Day 8 - Rhine River Valley, Frankfurt, Karlsruhe, Frankfurt

On day 8, we woke up and packed up our stuff. We said goodbye to Holly and Dan and their beautiful house in Albersbach and drove to the Rhine River Valley. There is a stretch of river between Koblenz and Bingen that has 17 castles lining either side. 

Ever since Roman times, the Rhine has been one of the world's busiest shipping rivers. Many of the castles along the Rhine were "robber-baron" castles, put there by petty rulers (there were 300 independent little countries in medieval Germany, a region about the size of Montana) to levy tolls on passing river traffice. A robber baron would put his castle on, or even in, the river. Then, often with the help of chains and a tower on the opposite bank, he'd stop each ship and get his toll. 

The French also decided that the Rhine was a logical boundary between them and Germany, so they methodically destroyed castles as well. Many of the castles were rebuilt in the late 1800s and today are used as restaurants, hotels, and hostels.

We started out our Rhine Valley adventure with a stop in Boppard where we hoped to catch one of the river cruises up the river. Boppard was a Roman town and still has a large portion of the fourth century wall that used to surround the city intact.

We walked down a small alleyway towards the river...

Only to find that the river was flooding and had completely covered up the bike path (our plan B if we couldn't catch a boat. It was only plan B because it was cold) and made it impossible to get to the boat ramps.

So we walked to the tourist information center and found out that the boats weren't running. The flooding was only part of the reason. There is a famous rock at a particularly dangerous bend at the river called the Loreley. There is myth that a beautiful sprite named Loreley would sing and entrance the sailors with her beauty and they'd be so distracted, they'd run their boat into the rocks. Many ships were lost and men drowned at the hand of the beautiful Loreley. Well, Lady Loreley was at it again and a boat carrying toxic chemicals crashed into the rocks just before we came into town and later on when we drove to the rock, we saw the boat turned on it's side, cordoned off and surrounded by police boats. 

So, we walked through beautiful Boppard and enjoyed the gorgeous architecture...

Got some lunch and headed to the only castle open in the area during January, the Marksburg castle. It is  the only surviving medieval castle on the Rhine and was never attacked during the Middle Ages because of it's formidable defenses. 

Here is our first great view of Marksburg. It is one of the best looking castles on the Rhine.

This is the Lahneck castle, which we had a good view of as we drove to Marksburg.

A view of the castle before we drove up the hill towards it.

Entering the castle gate. They built this gate big enough that a man riding a horse could easily pass through.

When we got to the gift shop to get ready for the tour, we were happy to find that we were not only the only ones there for the 11 am tour, but the only tourists that had come all day. The tour of the castle is only given in German but since we were the only ones there, the tour guide gave us a private tour in English.  Traveling in January has its perks! 

The sun came out and lit up the valley. It was beautiful.

A view from the lowest point towards the tower...

This gate was originally built to be large enough to allow a horse and rider to easily pass through. It was later walled up to make it easier to defend. Do you see the window above? It's called a murder hole. Soldiers could pour boiling pitch through the window onto an invading army.

This is a medieval stone that would have been swung on a rope as a battering ram.

We were fascinated with how the castle was built into the existing stone and how the entryway was carved into the rock. I don't envy the guy who had to chisel it out. The coats of arms show the different families that owned the castle up until it was purchassed by the German Castles Association in 1900.

Not a very smooth entrance, but sturdy...

Another example of how the castle has been built into the mountain.

This cannon could shoot a cannonball all the way across the river.

Two views down on the river. In the picture above you can see the rose gardens and several small building that have been flooded out.

This is the botanical garden which was previously used for cooking, medicine, and witchcraft.

Here we are inside the Gothic Hall. You could roast an entire ox in the oven just behind Don. 

Drying herbs and of course, lots of sausages!

The slate used for construction is vulnerable to the elements, so it was covered by plaster. I thought the amazingly crooked wall to the right was interested.

The bedroom was the only room in the entire house that was heated. Curtains were hung on the bed to keep the heat in and keep the critters out.

This was an original door and it has some beautiful iron work.

This is the Hall of Knights, or dining hall, where large dinner parties would be held. 

The ceiling of the chapel was painted in Gothic style with the castle's namesake, St. Mark, and his lion. Even the chapel was designed with defense in mind. The small doorway kept out heavily armed attachers. The staircase spirals clockwise, favoring the sword-wielding defender.

