This was our first morning we could wake up casually. No alarm clock, yay! Still woke up relatively early at 7:15, but that was okay. Today we knew we’d be on the Rhine river on a full day cruise. We didn’t know we’d be the youngest on board, but that was fine with us. We started from Koblenz and the first castle Stolzenfels. It’s amazing to think of when these castles were built, or for many, re-built. They sit up on these hills, overlooking the Rhine and they are massive! They dwarve the houses that sit along the river below them. Marksburg castle was next and it’s the best-preserved castle on the Rhine.

Also along the Rhine are farms–sitting on steep slopes–campgrounds, highways, railways, and many parks.

This looks like a toy town here

The romantic Rhine

Boppard is a city that looks like it was taken right out of a storybook with chapels, cathedrals, pointed spires, and curved and ornate roofs. “The Hostile Brothers”–Burg Sterrenburg and Burg Liebenstein–are two castles divided by the Hosility Wall. It’s said that the two brothers killed each other in the church of Bornhofen. Maus castle is nicknamed “mouse” castle by the Counts of Katz castle and it is now a farm for eagles and falcons. St. Goar is overlooked by Rheinfels castle and right across the river, Katz castle overlooks St. Goarshausen city.

Next we saw Loreley, a legendary steep rock face (132 m) that has been the end to many a sailor as the passageway is only 90m wide here. The story goes that the siren Loreley lured many men to their death with her beauty and song as they were distracted and crashed into the rocks. As the legend goes, seven hard-hearted virgins were transformed into rocks here and at the foot of Loreley Rock you can still hear a sevenfold echo. We passed by, no problem. 🙂

Oberwesel town is home to a beautiful gothic Church of Our Lady, St. Martina’s Church, vineyards, and Schonburg castle. At this point I’ve kind of lost track of which castle is which. It’s amazing how many there are! And each is beautiful in its own way. My favourite, however, may be the Rheinstein castle as it looks very much a part of the rock from which it springs.

Just before our arrival in Mainz the rain came down with a vengeance! Sheets of water pelted the guys trying to help dock the boat. Luckily it slowed a little by the time we got off, but we were, for the first time, happy to have our winter coats as they are waterproof.

A cab ride from a cabbie who’s not from Mainz had us temporarily lost, but she was very kind and didn’t bill us extra for her mistakes. Since we had some time to go grab dinner, we went out for a walk to orient ourselves around the city. It’s quite a bit bigger than Koblenz or Geissen. Still seems to be very much a university city. We chose a restaurant with English writing on the menu and soon discovered that this was a student hangout. To fit in, we chose a drink called, “Young, Fresh, and Beautiful” to see if that would work. I’m not sure that either the bright blue liquid or the glowing bracelet helped, but dinner was pretty good.

By fluke we came across the Gutenberg Museum, where Sean wanted to visit because of his communications studies. The museum wasn’t open as it was late, but there was a nice little cafe/bar there. We chose not to go inside, but what a neat little place!