Castles on the Rhine today, a casual 100k drive down the edge of the Rhine River and some spectacular scenery. The interesting thing that I didn’t realise is the amount of river traffic on the Rhine, it is very much a working place, and not just the cruise boats full of Australians but there were barges full of coal, gas, containers and various other cargoes.
Some beautiful buildings in some of the communities located along side the river on both sides, there are any number of cross ferries, indeed we saw a school empty and lots of pupils headed for the ferry to go home.
We walked a few hundred metres to see the statue of the Loreley, a siren that lured sailors onto several rocky outcrops in the river especially when the water level was low. We didn’t expect to see the real one but she was there beckoning like mad…..
Mainz is also a typical Rhineland city, lots of medieval buildings surrounded by new modern edifices, but wandering around the old city was a joy and we also saw the best of the worst!
Loreley beckoning…..