Tuesday, October 23rd - Rhein River Cruise
Bob: For our last day on the Rhein River, we decided to do what I have wanted to do ever since I drove along the Rhein on my motorcycle in 1973, and that was to take a riverboat cruise along the river. Since we were at St. Goar just downstream from the Lorelei Rocks, we decided to take a cruise upriver to the town of Ruedesheim, have lunch there, and return in the afternoon. So after breakfast we walked down to the Koeln-Duesseldorf kiosk at St. Goar, paid 18 Euros each (1/2 price Senior fares only happen on Mondays and Fridays, drat it!), and waited impatiently for the ship to chug upriver to the landing dock. The "Jeverland" was a medium-sized touring ship, so when we boarded we ran up to the top deck and got a front row seat where we sat and shivered for the next two hours before finally giving up and retreating to the warm, cozy cabin down below. Up on top we were able, however, to get unobstructed views (and pictures) of the magnificent scenery that we were flowing past. First off were the Lorelei Cliffs themselves and the abrupt "S" turn that the Rhein River has to make to circumvent them. They were really quite rugged and it would have been easy to hit the side banks on those old sailing ships, so I could understand how the legend of sirens luring sailors to crash on the rocks might have started. |
Monika: The day dawned cold but clear. We really have been extremely lucky with the weather. Although it became colder during the last week, we had only one day of rain, and during that one we were driving. So today we were going to use the sunshine to do a Rhein cruise along the most beautiful part of the Rhein from St. Goar to Ruedesheim passing the Lorelei and numerous ABCs ("Another Bloody Castle"). I had hoped to get the cheap half price fare for seniors but that was in operation only on Monday AND Friday (not through Friday, as I had hoped). So since today was Tuesday and we were leaving on Wednesday I reluctantly forked over full fares for both of us. But it was certainly worth it. We had dressed warmly so we decided to sit on the upper deck and sail into the sunshine. Since the trip upstream was relatively slow, we had little wind. The views were truly magnificent. After the Palisade like cliff formation through the S curve at the Lorelei - yes the boat played the Lorelei Volksong while passing by the cliffs. |
Bob: The next section of the Rhein reminded me of the Hudson Palisades area in the state of New York near where Judson and Sarah live. The wooded bluffs there plunged into the river in a rather dramatic manner. The one big difference is that the slopes of some of the hills bordering the Rhein were covered with vineyards whereas the Hudson Palisades are purely forest as I recall. The leaves of the vines were turning yellow and orange, and the brilliant colors added to the spectacular views. |
Monika: The landscape turned into vineyards that went up the mountainside. I found it truly astonishing how they could tend the plants and harvest the grapes at the angles some of them were. This late into the fall, the vineyards had all turned a beautiful yellow and were easily seen along the slopes. At one particular vineyard, one section of grapeleaves had turned to a beautiful red. We were both wondering what type of grape it was. |
Bob: We also passed by several large castles built on the promontories overlooking the Rhein. These were almost always the product of the local baron trying to extort taxes from the passing river traffic. Some seemed completely intact while others were either wholly or partly in ruins, but all of them were very picturesque. One was built right in the middle of the river on a small island, and I'm sure that they could easily stop river traffic to levy some taxes, but I also had to wonder how that castle managed to survive the flooding that I expect was true on the Rhein in the old days. |
Monika: Of course, there were castles at every turn of the river. Some had been turned into hotels or youth hostels. All looked forbidding up on the hillsides. One castle, Pfalz, was in the middle of the Rhein and had been designed to look like a ship. It used to be a custom house. Hard to sneak by this one without handing over some money. |
Bob: We stopped at Ruedesheim and Monika and I wandered up the Drosselgasse, a narrow crooked street or really an alley leading uphill from the waterfront. It was quite picturesque, but in a very touristy sense with boutiques, expensive cafes, and stores selling souvenirs. Turning right at the top of the Drosselgasse we found a nice cafe that had reasonable prices and sat down to a hearty lunch of chicken breast, boiled potatoes and cauliflower (me) and highly-spiced spaghetti (Monika). We just had time to finish lunch and hurriedly pay our bill before walking quickly back downhill to catch the 2:15 boat back to St. Goar. Had we not caught that boat we would have had to wait to catch the 4:15 one. We could have spent the two hours there, of course, but I didn't cared for the idea of spending 2 hours in Ruedesheim because it was basically a town of tourist shops and I just didn't feel like shopping. |
Monika: At Ruedesheim, the Rhein widened and the land started to be flat. We got off here and had exactly one hour before we had to get back on board for the trip back. We wanted to have maximum sunshine when going back, so we had opted for the 2:15 boat back. We walked along the most famous street or better alley of Ruedesheim, the Drosselgasse, and finally found a restaurant, that seemed to have food that was acceptable for Bob (i.e. somewhat low fat). The food was excellent, but it definitely was not "fast" food, so by the time we were done, we had to hustle back to the ship without doing any shopping (sigh). |
Bob: The trip back down was quite a bit quicker as we were being swept along by the current rather than fighting it. As a result, our trip back to St. Goar lasted about 2 hours compared to the 3 hours it took us to get upstream. Having seen all the sights once and being rather chilled we elected to spend most of our time either on a sheltered, sunny spot in the open on the rear deck or inside that cozy, heated cabin. Back in St. Goar, we walked over to the bakery on the main pedestrian street for some rolls for dinner and then walked home, had dinner, and relaxed for the rest of the evening. |
Monika: The trip back was a lot faster (2 hours instead of 3). The current really seems to be quite strong. Stopping while going downstream seemed to be a lot more difficult than it was going upstream. We decided to sit inside where it was warm, since the wind was against us and with the faster tempo it was quite cold outside, and afterall we had taken more than enough pictures on the slower trip upriver. It still was a beautiful trip. Back at St. Goar we bought some rolls and went back to the hotel, eating the rolls and the last cheese for evening meal and finishing the last bottle of beer. We managed to enter Heinke's address into the new Aldi GPS, so hopefully we will get back safely tomorrow. |
| Prolog | Germany Map | Cruise Map | Epilog |
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