

We were in Strasbourg the day before heads of state, including President Obama, arrived for NATO's 60th anniversary summit. Police were everywhere. In boats...

on horseback...

on foot in full body armor. In all the cities where we've happened to be at moments of crisis, we'd never seen police presence like this. The violent protests of the following day were in fact kept well away from the town center.

The focus of the trip was a return to the first home we made together as we prepare to move to what will probably be our last. In Basel, Switzerland (where navigation of the Rhine stops) we rented a car and continued on to Geneva where we were married in 1947. Behind us is the famous jet d'eau, the spectacular column of water we often biked down to the lakeside to watch.

This massive iron gate at 9 rue Calvin was our "front door." Behind it is the old mansion where an aristocratic Genevan family fallen on hard times, rented us an apartment. The obliging passer-by who took the photo was all smiles when we told him why we were there, but alas, not steady of hand!