Today was our first scheduled day of visiting castles along the Rhine and Mosel rivers, so our first mission was to return to the train station downtown and hop down to St Goar. It was lightly raining this morning, so we took our umbrella and headed to find the pedestrian path down of the hill. As we were searching, a car drove up next to us and a nice elderly gentleman offered us a ride down, which we took quickly to get out of the rain. He had lived in Koblenz since 1978 and enjoyed it very much. At the bottom, he pointed us in the direction of the ferry, and we were very thankful not to be in the rain longer than we needed. But as it turned out, the ferry was closed until 10am, and our grand plans of leaving early just didn't work out today. As we didn't see a bus stop nearby, it was time for a hike. We saw a bridge in the distance and headed towards it, using our Fodor's Germany guidebook map to point us toward the train station. The rain picked up a little, and we learned that cars like to speed on that bridge, but there was a nice pedestrian path, perfectly car-free, for us to walk. We got our bearings on the other side of the Rhine, and headed downtown, past a number of little shops, setting up flowers, food, clothing, and even passed a Mailboxes Etc. on our way, all just opening up for business.
Finally after about an hour in the rain (with our umbrella) we arrived at the train station, and went right to the Reservation desk to purchase our tickets for the day. It was best to get a day pass for the region, about 14 Euros each, as we would be getting on and off the train at two spots today. This turned out to be a better deal than using one of our Eurorail pass days. With tickets in hand, and the next train not leaving for 30 minutes, we picked up some local sandwiches for lunch, one turkey (or Putenwurst) for me, and a mystery fried chicken sandwich for Laura. We also headed to the local Information booth across the street to find an easy way to get back to the Hostel that night, and while we were there, picked up some information on the boat tour we planned to take this evening. As it turned out, the last boat back north was leaving Rudeshiem at 4:15, so some quick rescheduling in our heads worked out that this would be our second stop of the day, but first we would have to take a ferry across the river from Bingen. With all this in mind, it was back to the train station for an uneventful trip to St. Goar and the ruins of the Reinfels Fortress.
The rain seemed to have followed us down up the Rhine, so we quickly found the exit and followed the other passengers toward the information booth at the bottom of the hill. Inside, we found an English guide to the castles we would see later in the afternoon, and a historical book on the Reinfels Fortress (not as essential as we first thought), and picked these up to be our local tour guides. The helpful woman behind the desk pointed us outside to the "tschu tschu" tram which could get us up the hill in only 5 minutes, and luckly was just ready to leave, so we paid our 2 euros each and boarded. It felt similar to a train you'd find touring a park for kids or going around Disneyland, but it drove on the streets just like a regular car. When we reached the top, he gave us a slip for the return ticket, which would show up every half hour to take us back down.
Some quick wandering (there weren't too many tourists to follow up here) we arived at the ticket booth for the fortress. It was nice to start with a ruined fortress, so all the other castles we saw would be in much better shape. I liked how it exposed all the architecture, and Laura enjoyed the moss growing off all the walls with ferns tucked into every crevise. Along with our tickets, we picked up some cheap ponchos to avoid the rain, as well as an English tour map with some brief explanations of the sights to see. There were two circle tours that would lead us around the castle, first on the top level, to see where the living quarters were, and the ramparts where guards could be stationed. The way was sometimes marked with numbers to lead us along, but mostly we had to follow the map and trust our instincts. We found a couple of corners that probably wern't on the tour, along with a well, the top of a lookout tower, and some puddles of water from the rain. Our ponchos turned out to be more hassle than they were worth, with the wind blowing them up like big balloons, so they were quickly taken off and saved for a more rainy day. It was easy to see how good the location was for the castle, the cliff drop offs on two sides made it well fortified from attacks, but like most castles we would visit, it had been destroyed, most likely by Napoleon.
The second circuit took us to the insides and underground portions of the fortress, first to a large great hall where they now put on plays. A little bit of exploring and watching others led us to a secret passage way behind the staircase, where you almost needed a flashlight to navigate, and out to the outer walls of the fortress. Here there were a few more nooks to explore, and the tour lead us through a few walkways with regularly-spaced holes for arrow fire. My eyes had a hard time adjusting to the darkness, as I always wanted to look out the next window and thus dialated my eyes again with the blinding light. Soon, the tour became too dark for us, so we paitently waited for some other tourists to wander by, and the second group had a flashlight which we could follow. This lead us under the main parts of the castle, and we were able avoid a large flooded area and take the side exit to a main courtyard. There were curious arches with arches inside them, making a covered walkway on one side, and finally our tour lead back to the secret passage back through the great hall and we were back to the start.
We had luckily checked the times for the next train down to Bingen, our next stop, and were happy that the mini tram would get us back with about 15 minutes to spare. Unfortunately, the tram was not on the same exacting schedule as the German train system, and our time to catch the train was cutting very close. Finally he arrived and we boarded, but then he decides to take the scenic route back, through the back streets of St. Goar, and stops by a small shop to talk to a small girl (presumably his daughter?) and picks up a juice drink. But thankfully this indirect route back to the info booth ran directly past the train station, so when he stopped to let a car go by, Laura and I hopped off the tram, waved goodbye, and quickly ran to the platform 2 minutes before the train pulled up, this being the first of our close timings today, and we celebrated by eating our lunch on the train.
