So today showed us our real first hiccup of our trip -

It started out innocuous enough with one quick, last stop at a monument in Lucerne; it's of a dying lion. It was scultped to represent the suffering of a dignified warrior and the fruitlessness of war. We've uploaded a few pictures here of the lion - beautiful enough to bring tears to our eyes.

From there, the plan was a bus ride to the Swiss town of Basel, a city tour, and then board our ship.

Well, we made the trip to Basel okay, and the city tour went well. But then we found out that one of the French locks, on the Rhine River, had malfunctioned and our ship wasn't going to make it to Basel.

So, we all jumped back on our bus and headed for Breisach, Germany. We made it here while there was still daylight - but things were unusual, to say the least. After all, this was meant to be our first day on the river!

We ended up getting checked into our room, had time to take a quick shower, and have a lovely dinner. But wow, what a nutty day...