Rudesheim

Rudesheim is a quaint little winemaking village in the 

Rhine Gorge and was the last of the charming German towns 

that we visited on this trip.  We rode the most adorable little

train into town from the dock, then took a ride on the gondola 

to get stunning views of the town and the beautiful vineyards.

After our gondola ride, we set about

exploring the town and perusing souvenir shops

Siegfried’s Mechanical Music Cabinet Museum houses of the largest 

collections of self playing music devices in the world.  We got to take a tour of 

this fascinating museum, I was blown away by some of the "music boxes" they showed us!

This was one of my favorites!  There are only a handful of 

music boxes like this left.  They were used in dance halls back in 

the day, it sounds exactly like a full orchestra and was extremely loud!

This was also a favorite.  It's an electric player piano

as well as 6 player violins, it was fascinating to watch it work

This player piano played rolls recorded 

by Chopin himself!  It was as close to hearing him

play in concert as I will ever get.

Ok I have changed my mind THIS was my favorite music box.

It plays a beautiful bird song and the bird moves it beak and swirls on 

it's platform. 

After our musical tour it was time for a little treat. 

We headed to the closest adorable cafe and ordered some

spaghetti ice cream!  This is a German speciality so we needed

to make sure to get some before leaving the country.

As you can imagine, it was delicious!

That evening we had a special dinner at port!  We dined at the 

very fun and very festive Rudesheimer Scholss.  There was a 

band playing live traditional music, and we all got tables in

their beautiful courtyard.  It was such a fun and memorable meal!

On our beautiful evening stroll back to the boat

we happened upon this too-cute-to-handle family of geese.

The babies were some of the cutest things I have ever seen

Then we set sail and started

our journey to the one and only 

Amsterdam!