And no-one knew but Lorelei....
But if my ship, which sails tomorrow
Should crash against these rocks,
My sorrows I will drown before I die
It's you I'll see, not Lorelei
Apologies for the inconsistent posting here. The internet connections in Germany have been surprisingly bad, and I have been challenged in getting all the photos uploaded/downloaded. Probably didn't help that I unknowingly shot a 19 minute video on my iPhone while it was in my pocket!
About 6 years ago, I was treated for prostrate cancer. The night before my surgery, Linda and I went to a terrific concert at the Warfield Theater in San Francisco for a show by the Irish punk rock band the Pogues. It was a very memorable concert, one of the best and most unusual we have attended. I give some credit for the fact that I beat cancer to the luck of the Irish and the Pogues! As you will learn later, this Pogues song about Lorelei is referring to a German myth about a lovely young woman who distracted sailers on the Rhine to crash their boats. On day 4, our walk took us to the area where Lorelei supposedly did her dirty deeds. Fortunately, I wasn't piloting a boat this day....
We have now completed 6 full days of hiking on the Rheinsteig. Everyone of these hikes would be in the top third of all hikes we have ever done. Today's hike from Braubach to Koblenz would rate in the top 10% of all of our hikes. During this 6 days of hiking, we walked a total of 97.3 miles and climbed 12,190 feet, or 16.2 miles and 2,030 feet per day. The funny thing about the amount of climb on this hike is that the highest "mountain" on the river is perhaps 500-600 feet high. The large accumulation of climb comes because you are constantly going up and down. Very little of this hike was on level ground and the climbs have been fairly step. Of course, this means that not only did we climb 12,190 feet, but also descended 12,190 feet!
One interesting comparison of this hike to our multiple Italian hikes: in Italy, our daily beginning and end spot was often a "hill" town- basically small towns at the top of mountains, but for the Rheinsteig, the beginning/end is a river towns. In Italy, most days began with a steep downhill walk out of town, and ended with an uphill hike, often in the afternoon sun. On the other hand, every walk this week started with a very steep uphill hike, but ended walking downhill. A little easier way to end the day.
Linda and I both feel terrific. We have come a long way since we walked the Spanish Camino in 2013 and suffered numerous foot and body injuries, blisters, etc. No question we are in better shape today. And, the shoes we have this year are probably the best we have had yet- Montrail waterproof trail shoes. It probably also helps that our large bags are being moved by the travel company and not on our backs!
Tomorrow, we are taking a train to Bad Hoffen and skipping 5 sections of the Rheinsteig. We will hike a portion of the Rheinsteig around Bad Hoffen and then the Rheinsteig portion of the trip will be over. On Satursay, we will take a short train trip to Colgne and tour the town. Then on Sunday morning, we will take a two hour train ride to Brussells for a day and night of touring.
Day 4 Dorscheid to St Goarshausen
Our friend Detlef joined us for two days of walking. Detlef lives near Cologne, and drove his car to Dorscheid to join us. When we arrive at Kamp-Bornhoffen, Detlef will take a train and bus combination to return to his car.
Detlef knows lots about the flora, fauna, and animals of the regions. He is constantly stopping to tell us about how certain flowers are used to make a type of tea, or other plants are used in cakes and jams, or that the noises we hear are from a certain bird unique to the region. We learned a lot from Detlef in these two days!
This was a challenging day of hiking with several very steep climbs.
During this trip, there are seldom places to stop for lunch. So, we typically made a lunch out of things from the breakfast Buffett. For example, at the hotel today, for an extra 3 euros each, they let you load of a small bag with meats, cheeses, fruits, etc. It all worked out well for us.
Later, we came to Loreley (now spelled Lorelei), a giant outcropping high on the river. It is located at a critical juncture in the river where the river takes a sharp bend. Many ships crashed in this area, and thus the legend of Lorelei, the female siren who distracted the sailors was born. This is a big tourist place, and we saw several groups, including one bus load of 15 year old kids from Pennsylvania.
The area around Loreley also contains a large outdoor theater where concerts and plays are held. As you can see from the poster below, the 70's band "Deep Purple" will be playing at Loreley in July.
We also stopped to tour a small Lorelei museum. The highlight was a kitschy 3D film (the 90's are calling!) about the area. All very interesting (although in German).
From Loreley, we walked to St Goarshausen to our hotel. We ate at a "Balkan" restaurant on the river. Mostly Croatian food. If this is representative of the food, we will not be in a hurry to travel to the Balkans!
The river on the Rhine is very high due to the excessive rains of the past month. As you can see in the photo below, the river is out of its banks in some places. At our restaurant, there was a mark on the wall noting the high water mark in the 1998 flood. It was probably 10 feet higher than now. I can't imagine all the devastation this did to the region.
Day 5 St Goarhausen to Kamp-Bornhofen
Our hotel in St Goarshausen was not very good. The floor slanted significantly, and it felt like we were sleeping on the side of a hill all night. Plus, as with our hotel two days ago, our room was about 25 feet from the train tracks, with trains coming about every 15 minutes. Here is a photo from our hotel room:
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Over the past several days, we have seen several small house like structures. We thought they were forest fire lookouts, like you see in the national parks in the USA. But, Detlef informed us they are hunting look outs. Apparently they hunt deer and wild pigs here. The hunters stand in these small structures for a better vantage point. It is a very controlled process to be able to hunt in Germany. You have to take lots of training and tests. Then you join a hunting club, where the guns are safely maintained. The hunters are not allowed to have guns in their homes. Sounds to me like a rational approach, which of course would give the NRA fits in the USA!
The humidity today was almost unbearable. The combination of several days of rain and temperatures starting to heat up made for a difficult combination. Other than that, it was another terrific day of hiking.
