Der Romantische Rhein

The Romantic Rhine (River)



Last weekend, two of my fellow Fulbrighters from Marburg, Chris and Shane, traveled (from Berlin and Munich, respectively) to take a little weekend trip along the Rhine River. Apparently this is one of the more touristy areas in all of Germany, and it is right in my neighborhood!

Considering the relative loquaciousness of my last post, this one will be very picture-heavy and word-light (to the best of my ability, anyway ;)). Before I start posting pictures, here are just a few quick impressions of the region. First of all, as you will see, it had some of the cutest little riverside towns (townships, really) that I've ever seen. Everything was so picturesque in that neat, tidy, German fashion. This area is known for its wine production, so all of the foliage-laden hillsides were covered with vineyards - we were lucky enough to snag a couple of bottles of local wine, which was, of course, delicious. Secondly, I heard more English spoken on this weekend along the Rhine than I ever heard anywhere else in Germany - including in the airport and Frankfurt. Although our German guidebooks spoke very highly of the region and we probably should have anticipated this, it was really weird to be surrounded by so many native English speakers (most of them American). We also had a few really awkward incidents where, upon hearing our American accents, people immediately switched to English or gave us English menus, even though we are more than capable of communicating in German - especially for food, transportation and sight-seeing!

Without further ado - I give you the beautiful Rhine:

The little town of Bacharach, where we started our journey.

Vineyards, Fachwerkhäusen, and some really unusual statues of heads.



Vineyard.

The cute little center of town.

On the banks of the river, just before we missed our intended boat tour for the day.

The only picture I managed to get of the three of us the entire weekend (taken in our next stop along the river - Boppard) - sorry that it is so Ashlan-centric, but I apparently haven't mastered that incredibly useful skill of taking pictures of oneself.

The morning view from our hotel room window. The guy who owned this hotel was great - when we walked in the night before and asked for a room, he replied to us (in a thick Britsh accent) "it sounds like we speak the same language!"

Another cute town along the river - St. Goar.




The castle that we hiked up the hill to see.

My favorite view from the entire trip.

Up close...

Adorable little mouse breads in a bakery window.

Did I mention that they catered to Americans here? ;)



While on our boat tour from St. Goar, we passed the Loreley - this is a significantly curvy/rocky area of the river where many ships perished. In fact, so many sailors supposedly died here that people made up a story about a siren-like woman who hung out on this cliff and lured them to their deaths with her voice.

The Loreley again.









Beautiful!