The Rhine Valley - 1st to 4th of July 2011

Our friends took the Friday afternoon off work and so we picked up the hire car from the train station to set off south from Dusseldorf to the Rhine Valley. A few paperwork issues with the hire car company led to an unexpected bonus for Warren: he was the named driver, and so got to put the pedal to the metal along the famed AutoBahn. In surprisingly poor condition, the Autobahn we were on was basically a two or three laned highway, nothing special in the least, other than the no speed limits, and getting overtaken by Audis at 190 kph.

The main "Rhine Valley" tourist area is a 60km section of the river with castles around every bend. The northern point is a town called Koblenz, where we stayed on Friday night. Situated right where the Rhine River meets one of its main tributaries, the Moselle River, it has a great little old town overlooked by fort perched on the opposite river bank. We had a good look around and got a gondola over the river to the fort for a wine, sausage and views back over town. We happened to be in Koblenz when it seemed every man and his dog were there for some flower festival, that involved sound stages being set up in every square in the city. Couple of drinks later...
Nice late check out and great German breakfast of bread, cheese and meat, and we were on our way further south along the river. There are a number of cool little town perched on the rivers edge, and of course castles a-plenty. This one was Stolzenfels, one of the only castles we ended up actually visiting.
Next stop was a lovely little village called Boppard to stretch the legs.The days drive was only 30km or so, so nice and easy, and so we arrived at our destination, St Goar nice and early. A late lunch (pork schnitzel, still loving being out of Dubai!) and then a mini train up to the castle that overlooks the town for a few more beverages.
Turns out our friends are also big card players, so we found a good picnic spot for some wine and cheese and rocked out a few hands of presidents and 500.
With a whole day ahead of us, we picked up some hire bikes and headed south. Its about 30km from St Goar where we were staying to Bingen, the most southern point of this main touristy Rhine Valley section. We took our time, with plenty of stops along the way for wine tasting, beer, and sausages along the waters edge. Having finally made it to Bingen, we weren't going to turn around and do it all in reverse, so we threw our bikes on a ferry and cruised down river for an hour or so back to St Goar. Another great dinner and more cards and it was time to say goodbye to our friends. They left very early Monday morning for the drive back to Dusseldorf for work, while we jumped on a train south (via Bingen) to our next destination...