October 19, 2022 Long day today, but we saw and experienced many interesting things. This post will hit some of them using photos and few words, I hope.

The view out our hotel room window and we staying in a very nice hotel.

Breakfast buffet.

Seen from the window of our bus.

There is political unrest in the country so the miltary is making its presence know at key demonstration locations.

Heading to the market the term street vendor is taken literally

Below is a large gallery of photos taken in the market, hopefully to give a sense of what it is like. It is not just what is being sold, it is also the colors and sounds that make it what it is. Click on an image to enlarge it.

The market is amazing with all the vendors in the seafood section shouting out what they have for sale. The volume is what it actually sounds like in the video I recorded below.

As we walked from the market to the medina the street itself became a market.

Our first stop in the media was at a guesthouse where we were treated to a talk regarding women’s rights in Tunisia by a University lecturer. Afterwards there was a lively question and answer period. Tunisia is the most liberal Middle Eastern country when it comes to women’s rights, but women still have a long ways to go to achieve true equality.

The Traditional Tunisia Salad plate I had for lunch. I have really enjoyed the salads during our brief time here.

In the market I had spent time talking to this vendor, he spoke very good English, about the “tortilla” looking pieces of dough he was selling.

Linda had the dish called Brik, prounouced breek, for lunch. The sheets of dough were what the gentleman in the market was selling. Small world.

Tunisian style fast food stand.

The walkways in the medina, though worn, are quite uneven.

We visited several mosques.

Cats are a common sight, dogs are very rarely seen.

A very small sampling of the sights in the shops in the medina. It is something that has to be experienced to understand.

A well in a mosque. Note how the ropes used to lift the buckets of water from it had worn grooves over the centuries.

The columns were all salvaged from a nearby town.

Linda wanted her picture taken while touching the columns. You may have heard of the town in a high school history class. It was called Carthage.

Tonight’s dinner was at a really excellent restaurant in the medina.

Linda was sure about this dish when it was set before her. Then she tasted it. It was wonderful. Just be glad I didn’t bore you with more of the hundreds of photos I took today.

October 18, 2022 Travel day to Tunis, Tunisia and a walkabout in the town.

5 AM at the Frankfurt airport, so not many people. We checked in online yesterday and had our boarding passes on our phones. This morning it was just a matter of using the self check baggage drop, through security and out the gate.

Just had to show this as i was amused by what is the upper right corner of this hand dryer.

It’s Dyson doing a little advertising of some of their products.

Today’s walk to the gate was much easier than the last time. Then we were leaving from gate 69, the last gate on the concourse No. 69. Today we were at gate 15.

Breakfast is served. You can easily guess which was mine and which was Ms. Healthy Eater’s.

Always a selfie.

We had a connection in Munich, also on Lufthansa. It turned out the person right in front of us was also on our OAT tour. Small world.

Off to Tunisia selfie.

A final look at Germany.

The Alps?

The Mediterranean .

The coast of North Africa.

On approach to the Tunis airport.

Everything at Frankfurt was done electronically. At the Tunis airport it was several with pieces of paper showing what things went where.

Just confirming we really did arrive in Tunis.

It didn’t take long to discover that lane markers and traffic lights were just suggestions for drivers as to what they might want to do.

Welcoming drink at the hotel. It had a taste we were not used to. Easy to tell which one was mine.

Welcoming fruit bowl in our room. Those dates were the best I’ve ever eaten.

The other 7 people on the tour were arriving early this evening so the four of us who were here set out to see the old city with our guide. What follows are a number of photos to give readers a sense of what we saw and experienced.

Yes, it is a synagogue.

Mural about women’s rights.

Sidewalk fruit vendor.

Even Linda ate one. I’ll say they were very good, but messy to eat.

Promenade

Clock tower.

Many buildings reflect the fact that Tunisia was once a French colony. Our guide said that the older people often still can speak French, but the young people only learn English as their second language and can’t speak or understand any French.

Cathedral of St. Vincent de Paul.

Interior which was completely refurbished because of a visit in the 1990’s by Pope John Paul.

Of course we had to take a photo of Linda sitting in the sign.

This woman had two bags filled with plastic bottles. We have been told to only drink bottled water in Tunisia, and from the number of empty bottles laying around on the streets it looks like most everyone else does.

There are a lot of sidewalk vendors.

Our guide said meat is the most expensive food.

This was all the fresh meat in this large store.

Liquor is readily available.

One Dinar is equivalent to 31 cents, so the Old Lady gin was $10 a bottle.

This vendor sold incense and other potions.

I always enjoy talking to people like this through our guides.

The strips of bark are used to clean your teeth and mouth.

