Current Day Trip to date
Miles Walked. 14.3 37.8
Feet Climbed. 2380. 5030
Song of the Day: Higher Ground by Stevie Wonder
Till I reach my highest ground
No one's gonna bring me down ....
Gonna keep on tryin'
Till I reach my highest ground...
First, a little background and overview of the Rheinsteig. The Rheinsteig is a hiking path of over 200 miles along the east side of the Rhine River, running from Wiesbaden in the south to Bonn in the north. Wiesbaden is about 30 miles west of Frankfurt. The portion from Rudesheim to Koblenz (the portion we are hiking) has been designated a UNESCO world heritage site. The Rhine River valley is quite deep, and is almost canyon-like at times, with steep hills on both sides of the river. The southern portion of the Rheinsteg is a wine growing region, mostly whites such as Reisling and gerwurtiminer.
Below is a map of the Rheinsteig.
For the Rheinsteig portion of the trip, I booked the hotels through a German Agency called Euro Hike. Euro hike takes care of the hotels, and also provides transportation of our large backpacks to the next location. As a result, we only have to carry smaller daypacks each day we are hiking. A nice luxury, as we packed some extra clothes for the cruise, etc.
Readers of our prior blogs will recall that one constant of our hiking journeys has been getting lost! I would guess that at least 10% of our miles were walked when we were lost... Well, after two days of hiking the Rheinsteig, I think even Stevie Wonder would be able to find his way along this path. In typical German fashion, the trail is very well marked, with frequent signs and at every decision point, leaving no room for ambiguity or guessing. We have not been lost once, which is a new record for us!
Day 1- Arrival to Rudesheim
After a fairly non-eventful direct flight from San Francisco to Frankfurt (a little under 11 hours), we took a train directly from the Frankfurt airport to Rudesheim, the beginning of our hiking. We arrived at Rudesheim around 1:30 in the afternoon. Rudesheim is a famous tourist town in Germany and was filled with many Asians and other foreigners. After checking into our hotel, we had the first of many excellent pork related meals.
Rudesheim sits directly on the Rhine, and is surrounded by vineyards. They have installed a series of lifts up and down the mountain for visitors. After exploring the town, we took one of the cable lifts up the mountain (the same mountain that we would be exploring on foot the next day) to visit the famous Niederwald Monument, celebrating a German war victory over France in 1872.
Mike in front of the Neiderwald monument.
Linda on the cable car over the vineyards.
At the Neiderwald Monument, there is a restaurant and sitting area. I love how the Germans have posted the rules so clearly, once again leaving no room for ambiguity! "Please line up in a correctly manner" or "please put your used tray in the trolley", etc. One thing I will say- it seems to work, because there is no liter anywhere. Everything is clean and neat.
Day 2 Rudesheim to Lorch
After an excellent night's sleep, we had a terrific German breakfast in the hotel. There was a large tourist group of elderly German women having breakfast. I also met a young man from Iowa (he had a Iowa sweatshirt on), who was on business for the John Deere company.
We set off, traversing the mountain that we had taken the cable car the prior day. It took us an hour of fairly strenuous walking to reach the Neiderwald monument. In many regards, the weather was perfect for hiking- overcast, probably 60 degrees F. There is a general pattern to the trail: go straight up the mountain leaving a river town (seek the higher ground), then turn inland and walk through forested area, descend into another River town,. Rinse and repeat. The net result is that these first two hiking days have been very strenuous, with climbs in excess of 2,000 feet each day, and distances averaging around 16 miles. This has been a bit of a surprise to me, as I thought that traversing a river valley would be more gentle. However, it provides for spectacular views and a terrific workout.
The first small town that we descended to was Assmannhauser, as shown below. They even have their own Hollywood like sign on the mountain behind the town. I couldn't help but think of one of my favorite Seinfeld episodes- "Fusili Jerry". This is the one where a fan of Jerry's makes a small statute of Jerry out of Fusili. But Kramer mistakenly sits on the statute and he has to go to a Proctologist to get it removed from his rear end (it's a complicated story). When they are going to the Dr's office, they see his car has vanity license plates with the word "ASSMAN" on his plates!
Around 11 am, it started to rain. Gently at first, then much harder, with thunder. We were able to hide under a shelter for much of the worst part of the storm.
Finally, we arrived in Lorch, our destination for the night. It was a Saturday afternoon at 2:30, and nothing in the town was open. It's amazing how quiet the towns are. Our hotel was looking out over the river, but directly on the train tracks that run up and down the valley. There was a train about every 15 minutes, and that kept us awake a bit that night.
On Saturday evening, my long time HP friend Klaus Hironimi and his wife Ulili joined us for an excellent meal at the hotel restaurant that night. Klaus lives in Frankfurt, about a one hour drive. All in all, a great ending to an excellent first day of hiking.
Day 3- Lorch to Dorscheid
This turned out to be a beautiful day for hiking- relatively cool, and although it threatened several times, no rain. Once again, the scenery is stunning and the hiking is very challenging. As with yesterday, we spent a lot of time climbing up relatively steep hills, and accumulated 2380 feet of climb by the end of the day.
The hiking here reminds us a lot of the hike around Lake Geneva in Switzerland, particularly because of all the very steep vineyards over the water. You can see an example of these vineyards below. I can only imagine how difficult it must be to maintain these vineyards.
It has rained a lot in Germany over the past month. This has resulted in many trees falling over. Often we had to climb over fallen trees on the trail.
Later in the day, we met two women from Los Angrles hiking the trail. Like us, they have previously hiked the Camino in Spain, and were looking for their next thrill. They were very happy with their hike in Germany.
We also passed a couple of guys picking mushrooms in the Forrest:
We arrived at our hotel in Dorscheid around 4:00. It was a very nice place, definitely a step up from the past few days. Around 6, our German friends Detlef and Christoph met us for dinner at the hotel restaurant. They live near Cologne, about a 2 hour drive away. We met them in Spain on the Camino in 2013 and have stayed in touch since then. Detlef will be hiking with us the next few days. Christoph won't be able to hike with us because of work commitments but it was great to see him at dinner.
All in all, a very good start to our Europen vacation and we look forward to the rest of the hike.
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