Day 6 Bacharach and the Rhine
|
Guten tag! This morning was a lovely morning to wake up to. The sun was out, the sky so blue. There is a castle sitting on a hill outside my window! Today we also get the wonderful opportunity to explore the castle studded Rhine Valley. What a gift we have today! This morning started with a delicious breakfast including some of the best yogurt I have ever tasted! It takes a great breakfast to prepare us for the day ahead. First we will meet up with a local guide here in Bacharach, the infamous Herr Jung. After this we will catch up with Richard who will drive us to St. Goar where we will meet another guide for a tour through a ruined castle. Finally a cruise up the Rhine River which will return us to Bacharach. The evening is then ours to do what we would like to on our own.
After breakfast I decided to once again wander over the tall wall which connects to the restaurant owned by our hotel owners as we wait for our Bacharach guide to arrive. Along the way I found a statue of a night watchman or guard who is happy on one side and angry on the other. This town is so charming. I love it here! Soon, however, I was being beckoned back to the hotel for today's first tour. Herr Jung is one of the beautiful treasures we had the pleasure to meet on this journey. This man, whose name translates to Mr. Young, has quite a story to tell. It is heartbreaking what he has seen. Yet, despite the pain he has known and seen in his life, having lived through WWII he has focused on bringing light and hope into this world. He met us at the restaurant connected to our hotel just after breakfast. The first thing that he did was pass out maps of Bacharach to us. Certain areas we were going to be visiting this morning were colored in, however he started by saying, "I did not have enough time to color all of your maps. You may do it at home. The sky is blue, the water is blue, the mountains are green, and the wall is brown." "Although it was 70 years ago I can still hear the guns."
|
This man walked us along the wall that served, historically, as a fortification for the city. We walked down the stairs to a well and then around the corner to the front of our hotel. Here he stopped us and told us about his experiences during WWII as a child. His story was hard to hear. It humanized and personalized what I had only heard about in a public school class room. He brought the pain, suffering and pure hell of war to our attention so that we could see it, hear it, feel it. By the end of his story nearly everyone had tears in their eyes.
"You had to watch how they killed each other... It was like in movies, really. It was so terrible."
|
|
|
Herr Jung led us straight down the street from our hotel to a little shop that displayed wood carvings in the windows. This shop also had lovely watercolor paintings for sale featuring Bacharach in a very light and cheerful way. I noticed some of these paintings on the walls of our hotel and had admired them there. Now here they were in beautiful watercolor.
We all piled inside this little shop and circled around a piano in the middle of the shop. The shopkeeper greeted us cheerfully, sat down before us and began to play Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World." After hearing the moving memories of Herr Jung this song stirred strong emotions once more in all of us. It was peaceful, and very quiet in the room save for the sound of the piano. It gave us all a moment to reflect on Herr Jung's story and what it meant to each of us. However, from the ashes and the tears and pain we have found something beautiful to treasure. This little town, once touched by bombs of WWII, has flourished and rebuilt. Here it is now, a diamond in the Rhine. It really is a wonderful world that we live in. |
I was very thankful to have the opportunity to return to this little shop later on in the day to purchase a few of the painting prints from him. He was so helpful and helped make sure we had everything that we wanted.
Following the little concert we returned to the street to continue on our exploration of the charming town. As we walked we learned about certain buildings along the way, such as the ruins of the silent sentinel - Wernerkapelle which sits upon the hillside and is a gorgeous landmark along the river. This church took 140 years to build and was built in the name of a man who is said to have been murdered by a group of Jewish people in the 1200's. It sits above St. Peter's Church, which is another lovely building that is quite distinctive.
