Day 21

Today we just had a canal cruise scheduled with our group, then the rest of the day was free time to explore. We woke up with enough time to grab coffee in the old town square and see the astronomical coo-coo clock go off at noon. As the bells chime, a little wooden bird comes out of a door and softly sounds ‘kawww…’ before it goes back inside. Then a trumpeter plays a tune from the top of the tower and waves to the audience. When it was built it must’ve been quite an impressive display, but it was pretty funny how hundreds of people still gather today to see the fairly anticlimactic display. Nonetheless, we met with our group and headed for our lunch cruise. As we walked onto the boat, they handed us a tray of small shots and said, ‘please take’. They obviously did not know what we were up to the night before. We thought it might be a sip of wine or something sweet like that, but it turned out to be very intense liquor. They later explained it was what the people of this culture drank before meals to facilitate digestion. Yuck! We were fed an amazing meal on the cruise with ham, pork, steak, potatoes (in many different forms), soup, and vegetables. As we ate, a local guide pointed out all the historical places of interest. We learned how the ‘locks’ work in rivers: when the water levels vary as a boat cruises down the canal, it stops in a chamber which can increase (or decrease) the water level so the boat can continue on. It usually is necessary where a small waterfall occurs in the middle of the river. After the cruise, we strolled along the maze of cobbled streets and gothic architecture while doing a little souvenir shopping. Later, we grabbed a nice dinner near the old town square before heading to a black light show. The show was spectacular! Its hard to describe what it was exactly, but it was a bit of an optical illusion show with dancers wearing costumes that illuminated in different ways based on how they moved. We enjoyed the show, and by the end we were pretty tired from such a long day. We headed back to the hotel, grabbing a banana and Nutella crêpe on the way. Matt was asleep before his head hit the pillow.