Rüdesheim and Siegfried’s Mechanical Music Museum

SIEGFRIED’S MECHANICAL MUSIC MUSEUM IS QUITE UNIQUE:

Amsterdam to Budapest River Cruise – Avalon Waterways – Day 4

Lunch was early today as we were scheduled for a shore visit in Rüdesheim. At 12:45 p.m. the "Winzerexpress" mini tourist trains arrived to take us to Siegfried’s Musical Instrument Museum for a guided tour.

Siegfried’s Museum

Before visiting the Museum, I didn’t know anything about Siegfried’s Museum and with the fine weather I thought that I would much prefer spending my time outdoors and exploring this charming wine-making town. But I was really glad that I stayed with the Museum tour as Siegfried’s Mechanical Musical Instrument Museum is a fascinating and unique museum and its rare collections of music boxes were exquisite. If you are visiting Rüdesheim, do not miss this!

After Siegfried’s Museum, we had some free time in Rüdesheim, although it was quite brief. Here we had to choose what we wanted to do: wine-tasting, walk around to look for souvenirs (the main street is the Drosselgasse) or dash around to take snaps of the town. Tony worked up a bit of a sweat doing the latter while I accompanied his mum on a slow walk down the Drosselgasse.

Rüdesheim Asbach

Our group meeting point was Breuer’s Rüdesheimer Schloss where we were treated to a demonstration of how Rüdesheim’s famous Rüdesheim coffee is made with Asbach Uralt… and more importantly, we got to drink it. Asbach is the local specialty brandy and Rüdesheim coffee tasted a bit like Irish coffee – with more cream on top!

When it was time to leave Rüdesheim, we took the Winzerexpress again. These mini-trains may appear kitsch, but it was a blessing for people like Tony’s mum as it allowed her to take part in this excursion. Rüdesheim is a perfect example of a Rhine Valley wine town and our way out of town our train driver took the scenic route through the vineyards which was a lovely treat.

From Rüdesheim, we travelled by coach to meet up with the boat up river, just before Frankfurt – I think it was something to do with the river level or expediency that we had to travel this section by land. Along the way, we stopped at the Statue of Germania which was built to commemorate victory in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. From this viewpoint, we had a splendid view of the Rhine valley and its sprawling vineyards.

During dinner we bade farewell to the Rhine and entered the Main River. At dinner the crew put on a show for the evening’s entertainment which ended a fabulous day of river cruising.

Update 2014

The itinerary for 2014 is pretty much the same as for our cruise except that they don’t go up to the Statue of Germania for the magnificent view of the Rhine valley.

More information on Rüdesheim here: Rüdesheim Info-briefing

Photos of Rüdesheim: Rüdesheim Photo Gallery

Next page: Miltenberg

Click here to get a free PDF of this post