The Rhine River flows through one of Germany’s most scenic
regions. This area is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We passed vineyard
blanketed hills whose steep slopes require them to pick grapes by hand, as they
have done for centuries.
I was going to try and give you the names of the castles,
but looking at my notes and the pictures, I am not sure which is which. So, I
will just share with you some pictures and when I do know something I will tell
you about it. These are the first two castles that we saw and the church is
called Claymons Chapel.
Here are some more castles along the way. The last picture
is a mileage marker. Every kilometer there is one of these mile markers to tell
you where you are along the Rhine.
I do not know if you all are familiar with the Lorelei rock,
but here is the story. It rises 430 feet above the river, where the river
narrows down to not much over 350 feet wide. Over the centuries, tricky
currents and treacherous rocks have spelled disaster for many ships passing
this point. This inspired the German poets, Clemens Brentano and Heinrich
Heine, to invent the ‘Legend of the Lorelei’, which told of a beautiful girl
whose seductive song lured mariners to their doom on the rocks at the foot of
the impressive cliff.
Here are some pictures of the rock, with the flags on top
and the statue of Lorelei.
And a few more castles without names.
These two castles are next to each other and were owned by
brothers. They got into a feud and you will see in one of these pictures a wall
that one brother built to keep the other brother from his castle.
And this is the last castle and is called Marksburg Castle.
It is the only castle in the Rhine Valley that has not been destroyed and then
rebuilt.
We are now going to dock in Koblenz, Germany and then guess
what? We are going to the Marksburg castle, because we have not seen enough
castles. So, more castle pictures to follow.
We just got to Paris a little while ago, and the internet is great, so will post the rest soon.
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