Bacharach, St. Goar, and Cologne

We finally arrived in Frankfurt at 9:30am on Wednesday the 23rd! What a long time traveling. Luckily German Customs let us in quickly and efficiently and even welcomed us to Germany. I wonder if US Customs is even half as friendly. As we walked through the Frankfurt Airport, and saw German writing all around and didn't recognize the language, we did have a brief moment of "what the heck are we doing?" But without fear, and only a little hesitation, walked on.

We successfully found a bank machine, and Jason successfully withdrew his euros. I was not, successful, however. I talked to Bank of America before I left, so I wondered if it was simply an issue with the time change and decided I'd try later. The gentlemen at the Information Center was very helpful. They printed a train schedule, signed our rail passes, and even picked up my jacket when I dropped it.

We were so happy to have found our train, we were reluctant to board it and leave the quiet tunnel we discovered all on our own. We had mostly success so far, but could we push our luck forward? Yes, we could!

Soon we were on our way to Bacharach. With the time change, we needed to stay up all day. We could already tell this was going to be a tough task but had excitement and determination on our side. With a slight delay in Bingen (what, we have to push the button to open the train door? bye bye train), we caught a second train and were soon in our destination. We wandered up the main road, took a left, wiped the sweat from our brows, and soon saw a glorious sight- the haus we were going to find sleep in tonight. (I really thought I had packed light, but I was already thinking of what I don't really need and can leave along the way.)

Sybille was a very friendly host and quickly showed us our rooms. Not allowing fatigue to get the best of us, we decided to take the 2o minute hike up to Jugendherberge Stahleck Castle. After a few wrong turns, the 20 minute hike turned into an hour and the castle was renamed "that damn castle." At least we were able to take some nice pictures with a view and discovered a beautiful Jewish memorial building with stained glass.

By this time we were famished, so we found a delightful restaurant with outdoor seating. This town is famous for its reisling wines, and the Bastian's Weingut zum Gruner Baum is even more famous for it's 14 euro wine tasting of 15 glasses of reisling. As we were already delirious, we decided the meat and buttered bread would be just perfect. After dinner, we wandered to our room and fell asleep fully clothed at 7pm. We didn't wake up until 7am.

Neither of us think we had slept that soundly since we were babies. We woke up to sunshine and the sound of birds. I felt like I was in the movie Snow White. We took a short walk along the castle wall, through the vineyards, in the early misty morning. Then we returned for a delightful breakfast of waffles, yogurt, meats and cheese. We were ready for our next adventure... and then it started to rain. Really rain. Seattle style rain. Uh oh. There were plans to tour an outdoor ruined castle. Had our luck run out?

Oh, yes! The rain stopped just at check-out time. Perfect! We were soon on the K-D Cruise boat taking videos of the castles on the Rhine. We hopped off at St. Goar, got a little bit lost trying to find the tourist information office to keep our bags (I thought I had packed light!), and jumped onto the nature trail to the Rheinsfel Castle. The nature walk was magical, Jason found a ropes course, and I fought a hobbit hole.

We spent about 2 hours at the ruined castle, imagining castle life. We dodged the medieval arrows, missed the boiling tar poured down from the towers, and escaped out of the prison. There will be pictures upon our return.

After the castle, we had a late lunch at a traditional German restaurant. I had roast beef and learned they like raisins in their gravy and LOVE their sour red cabbage. Jason learned that dumpling are best with LOTS of gravy (or sauceage as our waiter called it.)

Now we are at the Station Hostel in Cologne (spelled Koln in German and don't ask us how to properly say the "o".) The train ticket takers have been very friendly to us Americans and have helped us get to our destinations quickly; we got here 35 minutes faster than planned thanks to their help. We were told we would be in awe as we exited the train station because the Koln Cathedral would be right in front of us. Yes, our jaws dropped and we did have to pick them up. We will be touring this Neo-Gothic Dom tomorrow and will make our pilgrimage to the Shrine of the Magi where the bone of the Three Wise Men are housed. If we don't upload pictures, this is something that should be googled.

After the Cathedral tomorrow, we will be off to Dusseldorf to have dinner with my friend Sonja and then on to Amsterdam!

Updates will be coming as we have internet access!