Yesterday was something of a blur as we dealt with the trauma of the loss of our beautiful dog. It was very difficult to fully appreciate the wonderful Swiss mountains, lakes and rivers while being pulled by our emotions.

Nevertheless we joined the group on a train ride, high into the mountains to Chateau D’Oex in the Gruyure region. It was a brilliant journey and we stopped for lunch at the chateau where we saw cheese making and tasted it fondue style. This was followed by a ridiculously large main course and dessert.

Our bus driver met us at the Chateau and drove us to Breisach in Germany, a journey of nearly 4 hours where we boarded our Scenic Spaceship that will be our home for the next 14 days.

The ship is truly magnificent and quite a bit larger than any of the other river ships we have travelled in. Everything is laid on. The food is fantastic and far more plentiful than it should be for our own good. Similarly, the drinks of all varieties are available 24 hours a day.

Because we boarded in Breisach rather than Basel, the ship did not move that night and we did our Breisach tour this morning (29th). We went to the Kaiserstuhl area and visited a winery where we tasted a few wines . It was a very interesting place in a beautiful area with rich volcanic soil producing excellent quality wine.

After our return, we had lunch and then I walked into town, just a few hundred metres and discovered a really lovely village, nothing like I would have expected in what is essentially an industrial area.

After listening to what seemed like endless presentations about the days ahead, we then set sail and enjoyed a brilliant meal and later sat out on the open deck watching the world go by. At the time of writing, we are entering our 3rd lock for the evening.

Tomorrow morning we will arrive in Strasbourg where we have a very full program with an early start.