Frankfurt & Rhine River Cruise

Today started off very leisurely with a sleep in and late breakfast. We then went back into town to buy Nicole replacement sunglasses. Her old glasses somehow got lost yesterday in Rothenburg. I also managed to find a new polo shirt to add to the new slimmer wardrobe.

We had then planned on seeing a Monet exhibition at one of the galleries but the queue to get in was too long for the time available so we passed on the exhibit. Instead we decided to have lunch. Bratwurst and beer for me and bratwurst and apple wine for Nicole. The area we were in charged a deposit on the glasses that both the wine and beer were served in to obviously recover the cost of glasses that were being kept. We returned the wine glass but I now have a nice beer glass as a momento.

We then returned to the hotel to get ready for our afternoon/evening cruise on the Rhine River. We were transported from Frankfurt to Kaub on the Rhine River by bus. The tour guide tried hard but you could see he had had a long week which wasn't helped by a large group of Brazilians' accompanied by their boisterous children. By the end of the day we all had had enough.

I think to give us all some respite over dinner this group was seated away from everyone else in their own room. They still managed to make more noise than everyone else combined.

Back to the tour. We boarded the boat "Germania" and began our cruise up the Rhine River. The river itself is very wide and surprisingly very fast flowing reflecting the sheer volume of water generated from the melting of snow in the alps.

The scenery was beautiful with small towns dotted along the way and grape vines on almost every other unoccupied ground. A photo gallery has been added.

The highlight however of the cruise was the sheer number of castles. I'm not sure quite how many we cruised past but it was over seven from memory. This was within a ten km journey. I have posted a gallery and named some of them. If I have time I will try and get the names right. The photos aren't the best due to the angle of the sun and the glare.

Tomorrow sees us travel by train to Nuremberg ahead of the start of our cruise on the Danube that starts Sunday afternoon.

Feel free to comment on anything I have posted, at least I know you are reading the journal.