The Rhine

This morning we navigated the throngs of kids and survived breakfast, checked out and pointed our feet down the hill. Our room, cosy and lacking in amenities as it was, seemed to be acoustically immune to the 4th grade battle cries that rung throughout the night in the main courtyard. 

We had our own mini wing, albeit in a closet on the top floor, here behind Tara on the north end of the castle and had a great nights sleep. All in all our 'forced' stay was fine but we were still glad we were on our way down. 

We dropped our bags at the bed and breakfast that would be our home tonight and made our way down to the Rhine to buy our passes for the the ship. After we had secured our tickets and were waiting for our ship to come, the elementary hoard descended on the dock after now having sacked the castle. The others around us who were not battled hardened in the castle were making all kinds of comments about the sudden onslaught of this grade school swarm.  Patti and I just looked at each other and smiled. 

We were on a big boat but not quite at large as this body barge. 

Our trip down the Rhine was beautiful and a little cold but that kept the crowds off the outside decks and made for some easy photo ops right from my chair. We set out from Bacharach and went downstream to the Braubach and saw ten of the best castles on the Rhine and their accompanying towns on the way. On every bend in the river you would see a fortified stricture erected in a strategic position over the river.

Some castles are very rustic - 

 

Some are immense - 

One sits in the water - 

One is in ruins - 

And one still seems to have a bit of fairytale magic - 

It is funny how in our times we romanticize these castles and the idea of royalty. These are impressive and imposing structures for sure, but that is by design. Each one of these castles controlled a piece of this valuable shipping route and exacted a tax for the mere privilege of passing by. Those taxes were passed on as higher prices to the end consumer.  Just as it is today, the lowest wage earners had to spend the greatest part of their income on necessities and are the most impacted by price increases. 

The Rhine River and the shores of the valley are still major shipping corridors. We have read that there can be up to 500 trains passing through the valley in a single day, something like a train every three minutes. By my count there were 4 sets of tracks on each side of the river. Northbound and Southbound for passenger and freight. And there were many barges lumbering hard against the current and more easily with it. 

We landed in Braubach and took the train down to St. Goarshausen and ferried over to St. Goar where we visited the castle Rheinfels.  This was the ruin that you saw above and we chose to tour it for its size and the freedom to roam that you get there. In a few days we will visit and very intact castle on the Mosel River. It was hard to imagine how huge this castle was in its day. 

We did lots of wandering around in between self guided tour stops. 

We also had a chance to press Tara's tunnel-phobia as we made our way through a number of the secret passage ways lit only by the iPhone flashlight function.  Many had a least a little light but one of them was pitch black for maybe 30 yards. This reminded Tara too much of her Cu Chi Tunnel experience in Vietnam which I thought was more intense than this. Of course, Riley did not help at all by telling Tara to watch out for the snakes, spiders and skeleton bones. 

We found some dinner in St. Goar then made out way back to Bacharach for the night. 

Images in 2015 Bacharach and the Rhine.