We walked past a wishing well. Herr Jung passed out a couple of pennies and asked people to make a wish. Emily used one of her coins to make a wish. From the well we walked up, passing yellow fields on the hillside where vineyards are stretched up to the highest peak. Our destination on this hill was a tower which we could climb and see a lovely view of the town with St. Peter's Church and the ruins being the two main structures that your eyes see. From this area you could also see the river. Back in the day anyone making their way down the river with goods was forced to pay a toll to each of the castles on the Rhine in order to pass. The toll was dependant upon the goods being carried. With all of the castles along the river can you imagine all of the stops? |
|
|
After climbing the tower to the most beautiful view, the view I had looked forward to seeing, we came down once more and walked through another part of the town. Eventually we wound our way back to the hotel where we had a couple minutes to run inside and use the restroom if we wished before we met up with Richard so that he could drive us to St. Goar. St. Goar is another town found on the Rhine. We had a little bit of time down in the town before going up to the castle. In this time we observed a stein demonstration on how they are made. The man had a beautiful collection. These are just a small few. Just down the street there was another shop that sold cuckoo clocks. Of course we loved looking at them and hearing them chime. Some of the clocks would cuckoo and then sing after that. They were all so beautiful, and there were so many variations!
There were other tourist shops along the way down the main road. In one of them Emily found a little crank music box that plays the tune, "In Munchen steht en Hofbrauhaus" which is a erman drinking song. While in the store she kept playing it because she liked the way it sounded. The lady at the register started singing under her breath. When we looked up at her she apologized and said, "Sorry, I like that song... That is our drinking song. Now I am thirsty." Haha good times. Of course Emily loved her new little music box and played the song many times throughout the day. We had lunch at a little cafe. Here we had pretzels, a bread mouse, apple strudel, and a chocolate treat. Mom and Emily had hot chocolate. Look at the beautiful mugs! It was a nice little break time prior to our exploration of the beautiful Rheinfels Castle. |
After our lunch we hurried over to the area where we could meet the "Tschu-tschu" to take us up to the ruins of the Rheinfels Castle perched above St. Goar. Half of the group decided to walk while the rest of us rode the little train (highly recommended, it looked like a steep hike and you'll need your energy later- a.k.a. Neuschwanstein!). We passed the walking group as we ascended the hill up to the castle, waving to them as we did (except for Emily who was playing her music box). We reached the top before they did as well so we decided to go and check out the views and admire the castle from the bridge. Finally the walking group caught up greeted by laughs and the typical "What took you so long?". Together we walked to the entrance of the castle. Here we had an opportunity to use the restrooms. They were quite interesting. The ladies and the gentlemen's restrooms were connected and separated by a door. That hardly kept the group's curiosity at bay. Germany has some unique restrooms, so girls check out the guy's and guy's check out the girls. These restrooms were very fitting for the location. In order to flush the toilet you had to pull on a hanging metal handle above the toilet. The sink was a sink with a pump handle. It was all very charming. On the other side of the gate we met with our guide who led us through the castle grounds. She took us under gates, through darkened tunnels in which we needed to use our flashlights. She explained how the castles were built up on the mountains so that they could see if an enemy was coming. They were built near the river so that supplies could be delivered, but also so that ships coming through could be taxed or tolled. Every so often on the walk we would see two wooden boards sitting on either side of a window. In the olden days when the king or queen needed to use the restroom they would slap a board across these wooden pieces, sit on it and go. (Can you imagine walking by when.... yeah.) A couple of the tunnels that they led us through were a little tight, but we all made it through with little problems. The grounds of this ruined castle are absolutely incredible. The ruins are so eternally exotic. It is exhilarating thinking about everyone who shared the same paths that we do. What happened in those halls or rooms so many years ago? Who tread there? That is half of the excitement of walking through these ruins. |
After touring though the Castle Riihenfels we hopped the tschu-tschu and took it back down. We had just a little while between arriving down in the town and hopping on the boat that would carry us casually up the river back to Bacharach. We returned to the cuckoo clock store to look around once more. Mom wanted a cuckoo clock before we left home. Now, here in Germany, she could see the clocks, hear them, experience them much better than she would have been able to if she purchased one online instead. She bounced nervously between two which she really enjoyed. Time was not on her side as we counted down the fleeting moments before we had to meet for the river cruise. Unfortunately this time the boat would not wait for us like the bus does.