Around 1:00, we stopped for lunch in a small town on the river. Had yet another great pork meal! It seems like we have pork for almost every meal. While it can get a bit boring at time, the Germans really know how to cook the pork.
After lunch, Detlef took the train to pick up his car and we continued on to Kamp-Borhoffen, another smallish town on the river. Our hotel was very nice, and the owners were both terrific (and spoke excellent English). The owner was setting up the courtyard of the restaurant for the soccer game that night. The Euro Cup is going on this month in France, and as expected the German team is favored to win. So, we joined the owners and a few other guests in watching the game. Germany beat Northern Ireland. It was all great fun.
After the game, Linda and I set to find some food for dinner. Unfortunately, all the restaurants were already closed (it was 8 pm and these small German towns shut down very early). Ordered some more pork. But what we particularly liked was the footnotes on the menu items, listing all the additives. Fortunately, we had an English menu, so I got a photo of it for you to enjoy. I never did figure out what #4, "suitcase" was!
Day 6 Kamp-Bornhofen to Braubach
Another outstanding German breakfast, and another lunch that we gathered from the breakfast Buffett. Every hotel has essentially an identical, but great, breakfast Buffett. Lots of sliced meats and cheeses, lots of yogurt and grains, many types of buns, juices, etc. They must have some school in Germany that tells them how to do this, because they are all very consistent!
Today was another very good, but long hike. As with previous days, they were lots of fallen trees on the trail. It is clear the rains have had a big impact here. Fortunately, the trail was in reasonably good shape, other than a few areas. This photo of Linda climbing over a fallen tree is a good example of what we saw on the trail today:
Toward the end of the hike, we came to the Marksburg Castle, aa beautiful 12th century castle. Other than some light shelling by the Americans in 1945, the castle has been able to retain its original condition over the centuries. We decided to take a tour of the castle. There were no English tours available, so we joined a Ger,an group. Fortunately, they gave us books in English to follow along. It was a terrific tour. As with all medieval things in Europe, the tour also included a torture room. Those medieval Europeans had a streak of cruelty! Here are a few shots from the castle:
Finally, we arrived at our hotel in Braubach. This was probably our second favorite hotel room after Dorscheid. It was a very old hotel, built over a water mill house. We ate dinner outside at the hotel and had one of the better dinners of the week. It was made all the better because we were able to order a bottle of French wine for dinner! This week, I have only been drinking German beer (why not, these are some of the best beers on the world!) and the restaurants to date have only had German wines, which are just not very good, particularly the Reds. So, it was nice to have the option of other wines. We also ordered a special kind of spätzle that is mixed with cheese. I checked it out on the Internet and they call it Austrian Macaroni and Cheese. Fantastic stuff, I highly recommend it! The town of Braubach is a very well preserved, charming German town. There seems to be a little more life in the town than the past few nights.
One other positive about this hotel: it had towel warmers in the bathroom. Not really that important for towels, but fantastic for drying the clothes that we washed in the sink! With the rain and humidity, it has been hard to dry our clothes over night, so the towel warmers made for a great makeshift dryer!
Day 7 Braubach to Koblenz
It was very hot today, with temperatures in excess of 90 degrees by the afternoon, with not a cloud in the sky. A real change from the prior days.
Fortunately, most of the hike today was in the shade of the forest, so it made the heat fairly tolerable.
The hike today was one of the best we have ever done. What was particularly noticeable today was the change in the terrain from the last four days, with hikes through rocky canyons, trees that resembled the high Sierra and some spectacular views away from the river. This was a special hike, and one that we would love to do again.
The first five miles of the walk today included two very steep climbs and descents through heavily forested areas. Then we came to the "Ruppertsklamn Gorge", the most challenging and enjoyable portion of the hike today. This is basically a very steep, very narrow uphill river walk, lined with rock on both side. It is about 1 mile long from start to finish. In order to traverse the canyon, they have put steel ropes along the sides of the walls that you need to grab to get yourself up and avoid the rushing water of the stream. Very beautiful and exciting to hike. Also, it must have been 20 degrees cooler in that canyon. Undoubtedly the combination of the cold water and the narrow rock surfaces. Was almost like hiking in an air conditioned room, after the 90 degree temps on the other part of the hike.
There were several other areas today that required hanging onto ropes to climb the hill:
We finished the hike around 2:00 and proceeded into Koblenz. Koblenz is on the west side of the Rhine River, the first time we have been on that side of the river. We walked on a large bridge to get there. Amazingly enough, this is the first bridge we have come across on the hike. For the other towns, they take a ferry to get to the other side of the river.
Koblenz is a much larger city than we have encountered this week, a little over 100,000 people. It is also where the Mosel river, which originates in Belgium, joins the Rhine. We saw many river cruise boats on the Rhine this week (these are the boats that you sleep on, such as Viking cruise, etc), but they all seem to be parked in Koblenz tonight. Must be 7 or 8 of these types of boats docked at Koblenz. We toured the old town of Koblenz as well as the docks area. Really nice areas, with a lot of people out and about. We stopped for some drinks and tapas at a Spanish restaurant. The food was terrible. Funny enough, we have yet to find any Spanish restaurants outside of Spain that are any good. We love Spanish food, but it just doesn't translate well outside of Spain. We later had an Italian meal at the docks and it was quite good. Also, a good bottle of Italian wine helped the food taste better!
At 8:30 at night, the temperature was 93 degrees! Unfortunately, our hotel room does not have air conditioning. And to add insult to injury, the only bedding is these heavy comforter that they use in Germany. There are no sheets, blankets, etc, just this single comforter. Probably great in winter, but not good in hot summer. Will be tough night of sleeping....
