Geoff Brock & Bruce Gamble
         
     
 

Rüdesheim
& Koblenz
They held a barbeque on the sun deck at lunchtime. There was a lot of ice cream and I have overdone it a bit, but I am determined to go the banquet tonight. I am already thinking of all that mead...
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Friday 2nd May 2014
  

At approximately 8:40 a.m. we sailed from the River Main into the River Rhine at Mainz. From a peaceful, quiet river with many locks and a countryside feeling, we were now sailing on a mighty commercial river!
 
 
 
Mainz was another place not on our official itinerary, but we did manage to get a few photos as we sailed past.
 
About ninety minutes later we arrived at our next port of call, Rüdesheim, which is also the beginning of the scenic Middle Rhine Valley.
Oh look, that children's road train must be there to take kiddies to the theme park...
 
 
...err, no, that "kiddies" road train was there to transport us into the town!
It dropped us off outside the Museum of Mechanical Musical Instruments. We were not in the mood to be herded, so we took off on our own (again!). John took these photos to show us what we missed.
 
 
 
 
We enjoyed our stroll through the town. It felt a lot more touristy than any of the places we had been to before. I rest my case...
 
 
 
We've been to Swanage too... nice place!
 
 
 

We only had a few hours to spend in the town (which was about right we thought) and we walked back to the ship. The toy train which took us into town was really not necessary we thought, but perhaps the people with walking difficulties might have appreciated it.

We were becoming increasingly dissatisfied with our cruise director. He had a tendency to be more of a showman than an efficient and precise director of operations. Here was one more example where he ought to have provided more details about the destination, even just the basics, like how far the walk was into town so that we could decide how best to see the place.
Another example of our cruise director's failings was that the chair lift up and along the hill was free for Scenic Cruise passengers, on presentation of our ship access card, but we weren't told about this at the port briefing, so we didn't think of doing it. (Our friend John found out quite by chance, went up the hill with Anne and then took this photo of the Niederwald Monument to show us what we had missed... well done, John!)
The weather, although cloudy, was warm enough for the outdoor barbeque on the top deck to go ahead, as scheduled.
 
 
We loved the ice-creams on the ship!
 
Shortly after lunch had been served, we sailed. We were looking forward to one of the highlights of this trip; sailing through the most scenic part of the Rhine, with all of its castles and vineyards.


 
Well as least we got to see the monument that we missed whilst we were ashore.
Some of the barges we passed looked very heavily loaded.
We spent most of the afternoon on the top deck. Unfortunately, the cloudy weather didn't allow us to get really good photos, but it didn't spoil our enjoyment of the wonderful scenery. Geoff was especially pleased to see several trains running on either side of the river.
Ehrenfels Castle
Assmanshausen
Rheinstein Castle
Niederheimbach and Heimburg Castle
Lorchhausen. In the foreground is the St. Bonifatius parish church with Clemenskapelle above it.
Bacharach
Stahleck Castle, Bacharach
 
Pfalzgrafenstein Castle near Kaub
Schönburg Castle overlooking the town of Oberwesel
Schönburg Castle
The Church of Our Lady
 
Oberwesel
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
About forty minutes after passing the Lorelei, we sailed through Boppard
Approximately thirty minutes later, we got our first sighting of Marksburg Castle.
This is where most of our fellow passengers would be going this evening for a medieval banquet... without us!
 
 
 
 
The ship stopped briefly at Braubach to let the castle visitors disembark. Some of the off-duty crew members decided that it would be a good opportunity to take a bike ride on to Koblenz, which is where we were going to spend our evening.
We really enjoyed our quiet evening on the ship. Only a few people had remained aboard and we had a very pleasant meal with some of them. After dinner, we went for a stroll around Koblenz. It was strangely quiet, almost eerily so. It was also quite chilly. Perhaps that is why there was nobody around.
Not far from where we were docked is the confluence of the Rhine and the Mosel rivers.
The Rhine
The Mosel
 
 
 
The cable car wires can be seen crossing the river in the picture above.
 
The ship was still very quiet when we returned from our walk. We had a leisurely drink and went to bed. Another lovely day finished.
 
 
©Geoff Brock and Bruce Gamble