Finally a decision was made with just enough time for us to purchase the clock, fill out the paperwork to have it shipped home, and then for us to run to the dock where we were going to be catching the boat. We made it there just minutes before the boat arrived. We were greeted by some fellow group members who had also purchased clocks. "Did you get it?" Was the first thing out of their mouths. Mom, still numb and shocked that she had made the purchase nodded. This was greeted with a couple of cheers from our fellow group members. I also could not wait to see the cuckoo clock in person and see it up on our wall! The cruise was beautiful! We could not have asked for a more beautiful day to be on the river. Once we boarded the boat we quickly made our way up to the open air deck so that we could have a panoramic view of the valley. Many members of the group went to the upper deck as well. We three stuck together so that we could catch every castle and beautiful building between St. Goar and Bacharach. The cruise felt too short. We had a lovely time watching the mountains, castles, water, clouds. What a dream. |
Once we arrived back in Bacharach Dimitri, our guide, had us gather at a nearby park where we were going to play the infamous name game. We stood in a circle and within this circle we had a start person who stated their name. The next person would repeat the first person's name and their own (Hint: stand close to the front of the circle if possible!). Each time the list of names gets longer as you always start with the first person and end with yourself. However, while it may seem intimidating, this game really works!
Following the name game Dimitri told us that the rest of the day was ours to do what we wanted within Bacharach. Our first stop was the artist's shop where we had seen the gentleman play the piano earlier in the day. I purchased 4 prints from him and mom got a couple as gifts. There were so many lovely pieces in his shop it really was hard to decide which were my favorites. Emily worked with the gentleman and had him write Bacharach into a little wooden box she purchased inside the shop. We then returned to the room to drop off our purchases and regroup before we were going to make our way up the hill to check out the beautiful Stahleck Castle which is now a youth hostel. Some of the group was going with Dimitri to do some wine tasting. As we came down we saw one of the ladies, Lanny, who was sitting on the stairs. She said she was waiting for the wine tasting group who had already left without her knowing. We invited her to come along up to the castle. She agreed and together we wandered through the streets of Bacharach trying to find our way up to the castle. As it turns out there are several trails leading up to Stahleck Castle. However when we came across the first sign on the hiking trail we found ourselves very confused. It was pointing in opposite directions saying the same thing. Additionally everything is measured in either kilometers or minutes/hours. Additionally... everything is in German. Help! Eventually we found our way up the hill to the castle as well as some breathtaking views of the town down below. The castle itself was full of children, however it looked like an amazing place for a bunch of children to be staying. I imagine for them it would be like a dream. Because the castle is a hostel you could not enter many of the rooms or explore the castle, other than the walk ways through the castle. It was still a nice place to sit and talk and enjoy the weather and the scenery. After awhile we found another trail that led to a higher overlook of the castle, the town and the river. It was a lovely hike and a great time (Much better than wine tasting in my opinion). |
|
Coming down from the castle we decided to take another route. This route had more stairs, however it was faster and took us down to the ruins of the old church and past St. Peter's church. It was fun to go and explore that area in the daylight.
By this time we were getting quite hungry. We had a couple ideas of what we would like to have for dinner. It just came down to finding a place to eat. We wove our way through the cozy streets of Bacharach looking at menus posted outside restaurants. Along the way we found some wisteria, one of mom's favorite flowers. As we searched I looked in the window of a nearby restaurant and in the window I could see the part of our group who was inside doing the wine tasting. I waved at them and they waved back. We came around the corner of the building to another entrance and looked at their menu. They had the exact meal we were wanting on our second night in Germany, bockwurst, sauerkraut, and potato salad. The four of us went inside and sat down for a delicious meal. Emily also ordered an authentic German beer. According to her it is the best beer she has ever had, of course she has only had 4 beers in her life. The meal itself was also very delicious. We were very happy by the end of the meal. Our tummies were pretty happy too! After dinner we meandered our way back to the hotel. This second night in Bacharach is our last for now. We had to return to the room to pack up our bags once more and prepare for early departure in the morning. I love Bacharach. It is such a charming town. It feels comfortable here (and it is not just the wonderful room that we shared, or the castle outside our window). Gute nacht! |