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Today we cruise the picturesque Rhine. Leanne and I have been looking forward to today, just cruising and seeing all the villages, ruins and castles as we sail past the most beautiful stretches of the Rhine.
We cast off at 9am from Rudesheim, and it's actually really cool on the top deck, because of the slight breeze, so the jackets come out and the hot chocolate passed around was welcomed. The morning starts off overcast after a slight rain shower, and then the sun starts to creep out as the day proceeds.
Straight out of a picture book, the romantic middle Rhine is a river valley with precipitous cliffs, a castle perched on virtually every hilltop and quaint villages lining the river banks. This includes the steep vineyards that produce the famous Rhine wines, it is easy to see how the people earn their living with such large steeply sloping vineyards and fruit plantations, they can hardly be overlooked. Over the intercom we hear about the myths and legends in this area, such as the story of the Lorelei, the beautiful siren on the rocks who lured sailors to their doom. You may like to look up a UTube of the song Lorelei, composed by Gershwin. The story describes a female siren who sits on the cliff combing her hair, her beauty and song lure men to their deaths on the cliff below – the reality, this is one of the most beautiful – and dangerous sections of the river. Here the Rhine is at its deepest but narrowest.
UNESCO declared the Upper Middle Rhine Valley as a world heritage site, the Rhine not only carried goods and people from many different countries, but was also a channel for a wealth of cultural influences and ideas, and the religious buildings along the river are elegant testimony to this.
We bid our farewell to the last castle and we venture back to our room, to get ready for lunch and our afternoon shore excursion – to Marksburg Fortress.
While many of the dramatic castles on the Rhine are rebuilt versions of the original, Marksburg has retained nearly all of its initial construction and stands today at the best-preserved castle on the river. The reason that the fortress has seen 800 years of change and turmoil without being significantly blemished is its location. It sits atop a steep, isolated hill on a bend in the river. In the past, the formidable terrain discouraged enemies (just getting there ourselves was quite a feat, we did have some steep slopes/stairs to climb) so the castle was never attacked during the countless wars that raged about it through the centuries.
A big key opened the gate to the path leading to the castle, all of a sudden my imagination could only think of Rapunzel and her long flowing hair, standing at the window looking down at Prince Charming because of the view from the castle window and being a German fairy tale. We walk through the Knight’s Hall, then into the small chapel dedicated to Saint Mark, from whom the castle gets its name. We return to Koblenz our port for the night, the city is located picturesquely at the confluence of the Rhine and Moselle Rivers, the triangle shaped by the two rivers, is known as the German Corner. Koblenz is a charming town, we head into the town for a an atm and we get in our last township Gelati before returning to the nice riverside promenade and the huge statue before we board our ship. We are docked where the cable car runs across to the Ehrenbreitstein fortress on the other side of the river – the fortress is as big a as it’s lengthy name. Koblenz was founded by the Romans in the year 9BC, in order to protect the Moselle crossing, it then served as the home of French refugees during the French Revolution.
Tonight we enjoy "A Taste of Germany", to try the many local German favourites from bagels, sausages of all types, sauerkraut and dumplings, whilst we listen to the accordion and organ grinder.
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