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GERMANY - DAY 3
We left Frankfurt and headed towards the river Rhine. Along the way we stopped at a hill with this massive monument on the side of a hill built in 1878. It was called Niederwalddenkmal. It was built to celebrate the unification of Germany. The artist modeled the figure on his daughter. It weighs 32 000 kilograms and is 38 metres high. There was a cable car that you could take from the village to the top. The view from the top of the Rhine River was spectacular.
We traveled along the river by bus and spent the time castle spotting. There were so many we lost count. Every bend of the river there was a castle or castle ruin. A lot of the castles have been converted to hotels but there are still some owned by individual families. A lot were built in the 12th and 13th century however, Napoleon during his invasion into Germany destroyed quiet a lot.
We past a castle that was in the middle of the river called Pfalz. It's dungeon is a well so that if you did something wrong they would put you in a boat and chuck you down the well.
We boarded a boat for a cruise along the Rhine River. Interesting, the boat traveled down the river 500 metres docked, then turned around traveled back up the river 700 metres and docked again. In the end we did travel up the river and saw some interesting sights. Like in one village the church is attached to the pub. the minister pours the beers and church goers have to walk through the pub to get to the church. We were lucky and the rain held off, mostly.
We docked and then transferred to a small bus that took us up a winding road (path really) to the castle Liebenstein. There we were greeted with a drink and the story of the family who built the castle. Originally there was a family with two brothers and a sister. The brothers conspired together and sent their sister away. She created an abbey in the town below. The brothers then built two castles. The Liebenstein and the Sterrenberg. The castles were close to each other and the brothers built a wall between them so they couldn't see each other. Anyway, some time later the two brothers set out the invade each other and ended up shooting and killing each other with an arrow. We had a traditional German lunch with a local wine. The food was delicious.
Back on the bus we traveled following the Rhine to out port of call for the evening Koln. After getting off the bus, we headed for the Dom. This truly magnificent cathedral stood out on the skyline. It would easily be double the height of Notre Dame in Paris. We paid our fees and climbed the 533 (we counted 525) steps to the top of the bell tower. Our legs were screaming by the time we reached the top but the views were well worth the effort, even if it was raining and cloudy. We even got to hear one of the bells chime the quarter past. Thank god we weren't there for the hour time as the single bell was deafening. The bell tower was home to eight bells of varying sizes.
We got to the hotel and Pasqual and the girls went for a swim in the indoor pool. We then had dinner in the restaurant. The food was nice, but the service was slow.
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