Rhine River Cruise

So very much like Vandeway (or Tammy) fashion we decided to keep busy and on Sunday August 24 we went on a Rhine River cruise.  Our wonderful friends said they would keep the boys for the day and I can't tell you how glad I am that they did!!  The boys would have been so bored and like the other kids on the cruise I heard talking to their parents about when it was going to be over, etc  It was so nice to be able to relax take our time and enjoy the beautiful day!!.

 

We took a USO tour which stopped at the Rheinstein Castle first.  It was a pretty decent hike up to the castle.

 

As we headed up the view over the river was breathtaking!!  You can see all the grapes growing over on the hill.  I still am not sure how they harvest them on that steep of hills.

 

Rheinstein Castle was built in the early 14th century.  It went through many archbishops until the 17th century were it started to decay.  In 1823 it was bought by Prince Friedrich of Prussia.  

 

 

In 1975 the last owner sold this castle to former opera singer Hermann Hecher, who preserved it from misuse and is still privately owned by his family. 

 

 

A view from the top of the tower overlooking the Rhein River, I sure could get used to that!!!

 

There were grapes all over the top of their outdoor garden, they are not ripe yet because these are purple grapes - I know technical term huh?

 

David and I up at the castle.  You can see the well off to the left side that was in their garden.

 

 

So if there was somebody who did something wrong, this is where they were put in.  You can't really see it from this photo, but there is a spike in the middle of it at the bottom.  They would leave somebody hanging in this for quite awhile and as you can see it is from the highest point on the castle.  I don't think I would like hanging in there at all.

 

 

The Rittersaal is the biggest room in the castle and had the most impressive furnishings.  They tried to make a three dimensional look on the walls as the painted and it wasn't bad for back then.  You can see coats of arms around the whole room and above the fireplace are different styles of helmets.

 

This was the Princess Luise's bedroom.  One interesting fact we found out is that you can see the bed is really short, you couldn't really sleep on your back.  Well because of the hairstyles back then, princesses many times slept sitting up as to not ruin their hair.  I am not sure if I could sleep like that all the time and for hair no less.

 

I really love their attention to detail.  Look at the drawings etched into the glass.  So beautiful!

 

 

This was the view from the princess' writing and reading room.  I know I said it before, but man what a view, I would love to wake up to that!

 

This was one of the few castles that had indoor plumbing, well kind of.  He is their bathroom, a big hole that goes down into a big hole. 

 

This is the Knappenhalle.  You can see all the antlers and the hunting that they did, but boy were they small animals.  They also collected many relics while living there, you can see at the end of the hallway old suits of armor.

 

 

The chapel was built after the prince took over.  He wanted a simple chapel for his family.  It is on of the most outstanding examples of neo-Gothic architecture on the Rhein River.  Under the chapel is the crypt, with the coffins of Prince Friedreich, his wife Luise and his son Georg.

 

A picture of the castle from the café.  You can see the chapel in the middle and how small it really is.  After a nice little bit of dessert, we headed back to the bus and were on our way to the boat.

 

I have to say it is amazing  how many castles were built on the Rhine.  I didn't take a picture of all of them because there were so many.  Here are a few that we saw on our journey.

 

We sat inside to have a good German lunch and David tried a new beer while we were there.  It was a great lunch and we even had dessert.  It was ok dessert, but I am not fond of their whip cream and it was mostly that.

 

I thought this was interesting, you can see old castle walls in the hillside.  I wonder if there are hidden caves or tunnels under them.

 

Another cool castle on the way!!!

 

We decided after lunch we wanted to go sit outside in the beautiful sunshine and enjoy the view down the river.

 

 

I wish I knew the names of all these, but I had a hard time hearing the commentator on the boat.  But it didn't take away from the beauty of them.  This is the Rheinstein Castle looking from the river.

 

This is called the Mouse Tower.  It is under going re-construction right now but was once used to collect tolls on the river.  Chains were pulled across the river to stop all traffic until they paid their tolls.

 

 

I decided that I wanted a turn on the driving the boat.  Ok, not really but I am sure I would have been a good captain!  Next we stopped in the town of Rudesheim.  It is a beautiful town!!!  Again I am glad the kids weren't there because they would have been bored out of their minds.  David and I  just strolled along  the streets to see what  was there.

 

This was one of may community fountains in the city.

 

We had to stop at a café and try the local Rudesheim coffee.  We were told it was really good.  It is quite a process to make also.  The put brandy in the glass and then light it on fire (you can see the match in the upper left corner) then they stir it until it is nice and hot.  Next they pour in the coffee and last but not least, they top it with whip cream and chocolate.

 

The finished product, I didn't like it at all but David said it was okay.  It had a strong brandy taste and not much coffee taste to it.

 

Relaxing, enjoying people watching and David his coffee.

 

Now I am sure by now you all know that we find ice cream wherever we go for the kids, well they weren't with us, so we decided to have one in their honor.  :-)  Or it was such a beautiful day that ice cream sounded  awesome!!!!  After enjoying  our time in Rudesheim, we headed up the hill to see a huge statue. 

 

 

The view from the top of the hill.  You can see so far especially because it was such a nice day!

 

This is the Niederwald Monument.  The world-famous Niederwald Monument was formally inaugurated in 1883. It is over 124 feet tall and is considered the "German National Monument" and commemorates the unification of the German states to become the German Empire in 1871.

The monument presents the Germania with the crown of the emperor and a sword in the left hand side.  You can see David and the bottom to show how big it is.

 

You can see some of the detail in this monument.  They have these people stacked quite a few rows deep.  It was such a relaxing day and so nice to be able to spend it with David and just go our own pace!!  The boys also had so much fun at their friends house so it was a definitely win win situation for everybody!!!