In the end he gave me a piece of the bark even though I never asked for one, then posed for this photo. That smile of his is absolutely genuine and it why we enjoy traveling to all these countries around the world. People are all the same where ever they reside.

We took a taxi back to the hotel. What follows are a few of the things we saw on the ride.

60% of all cars in the entire country are in the city of Tunis.

The three courses at dinner. We are going to enjoy eating in Tunisia.

October 16, 2022 Some more Rhinelarking, a visit to Gothic ruins above town and info on the wonderful little café we we ate at so often.

There was special game using an app going on at the nearby castles today and there were cars parked everywhere. along the road.

Looking in the other direction there were parked going out of sight also. With the throngs of people playing, we decided that doing something else was probably much better, and besides, in the past we had visited these castles.

Birds of a feather flocking together on the rocks in the Rhine.

Larking involves a lot of bending. Maybe this is Linda’s aching back pose.

She kept very few finds today, partly because so many were too big, and also because this was the same section of river bank we had larked the other day, so she already had most of the “good stuff”.

Below is a gallery of a few of what we were finding.

The gray slate is what makes the Rieslings so awesome and the last photo is what is out in the water, meaning it is out of our reach. None of these items were kept.

This was another stay on the Rhine where we did not go on a river cruise.

The easy way to cross the highway between the Rhine and the town, go under it.

When she picked this leaf up and held it out in front of me, I knew what to do.

Starting up the 112 steps to ruins above the town. The reason I know how many steps there were as because after climbing all the way up, she counted all of them on the way back down. Climbing all those steps in the multistory school building she attended sometime last century apparently caused irreparable harm to her psyche when it comes to stairs today.

the view from part way up.

More stairs. Is she going to make it?

The ruins of the Werner Chapel which was built in the late 1200’s and early 1300’s. It fell into ruin in the late 1600’s. It was built to honor a boy who supposed murdered by Jews and whose body was found in Bacharach. After finding the body the Jews living in the region were murdered by the locals. The boy was even canonized a saint by the Catholic Church even after the King over the region had completely exonerated the Jews of any wrongdoing.. In the latter part of the 20th century he was stripped of his sainthood and Pope John XXIII apologized for the atrocities the Catholic Church had committed against the Jews.

In the 1990’s the ruins were renovated.

Do you see what I see?

Following the gargoyles with a gallery of some of the flowers we saw around town.

A few photos of the market square area.

The wonderful small café we ate at over and over.

The owners were very special.

Their story.

A glass of Riesling makes for a happy girl.

Bratwurst perfectly grilled.

David and his grandmother, his parents were busy. A family café that made us a part of their family during our stay. If you are in Bacharach please stop in for a meal, you’ll be glad you did.

October 15, 2022 A word of explanation. These posts are not meant to be a travelogue that shows the things to see or do while where we are traveling. It is the bits and pieces I find fascinating for one reason or another that occurred during the day. For example, we have been to St. Goar a number of times in the past and the post reflects that.

A lovely day in Bacharach.

St Goarhausen across the Rhine from St. Goar.

The castle above St. Goarhausen.

Walking down the street this caught our eye.

A little different than the 1967 Mustang we drove off from our wedding in. I wonder if Linda, the farm girl I married, would preferred to have driven of in a tractor. A little birdy is telling me absolutely positively no way.

The church named after the founder of the town.

The parish priest, hermit who founded the town in the 6th century and later became a saint.

Steps in making a wood carving.

The clock store now also has the beer steins that were formerly in a separate store, plus a lot of tacky tourist items. St Goar is not what it used to be.

Another town flooded by the Rhine.

The sun made for a nice photo.

The ferry that runs between the two towns opposite each other.

They bring a smile to the faces of passersby, us included.

This church in St. Goar is very similar to the one in Bacharach.

Very similar indeed.

This didn’t look good.

First it was going to be late by 10 minutes, then 35 minutes, then an hour.

With the delay we walked the block block to the waterfront.

The ticket machine for the local trains.

Touch the British flag and it is in English.

Many different ways to pay. We find it easiest to just tap our credit card to white pad just below the keypad.

When we returned to the station the train had been cancelled, but another was scheduled to arrive shortly. Of course that train was delayed several time also.

Photo posted just to provide evidence we eventually arrived back in Bacharach before night came.

the nice weather brought out the people in Bacharach.

Halloween time had arrived on the house across from and below our balcony.

All those flowers are hard to walk by with occasionally taking a photo.

Went with a beer with dinner tonight. It was not what I like, being way to sharp. The food on the other hand was awesome just like always. And of course, Linda had her Riesling. I’ve been told I am going to have to make more Riesling when we get home., a task I will definitely enjoy both making it and later drinking it my thoughtful wife.