Cruisin’ on the Rhine River

I’ve been wanting to do this for awhile…..so when we were looking for a perfect day trip to do with Aimee, Renaud, and kids, I immediately suggested this.  They seemed up for it so we headed to Bingen Germany on the Rhine where we heard is a good place to hop on to one of the boats.  There is not a lot of info online about this, so we kind of had to figure it out as we went along.  It was a gorgeous and very hot day, but picturesque for this kind of thing. 

We went with the Bingen-Rudesheimer Line mostly because it was leaving right when we got there and it was a decent price.  The boat was like a house boat that cruises slowly up the Rhine.  This particular stretch on the Rhine River is studded with lots of castles on either side of the boat.  Many people say that the best view for seeing all of them is on these day cruisers.  It didn’t take long before we spotted our first castle and the whole hour we were on the boat we constantly saw castles on either side of the boat.  It was pretty cool!    

We’ve been fascinated with their ability to grow crops on a slanted hillside.  We think they are grapes??

The legend of Loreley is summarized in this statue below.  This particular part of the Rhine is dangerous and many boats never made it past this point to St. Goar.  Legend says that a “wunderbares Fraulein” whose long blond hair almost covered her entire body would distract the sailors near this cliff and they would be drowned. 

 

We finally made it to St. Goar and disembarked the boat.  The city was quaint and cute and we made our way through it.  We bought ice-cream and looked in several shops.  One of Cuckoo Clocks, and one of Beer Steins. 

The hike to the Rheinfels Castle was quite steep and it was altogether WAY TOO HOT! 

The tour of the castle was amazing and well worth the views.  There were lots of hidden tunnels, and drop offs.  It was awesome to explore!  Rheinfels Castle was once the biggest Castle on the Rhine.  It was buitl in 1245 and withstood a seige of 30,000 French Troops, but later was destroyed by the French Revolutionary army in 1767. 

 

We climbed to the highest tower for a lookout of the Rhine below:

Cole was hot and tired at this point……so the shirt came off to increase the amount of walking our little “Super guy” will do.  He loses a shirt and apparently gains all kinds of super powers and abilities to carry on.  Whatever works. 

 

The cousins all together…..come again really soon!  We love you guys and had such a great visit!