Brewer and Twiggy Travel the World: Rhine River Valley

Wow, what an amazing couple of days! We took the train from Cologne to Heidelberg and then rented a car and headed for the Rhine River Valley. I read about the area in Rick Steves guide to Germany (he's supposed to be the guru of European travel and has written about 100 books). He listed it at as his favorite part of Germany. It's a beautiful valley with sharp rising mountains on either side. Along the way there are a bunch of Castles in different states of repair. Some are just ruins and others are in pristine shape and have been converted to hotels. We stayed in Bacharach and toured a castle there and then went to St Goar to see another one today. The one in St Goar was really cool. All kinds of tunnels and twists and turns. I wish we had brought a flash light because some of the tunnels were too dark to explore. You are allowed free access to the place and can explore anywhere you want. It would never fly in the States, so easy for someone to get hurt.

Last night we were about to go to bed when we decided to get dressed and go walk around the little village. It is a fairy tale little village with narrow cobble stone roads and we wanted to see it at night. Turned out it was raining like mad and instead we ended up drinking with the owner of the hotel, who is Russian and speaks basically no English, and two young guys that showed up from Oklahoma! We watched soccer on TV and had a blast. He opened the bar in the hotel just for us, started a fire, and kept bringing us more beers and locally made wine. He was really funny, he spoke almost no English and what he did speak he would scream at you! VODKA?? he would yell, ME YOU VODKA?? No, thanks.. really I don't.. VODKA?? YES?? It was funny as a bastard. The two kids from Oklahoma had just flown in and rode the train to Bacharach and had been up for about 30 hours. They were pounding the beers and doing shots of VODKA and were getting drunk as quickly as they could. It was one of the best nights we have had so far. The wine came from the vineyard behind the hotel and was really good. Anyway, here are some pics...

This is Bacharach. Many of the roads are much narrower than this.

Looking down on Bacharach

At the castle in Bacharach we enjoyed some coffee and biscuits. It was quite a hike to get up to the castle and I would have expected a paper cup with a plastic lid, but not in Europe. Porcelain cups with saucers and on a silver platter with a doyle!