Romantic Rhein

Alison and I decided to visit another wonderful part of Germany last weekend. It was last minute with little planning involved but was awesome. On Saturday we met in Bingen, a small town at the southern end of the so called "Romantic Rhein". We explored the city. Its shoreline was part of a beautification project last year and the new park is unbelievable. There is a skatepark, life-size chessboard, cherry trees, apple trees, squash gardens, water playground and more. There were even chairs and lounges throughout the park and they weren't held fast to the ground. After successfully exploring Bingen, we took a ferry across the river to another town called Rüdesheim. It lies at the base of a mountain covered in vineyards. The town itself is small but the backdrop is fabulous. We took a cable car up the mountain to view a famous statue which is much like the Statue of Liberty (in fact, Alison thought it was a version of the Statue of Liberty). Instead of paying for a roundtrip, we only paid for one ride and decided it would be best to wander through the vineyards and find our way back down the hill. With our cameras and a bottle of wine we slowly made our way back to town for dinner before the last ferry back.

On Sunday, we spent much of the day exploring the Romantic Rhein from a boat. There is a service from Binger which makes at all the little towns on the Rhein. We stayed on the boat and took pictures of a few dozen castles; it is amazing how many castles are in Germany. I ended up taking hundreds of pictures over the whole weekend. We hopped off the boat in the afternoon at Koblenz. Nearly the entire city is under construction so while we did wander around, there wasn't too much too do or see. We opted for an ice cream on the Moselle River. The sun was beaming all day and we both were sunburned. The weathermen hadn't predicted sunshine. I didn't even pack sunscreen or sunglasses! We were so worn out that we spent the last hour with our feet in a fountain while we watch children play with the water.