We woke up this morning just after 8 to find first, that the ship was moving - we'd slept through our leaving - and second, that the UK still exists, to our great relief. We had slept unexpectedly late though, so we had a bit of a scramble to get showered and dressed. We weren't really concerned about missing breakfast, which goes on until 9.30, but somebody wanted to come in and re-organise our cabin. During the day, our cabin has two bench seats. During dinner, somebody comes in and turns them into two beds. During breakfast, they want to turn them back into seats again.
There's so much food nice here, we worry about getting hugely fat. I should have taken a photo of my dinner last night; it was a stuffed courgette flower, and so beautifully presented it seemed a shame to eat it. Dinners are at least 4 courses - an appetiser, soup, main course and dessert. And there's a cheese buffet as well!
As we progressed down the Rhine, the Internet disappeared completely, and it not clear whether it was the higher banks or just pressure on the connection from too many iPads and phones trying to connect, so I was free to stop dealing with email and go onto the deck to admire the scenery.
The first place of any size we passed was Koblenz, a town situated where the Rhine meets the Moselle. We could see other boats, including other tourist boats, turning down the Moselle. The meeting place of the two rivers is marked by a monumental statue of Emperor William l.
We stop there on the way back - though my guide book describes it as 'not a nice city' - so I expect I'll have more to write about it then.
After Koblenz, you start to see many of the Rhine castles. The first remarkable one, Schloss Stolzenfels, is a romantic re-build, and is currently undergoing restoration, as you can see.
Oppose this Schloss is the little town of Lahneck, which also has a castle, Burg Lahneck. A Burg is a defensive fortress, a Schloss is a showy palace. Burg Lahneck is set further back and it was a very dull morning, so my photo of that isn't good; the little town looked quite attractive though, and had a defensive tower.
The next castle, Marksburg, pictured below, is the only surviving medieval castle on the Rhine.
As you can see, it is everybody's idea of what a medieval castle ought to be. Because of its commanding position, it was apparently never attacked in the Middle Ages - though the Americans captured it in 1945. It is now set up as a museum, with various rooms set up to show aspects of life in a castle. Unfortunately, we won't have time to visit it. Our guide on the boat told us that you could see medieval chastity belts on display, but my guide book tells me that women only wore these when travelling as a protection against rape.
At lunch time, the ship stopped at Boppard, a small town which apparently has some impressive Roman remains, but we have not had time to find them. After lunch, we set off on an expedition to Cochem, a town on the Moselle. (If you wonder how to pronounce the name of this town, the 'Coch' part is pronounced like 'Loch' in Scotland)
A coach took us on the one hour drive back to the Moselle, which was rather more exciting than we had expected. The road climbed to quite a height - high enough for the temperature to drop by 4 degrees - and was extremely narrow and winding, with very few crash barriers. One of the hairpin bends was almost 180 degrees and the road was only really wide enough for one vehicle. We did meet a few cars, but they found somewhere to pull off - it's hard to argue with a big coach! There were several occasions when we really didn't see how such a big coach could manage to get around such a tight bend on such a narrow road, but we obviously had a very experienced driver. The road eventually descended to the Moselle which we drove alongside for quite a while. The river is much calmer and quieter than the Rhine, but, like the Rhine, is also bordered by vineyards.
The Moselle here doesn't look big enough for the big tourist boats, but quite a number of them were moored in Cochem. I haven't managed to photograph the steepest vineyards here, but you can see them going quite a way up this hillside. We were told that most of the hillsides in this area are so steep that most of the work (apart from the spraying by helicopter) has to be done by hand. The work is hard and demanding on the steep hills, and workers have to face up the slope when working in the vineyard, to avoid falling on their faces, or needing to have one leg longer than the other! Apparently, many young people no longer want to do such hard manual labour, and we saw many vineyards around Cochem which had become derelict. Out of the 27 vineyards which surrounded Cochem a generation ago, only 8 remain in use. I am indebted to our young German guide, Markus, for all of these details.
Cochem is a small town of 5000 inhabitants, though it has over 2 million visitors a year. Many come for the wine, but some come to climb up to visit the castle, parts of which are Medieval. This is it.
The remaining Medieval parts are the big tower in the centre and the smaller tower to the left of it. Originally built in the 13th century, it was mostly destroyed by the French under Louis XlV in 1689, and was largely derelict for almost 200 years before being bought and restored by a rich Berlinner.
Of course in the Middle Ages, the town was walled; most of the walls now only remain as a line of hotels, but you can still see the town gates.
The yellow building on the right belonged to the gatehouse keeper.
The towns inhabitants kept smallholdings outside the walls for growing their food, and many made holes in the wall so that they could easily get out to tend their crops. Only one of these is left; our guide referred to it a a 'foxhole'.
The Moselle has risen and flooded the town on a number of occasions, and the highest floods are marked on a wall.
You can see how high above people's heads the floods reached.
The town was bombed a good deal in the Second World War, and 70% of it was destroyed. But there are still some 300 or 400 year old half-timbered houses left, and there has also been a good deal of restoration.
This is the main town square, with the pink 'Rathaus' on the left, and the onion-shaped dome of the church behind. Apparently, the onion-shaped domes on the churches reflect the influence of the Prussian style. There's a visiting band from the Netherlands performing in the square.
We tasted and then bought some peach liqueur. It's made from some tiny peaches which only grow in this small region; they're called red vineyard peaches, they are only the size of a small plum and have a very big stone and a very thick furry skin.
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