Don hiking the ridiculously steep stairs to the keep. When I took this picture Don laughed and said I must have ten pictures from this trip of him hiking up stairs. He's probably right.

Here we are in the armor exhibit. The guide told us that since helmets covered the whole head, soldiers identified themselves as friendly by tipping their visor up with their right hand. That motion has evolved into the military salute still used around the world today.

One other interesting thing we learned is that chastity belts weren't used by men to lock up their women when they went away to battle. They were used by women to protect themselves from being raped while traveling. 

The guide at the castle recommended we go see Maria Lach, a convent near a volcanic crater lake.

Here is the crater lake. Gas bubbles still rise constantly from the depths below.

And here we are by the convent.

Don pointed out that it was the first piece of European architecture that we'd seen that looked anything like the Salt Lake Temple. The three towers were unlike other churches we'd seen.

Inside the Maria Lach chapel. The mosaic of Christ was beautiful.

We spent too long at the convent and drove as quickly as we could from Koblenz down to Bingen as it was getting dark. We looked at all the castles and I read to Don about them as we sped along in the fading light. We didn't get good pictures, but here was one we took. It was a great day!

We rushed to the Frankfurt airport and returned our car. As we were driving around the airport, Don stalled for the first time and we laughed about it. It was funny that we went two full days without him stalling once only for him to stall just as we were turning in the car.

We got on a train to the Frankfurt train station and got to our platform in the knick of time. We then saw that our train was delayed to Wurzburg. We had booked a really cool hotel that night in Rothenburg ob der Tauber, a beautiful medieval town and were so excited to get there early and have a nice quiet evening to relax. A train pulled in a few minutes later and we were happy to find that the train wasn't really late at all. An announcement came over the sound system which we couldn't understand since it was all in German, but we heard Wurzburg, so we thought that it was our train. 

So, we jumped on and got comfortable. Since we bought a Eurorail pass, we had first class tickets so we got a cool booth all to ourselves with a little table...

We played some cards and were having a great time...

...'til we got to Mannheim and realized we were going completely the wrong direction. We freaked out a little and both ran and asked people where the train was heading. Once we knew for sure we were on the wrong train, we looked through all the train time tables only to realize that we couldn't possibly get to Rothenburg and the hotel we'd already paid for that night. 

Whoops! We ended up in Karlsruhe, no where close to Rothenburg. So, we ended up catching the train back to Frankfurt, where we'd started, and paid for another hotel there. 

We arrived in Frankfurt about 11:30 pm and got an expensive room by the train station so we could catch our train early the next morning to Rothenburg.

It was an adventure and it was a fun one, even if it was frustrating that we'd wasted a whole train day pass on riding from Frankfurt to Karlsruhe and back. Ha ha! It's a good memory.

Much of the information came from Steves, R., Rick Steve's Germany, 2010. USA: Warzalla.

Day 7 - Albersbach, Pfalzerwald Forest, Trier, Kaiserslautern

We woke up about 11 am on day 7 at Holly and Dan's house and had a nice slow breakfast with Holly. Dan had left really early despite our late night because of how busy he was on the base with preparing volunteers to help out with submitting taxes for everyone stationed at Ramstein. Dan is a JAG officer for the Air Force, by the way. Holly was on bed rest late in her pregnancy, so we were bummed to have to leaver her behind to go explore the area. We are actually bummed we weren't able to hang out with them more while we were there. It felt like we just saw them for a few hours during our stay and then rushed off to do our own thing. 

I guess that means we'll just have to go back and spend some quality time with them. So, be expecting us sometime soon, Holly and Dan!

Don and I got in our car and drove to the Pfalzerwald Forest, a deciduous forest that my dear friend Jenny (a friend in family housing who grew up in the town next to where Holly and Dan are stationed) told me about. She said that the forest was heaven to mountain bike through and after hiking around, I believe her. 

We drove to Johanniskirche, a small town high in the forested hills and parked our car. Then, we started hiking around only to realize that we hadn't picked the best place to hike since there was a lot of logging going on in the area. We'd seen absolutely stunning areas on the way up to where we were, so we looked around for another trail head and then chose to drive and try to find a better place to start from.

Don, my fearless manual transmission driving man next to our rental car.

I couldn't get over how mossy and gorgeous everything was. Even though all the trees were leafless, there was a lot of green to be seen.

Walking through the logged area.

