Middle Rhine Valley, 13 Oct 2019
/We took our first side trip of this vacation, looking at the sights in the Middle Rhine Valley including a quick boat ride on the Rhine and visiting Rheinfels Castle.
It being Sunday, there was quite a bit of partying going on Saturday night. We heard lots of guys in the hallway, stairwell, and the beer garden below our window. The most amusing one was one guy talking in German, another said in English, “People are trying to sleep.” They talked in English a while, then switched back to German. It went into the wee hours of the night, but people did calm down. We've certainly slept through worse.
At breakfast in the morning, there was hardly anyone there, but several people showed up as we were getting ready to leave; we had good timing with that. We then went back upstairs to gather our things and head to the train station.
The general plan was to hop on an express train to Koblenz then transfer to a local train. We would try to sit on the river side on both trains so we could follow along with our book which explained the various castles we would see.
One thing that surprised us was when a woman tried to go into the bathroom on the train. There was already someone in it, which is fine, but suddenly a recording played saying that the toilet was in use. The woman seemed surprised and a bit embarrassed, which is no surprise.
Boat ride
Instead of going all the way down to Bingen and ride the boat the whole four hours up the river, we got off the train about two-thirds of the way down at Bacharach, then took the boat up to St. Goar, about the midpoint of that section of the river. That way we would get to see most of the sights while being able to fit everything in a day trip.
We purchased our boat tickets, and still had a bit of time before we would be able to board. There were only a few people waiting around, so we thought that was a good sign. A couple of minutes before the boat pulled up, about 50 people showed up, so we made sure to not dawdle as boarding began.
After entering the boat, we made sure to go to the top deck which was unenclosed. There were a lot of people there, but few enough that we were still able to walk back and forth to see things on both sides. We were wondering if we would want to sit, but it ended up not being an issue. The weather was great, so that helped (and also drew more people to the top).
In addition to descriptions in the book, we also had an audio tour which was adapted from the book. Since it's easier to listen while looking at a sight than reading, we opted for that. People seemed pretty blasé about the castles for the most part, which helped us get good spots for viewing. At one point, though, people started clustering to the right side, holding their phones out. The Loreley must have been the highlight for them because of the legend of the nymph. Strangely enough, they wandered away from the side before we got to the statue of the Loreley.
The Rhine was and is a very busy merchant highway. Castle owners would charge tolls for ships to pass, and ships would try to elude paying the tolls. Some castles would be set up with chains going across the river to stop the ships. One castle was actually placed on an island in the river.
Today, some of the castles were renovated for lodging, museums, or even event venues. The last time Melody was in the area, she stayed at the hostel in the Stahleck Castle in Bacharach.
Rheinfels Castle
A large group of us got off the boat at St. Goar, presumably mostly to go to Rheinfels Castle on the top of the hill. Before we did that, we got some lunch at an Italian restaurant. We shared a pizza and salad, and both were surprisingly good.
Instead of walking up by the road to the castle, we took a different trail which involved some stairs and switchbacks before going along the side of the mountain before arriving at the castle. Besides, just like we did in Japan, if there are stairs, we'll most likely find them and need to climb up them.
It took us a while to find the actual entrance to the castle since everything looked like the adjoining hotel. But looking down towards where the toilets were supposed to be, we saw the place to purchase tickets. When we paid for admission, the man said that the tour was indeed free, but would be in German. They do have sheets they can hand out with English explanations, so that would be an option. We decided to start the self-guided tour and see how far we were when the tour was supposed to start.
The self-guided tour starts at the base of the clock tower, the high point of the castle. We continued along a very high wall towards the museum. After looking around at some of the artifacts, we exited to the inner courtyard where we saw a well and a stack of catapult balls (which were retrieved after use). We then walked along the high battery to the top of the clock tower, which gave us a great view of the whole area (by design, if course, since this was a fortress; the more decorative castles weren't at the top of their respective mountains).
We then wound our way back down to take a look at the cellar, where wine was kept in a single 180,000-liter stone barrel. Wine was used for soldier's pay and was pretty weak. A separate wine cellar is where the finer wine was kept.
Looking at the time, it was only a few minutes before the tour was to start, so we decided to give it a try. We figured Melody would be able to understand what the guide was saying, and I could pick out words and phrases as well as follow along with the English handout. The guide was the man who we saw at the entrance, so he grabbed the handouts and off we went.
The guide was really good at saying a few things towards us every now and then so we knew where we were on the handout, as well as some of the stories he told that weren't written down. Even so, he spoke quite clearly and not too quickly, enough that I was able to follow more than I thought I would, and Melody filled in a few key words and phrases when necessary.
The tour concentrated on parts of the castle which are only accessible with a guide. We walked around the outside, as well as through tunnels and foxholes. He made sure that people understood how low the ceilings were. When we went down a tight circular staircase, he also pointed out that there were some stones that stuck out which were meant to injure invaders. For all those warnings, he repeated them in English; even if I didn't know any German, I would be able to guess what he was saying.
The tour ended in the cellar, and he explained that there are events held there. To demonstrate the acoustics, he pulled out a guitar and sang a song that he had written. Everyone was delighted, and he seemed to be having a great time.
Getting back to Cologne
We had about an hour before the train was to leave, so we decided to stop by a bakery first. There weren't any available tables, but a couple indicated that we should sit at the table next to them which hadn't been bussed yet. A few minutes later, another man sat down at the table, and we figured that it would be fine to share. However, it ended up that he was waiting to pay, so he flagged down a waitress, indicated that he should take our order, then asked for his bill; that was very gracious of him. It didn't take long for us to get our chocolate cake, and we were on our way to the train station.
Looking for updates on our train, it ends up that it was delayed by about 15 minutes, and that kept going up to about 45 minutes. By that time, we wouldn't be able to catch the connection to the next train, so we looked for a different option. The original plan was to go south a bit and then catch the express train, but the new one was to wait a few more minutes to just catch the train going north. We would once again transfer at Koblenz to the express train (we could have stayed on the local train, but it would have taken longer). Fortunately, things worked out, so we ended up being only about an hour later than we had originally planned.
We grabbed some dinner, a bit more cash, and got back to the room with enough time to do our evening tasks before going to bed.