A mere 4 stops and 1 hour later, we were down in Bingen, and it was time to find a Ferry (or Fahre) across the Rhine. Stare as we might at the local map, we couldn't figure out how to get directly to the information booth, so we once again followed people, only this time, they were going the wrong direction. We looked around after a while, and saw that we had to cross a bridge to get back to where we started and then on down the street. After 20 minutes and no info booth, Laura had the great idea to just head towards the river and find signs for the Fahre there, and when we found it, it had just left. The next one would leave in about 20 minutes, so we headed to the local park to wait. Luckily the rain had stopped, but now the wind was really blowing. Pretty soon, the Fahre showed up, but it was headed the wrong way, until a last minute 180 turn and coming to settle right up against the dock. We boarded and quickly decided to take a seat in front out of the wind, and we were off to Rudeshiem.
On the hillside we could see a huge statue and the ever-present nearly vertical vineyards, along with a cable car system taking people to the top in large metal buckets, an attraction we decided to pass on this time around. Our boat landed at 3pm, and we headed down the docks to the Koln-Dusseldorf ticket booth to book our tickets back down the Rhine at 4:15. The deskman was very helpful, and was able to direct us to the local Mechanical Musical Instrument Museum, only a 10 minute walk from there. It looked like we'd finally found where some of the tourists were hiding out, the street was packed with elderly people speaking English, crowding into the souvineer shops and local pubs, but we squeezed our way through to the relatively uncrowded museum. The tour was in German, but our tourguide was kind enough to answer some of our questions in English. It was amazing to see what was all done with mechanics and engineering to make music; there was a classic player piano, player organ, player violin set, with rolls upon rolls of music in cabinets and even more we were told was in storage. One of the most facinating pieces we saw was a miniature bird in a snuff box, making tweets just like a real bird and shaking itself off as if in a bird bath. The tourguide said they were cheap if we wanted one, and the staff promised him a case of Newcastle Brown Ale if he sold one this afternoon, which made sense when we got to the gift shop and saw they were betwen 2,000 and 5,000 Euros. Instead, we picked up a postcard for 80 cents.
We squeezed our way back through the tourist alley just in time to make the boarding call for our castle tour boat, turns out this last boat of the day is a paddle-wheel boat with a large dinner area inside. But we'll eat dinner later, now's the time to look at castles, so we pull up a plastic chair to the uncovered bow and settle in for our tour. It was a little cold with the wind blowing directly on us, but it was beautiful to glide through the valley and see each castle as we approached, and as the weather had finally cleared up, the sun was shining on them (and us). Our guide book gave us the details on each one as we passed, some looked well kept and painted up in bright white or yellow, others were in ruins with towers and walls collapsing, and a few were converted into hotels and youth hostels and restaurants. They looked so close you could touch them. Eventually the cold overtook us and we calmed down our chattering teeth by heading inside to sit at the restaurant tables. We were planning on a big meal tonight, so we had some appetizers of chicken soup, very flavorful, and some tomato and mozzarella cheese with basil on french bread, while we took turns heading outside to take pictures of the next passing castles. Unfortunately, a band of the World Youth Day kids had also scheduled this boat tour and the huge group sat down just as we were finished. They were loud and obnoxious and made us a little embarrased to be from America. Maybe we're just getting old, but they were very rambuncious, the little whippersnappers.
And although the boat ride was four hours long, it seemed to be over too quickly, although we did see about 16 castles along the way. The final stop was in Koblenz, our local home base, and we headed out from the boat quickly, trying to avoid the WYD kids and hoping they wern't staying at our hostel that night. The boat dropped us off right next to the famous Deutches Eck, a huge metal monument commemorating the unification of Germany at the intersection of the Mosel and Rhine rivers. We had seen it from the hostel last night, but didn't realize how big it was in person. But with the sun setting, it was time to head back to our hostel, and as luck would have it today, the ferry across the Rhine had stopped running about 2 hours ago, so we shook out our feet in preparation for another long walk back. Down to the fast-speeding bridge, across the river, then back to the base of the hostel. It took us a while to find the walking path directly up to the hostel, and from there, it was hike hike hike, rest, hike hike hike until we reached the top around 9:45pm. It was exhausting but exhilarating to know we could get anywhere we wanted on foot, little did we know how much walking we would do on this trip.
On the crest of the hill inside the fortress sat the restaurant we tried to eat at last night, and I wanted to treat Laura to some Wienerschnitzel, she had said that was one of the few meals she knew she couldn't leave Germany without trying. So tonight, they were wide open, and we panted over to the tables, found a waiter and ordered two meals of the Wienerschnitzel then collapsed. I think they could tell we just walked up the hill because they were in a jolly mood as they brought us our sprites and a wonderful fresh salad with some local ranch-style dressing. And the Wienerschnitzel, wow, fried pork never tasted so good, with a large side of french fries, I finished everything on my plate, while Laura saved about half for a sandwich tomorrow. Food is the best when you're hungry, and this was wonderful, I don't know how we'll top it. It was hard to stand up again, but it was back to the hostel and a quick shower, then off to well-earned sleep.