The light was really beautiful and the weather was cool and crisp. I liked this shot of the large fallen logs with the inn in the background.

This inn was just what I'd imagined for Germany with a big beer garden in front that I'm sure is teeming with people in the summertime. The men in the picture were shoveling hot manure off the tractor and it was steaming in the brisk morning air. 

Walking down the road to find another trail head... but it didn't look like it led to anything different than what we'd seen so we drove to the trailhead below.

And it was just what we were looking for!

We found these neat old stones. I'm not sure if they were a grave marker or some other kind of monument, but it has the date May 26, 1093 engraved on the top. 

And here is the steep ravine with a rushing stream and lovely smelling fallen leaves and moss-covered trees. Gorgeous!

I decided that I was obsessed with the amazing variations of mosses to be found! I liked the soft, spiky sea anemone looking ones by my head in the picture above best.

There were huge mushrooms growing, too!

We met up with a road on our short hike and then headed to Trier for the afternoon. 

Trier is Germany's oldest city and brags that Celts inhabited the area for 1,300 years before Rome even existed. In 16 B.C., Augustus founded Trier, which was called Augusta Treverorum for 400 years. When Emperor Diocletian (who ruled A.D. 285-305) divided his overextended Roman Empire into four sectors, he made Trier the capital of the west: roughly modern-day Germany, France, Spain, and England. For most of the fourth century, this was the a favored residence of Roman emperors. Emperor Constantine even chose to live here and spent lavishly on urban projects. But, when the last emperor left in A.D. 395, money dried up and that was the end of Trier's ancient glory days. In the late 400s, when Rome fell to the barbarians, so did Trier. 

Since we were interested in seeing some of Germany's Roman and early Christian history, it was a great stop for us. It was also the place we ate our first real German bratwurst. We also tried some other very interesting meat, including a liver cheese, which kind of reminded me of spam and was not something I'd choose to eat again. I'd try most anything once, though, so it was an adventure.

Our first look at Trier!

Don walking towards the center of town eating a delicious cheesy bread.

Trier's main square and St. Peter's fountain, which shows women who represent the idealized virtues and rude monkeys hiding behind them displaying the opposing vices. It was built in 1595. I love all the architectural variety. All of the buildings were so unique and colorful!

The onion domed Art Deco building on the left is actually a McDonalds. I love that Trier made them tone down their obnoxious advertising. Do you notice the tiny golden arches?

The white tower with yellow trim above is the tower of the Church of St. Gangolf. Every night at 10 pm, the bell in the tower rings to remind local drunks to go home. 

Here is the Porta Nigra, or black gate. This gate is the most impressive Roman fortification in Germany; it was built without mortar and the sandstone blocks are only held together with iron pegs. The sandstone was originally light colored but has turned black over time.  There were four gates like this in the original 4th century Roman wall that surrounded the city, but this is the only one still standing. The others were destroyed by medieval stone and metal scavengers. This gate only survived because it was turned into a church after St. Simeon, a pious Greek recluse, lived there for seven years. A monastery was later built on to the church and has been converted into a city museum. 

This is the oldest building Don or I have ever been inside. We climbed up into the tower and felt like we were transported back in time. We also got a great view of the city from on top.

A Roman carving I found particularly beautiful.

I liked the hallways and the lighting was just perfect. 

Interesting rooflines...

Looking down on the town.

A view of the front of the gate. The rounded part protruding towards the left was built on in the 12th century when the gate was a church.

It amazed me to see a building standing that has just been held together with iron pegs for over 1,600 years! Talk about sound construction!

Walking back to the main square...

Here is the House of the Three Magi. This 13th century Venetian-style building was constructed as a keep. Do you see the door on the right side about a story up? Before the age of safe banking, rich men hoarded their gold and silver inside their homes and everyone knew it. Understandably paranoid, many built floating doors which had a wooden staircase that was the only way in or out and could be pulled up when necessary.

A view both ways from the middle of town, one looking towards the Porta Nigra, and the other looking towards St. Gangolf's.

This is the deli where we ate our first German bratwurst and tried the liver cheese. All the meat was so salty and greasy and Don and I were amazed at how much meat these people seem to eat! I was also astounded at how thin everyone was compared to most Americans, particularly with the fat-filled, meat heavy diets. The primary difference is how much these people walk. Everyone walks! And they walk everywhere! 

