Germany - Day 5

Another beautiful day!  Both weather-wise and the beauty of this country my eyes were filled with!  I awoke early in the hostel and headed downstairs to do my computer work with disturbing the rest of my roommates.  This was followed by a breakfast of cheese and cold cut meat on dark bread, and cereal with really sweet milk.  I wondered if it was soy milk.  Today's plan was a boat trip on the Rhine River.

We gathered all 18 in our group we piled into the vans and headed to the river about an hour away.  The day was sunny and clear as we boarded the big boat.  It was a really big boat holding a couple of hundred people.  We went clear to the top which was open to the air, and found a place on the rail to enjoy the view.  And what a view it was!  The river must have been really deep throughout the river because huge boats and small barges navigated up and down the river, as well as small boats and kayaks.  I thought of my sons, Eric and Greg when I saw the kayakers.

Today was a day of gorgeaous scenery and castles.  I do not know how many castles we saw but it was a lot!  All along the Rhine we saw the most beautiful scenery you could ever imagine!  The banks mostly went steeply up into a hillside covered by man-made terraces and thousands of grapevines in perfect rows  and green, green trees and foliage.  It is harvest time and we saw many fields being picked.  It was really steep terrain and I think it must be really difficult to walk up and down these hills but I understand that this area is perfect for grapes as they like well- drained soil and it certainly would drain well!

The nature was beautiful beyond words and the man-made structures were awe-inspiring.  There were small quaint villages mainly with an old-world charm of architecture and then there were the castles!  There were abandoned castles beginning to fall into ruin as well as castles that still had activities being held in them. Some were hotels and others I do not know what they were used for but I saw people there.  It was easy to let my imagination go to work and imagine what it was like hundreds of years ago when these were built and wonder how in the world they got the stone block used to build them, placed in any kind of manner to build a building!  Wow!

No pictures for today.  Not enough time. Leaving you for now.  Deb