Romantic Rhine

06/16/04

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On Friday, April 16th, we headed south towards Frankfurt-am-Main to begin our exploration of the Rhine Valley.  The Rhine River stretches between the Alps and flows into the North Sea, passing numerous castles along the way.  Our destination:  the area between Mainz and Koblenz, which, according to our guidebook, is the most scenic.  After a long drive (and a incredibly long traffic jam), we were finally in Rüdesheim, on the east bank of the Rhine Valley, and ready to explore.  We originally thought we'd have time for a quick preview of Saturday's highlights, but found ourselves almost in Koblenz before turning around.  What we had intended to be a quick 1 - 2 hours drive ended up being a 6-hour trip up and down the Rhine, with castles (and ruins) appearing around each bend of the river.  Although we like to think of castles being  medieval fairy-tale structures, complete with knights in shining armor, they were built by feudal lords and land barons made rich by charging steep tolls for using the Rhine River to transport goods.  Not quite the romantic stereotype, but they are still quite amazing to see.  On Saturday morning, we again headed north on the east bank,  making numerous stops along the way to take pictures or wander through some of the small towns.  Tourist season hadn't quite started, so we had the road to ourselves.  As we approached Koblenz, we decided to ferry across the river and spend the rest of the day exploring the castles and ruins on the west bank.  Sunday morning we had just enough time to tour one more castle before heading back home.

Friday Saturday Burg Rheinfels Schoss Stolzenfels

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This site was last updated 04/22/04

All images on this site are copyrighted by Michelle and Russell Taylor.