Reminising about Germany Part II

The Rhine Valley

Before departing to the Rhine Valley the three of us debated about how we wanted to get there and what we wanted to do when we got there. We decided not to take the train and to have Zeb drive, and I had thought that I had possibly found a cruise down the river to see the multitude of castles there. It all sounded like a great plan.

Turns out that in the winter the Rhine Valley is devoid of practically all tourist activity and the valley closes down for the season. The cruise that I had found only went by reservation more than a week in advance and castles were only open on either Saturdays or Sundays.

We made due with what we had though and found a little café by the river to have soup and tea in. The café was a great place to talk about what we wanted to do next. In the end we asked our waitress how to get to the castle in the small village of St. Goar in hopes that it might be open. “Turn left at the coo-coo clock.” Sure enough down the road there was a good size coo-coo clock. We took a left there and headed on a good hike up to the castle only to find that the castle was not open. It wasn’t a complete loss though… there was a penny smasher! I was very excited to get euro pressed for my mom who has a smashed penny “passport” (collection).

We also stopped in a church in the valley… like you do. The highlight of our trip was lunch though. We had decided to pick up some bread, meat and cheese from a local bakery and deli and then hike up to another castle. The village was quaint and a traditional “wall” village that is so tight you almost feel like you’re inside a maze. When we finally arrived at a bench near the castle it was well worth the hike. Our little lunch bench overlooked the river and a few more of its castles. For being a partly-cloudy day, it was beautiful!

Overall we had quite a nice day.

That evening we tried to find a bar to go to, but only found really smoky pubs and stumbled upon what looked like a community meeting. Oops. I swear it looked like they were playing pool when I looked though the windows!

We ended up back at Zeb’s parent’s place drinking and planning our trip to Berlin. We were ok with that. We were quite excited about Berlin!