Look at this meat! If you click on this picture you'll see the clear, gelatinous logs filled with little pieces of floating meat. Those really grossed me out. I wondered how they tasted but not enough to order some.

This is the assembly hall. There was major discontent between the people and the archbishop in Trier. The archbishop was one of the electorates for the Holy Roman Emperor and held huge political and religious power. The people of Trier wanted to be a free imperial city and only report directly to the Emperor himself, but instead were under the thumb of a power hungry and tyrannical archbishop. The people wanted a town hall but the archbishop wouldn't allow it, so they built an "assembly hall" instead. On the assembly hall above, the knight on the left has his helmet up and is watching the townspeople while the knight on the right is facing the cathedral and archbishop and has his helmet down and his hand on his sword, ready to fight. 

There are signs throughout the main square of the tension between the people and the archbishop. In 1507, the mayor built up the tower of St. Gangolf's church (the people's church) to be higher than the towers on the cathedral and wrote the words, "Stay awake and pray." In response, the archbishop spent all his money building up on tower on the cathedral to be higher than the one on St. Gangolf's church and topped it with a threatening message of his own, "For you never know the hour when the Lord will come."

Here I am in front of the Dom, the oldest Christian church in Germany. After Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity in the Roman Emperor, his mother, Helena, allowed part of her palace in Trier to be used as the first church on this spot. In A.D. 326, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of his reign, Constantine began the construction of two great churches: St. Peter's in Rome and this huge cathedral in Trier, also called St. Peter's. The facade on the church that you see here is 12th century Romanesque.

A view of the ceiling inside the church. I had to lay on the floor and hold perfectly still to take this picture. It was so dark and gloomy inside the cathedral. You could hardly see any of the artwork or 12th century Roman frescoes and there was no way to take a picture of them. They were pretty amazing, though.

I cropped my knees out of the bottom of this picture. I couldn't take a picture without using them as a tripod because it was so dark. This picture is about 100 times lighter than the room actually was. It was so dark in there!

This plaque was really interesting to me. It listed all the names of the archbishops in Trier from 250 A.D. to the present. Amazing!

Then, we headed down into the crypt and I got some great shots of the shadows on the stuccoed ceiling. It was very peaceful and quiet down here.

I liked this altarpiece.

Then we headed in to the courtyard to get a look at the mish-mash of architectural styles that occurred when the cathedral was added to over the centuries.

Such a beautiful garden!

I really fell in love with the sculpture of these three angels.

The big red cube on the right is all that remains of the enormous, original 4th century Roman construction, which was one time twice as tall as what you see here. The rest of the building are chunks that were grafted on over a millennium and a half of architectural styles. 

After our time at the Dom, it was starting to get dark but we wanted to see the Basilica, another Roman building, and Karl Marx's birthplace before heading back to Dan and Holly's house. 

On our way to the Basilica, I saw this funny "children crossing" sign that made my laugh. I love the girl's braid sticking straight out of her head!

And here is the Basilica. It is the largest intact Roman structure outside of Rome. It was originally a throne room. We weren't able to go inside because it's closed on Mondays. 

I actually tried to sneak in the church that's attached to the Basilica to see if I could peek inside but some German women came out of the door as I was trying to come in and motioned for me to come away from the door while saying a hundred things in German I didn't understand. I just slowly backed away and then kind of ran towards Don. I felt silly that I ran away; I just really didn't want to talk to them. Who knows? Maybe there were telling me to go right on in and have a great time! Probably not, but it was still dumb of me to run from them. Ha ha! I'm sure they wondered what was wrong with me. I probably looked totally crazy.

Here is the plaque on Karl Marx's house. 

After our wonderful day in Trier, we drove back to Dan and Holly's house in Albersbach. Don and Dan went to a pizza place my friend Jenny had told me about in Kaiserslautern and brought us home some take out. We had a great dinner and had so much fun talking and catching up. 

We watched Maggie and Josh dance around to the music videos at the end of Shrek

And ate as much pizza as we could hold.

I was amazed by how spacious and nice Dan and Holly's house was! The view from their bathroom and the dining room was amazing! Just as green and pastoral as could be! What a beautiful place!

But the one thing the people who built this huge house forgot was a decent sized kitchen! It made me laugh how small the kitchen was (that tiny corner over there) when the rest of the house was just yawning with open space.

What a great day!

Much of the information came from Steves, R., Rick Steve's Germany, 2010. USA: Warzalla.