Rhine Castle Tour

Rhine Castle Tour

View of a Castle from the Rhine

On the first weekend of June, we decided to hop in a car and drive down the Rhine for a view of some old German Castles. It was a bit cloudy, that weekend but it was a pretty fun little trip. Especially, the Autobahn.... zoom zoom.

The first part of the trip required, of course, getting a car. Since we were returning the car on a Sunday I was left with little choice but to pick up our Volvo at the Amsterdam Schipol airport--and pay a heft 50 Euro tax for the privledge! I won't be doing that ever again! The price for a 2 day weekend was well over 200 Euros (including this huge tax!). On our 2nd trip to Germany, I rented a Mercedes for 3 days for just over 200 Euros--in Munich. CAR RENTAL LESSON: Rent from the Germans, they like drivers. The Dutch don't.

It was a pretty easy transition driving on European roads. There are little differences from driving on US roads (sorry I apparently didn't take any pictures) speed limit signs are basically red circle signs with a number, most signs avoid using text -- which makes sense since this is Europe and everyone speaks a different language. Once you get the roadsigns down, driving in all countries is the same (aside from UK where they drive on the wrong side of the road).

So... we stopped on Maastricht for some more Dutch shopping, and left quickly. For the most part, we've learned that shopping in The Netherlands is really a waste of time. Now, these stores were nicer and we found ourselves lingering a bit longer than we had in other places, but the shops were still very similar (but nicer) than those in Amsterdam. EUROPEAN SHOPPING TIP: Buy gifts before you come to The Netherlands.

It wasn't long before we were in Duitsland and driving very fast. I missed the subtle rule that you can't really drive as fast as you want--there are places with speed limits (like construction zones, or towns). Still, I went from 120kph (75mph) to 180kph (112mph) without much trouble. The Volvo didn't seem to want to really go much faster, so when I hit 205kph (127mph) I had to pull her back a bit.

We did snicker a little when we passed our first Exit sign in German. How do you pronounce "Ausfahrt?" Later we saw a sign at a McDonald's "Drive Thru. Einfahrt." If you say it fast enough, it does kind of makes sense...


So, we were off to see some Castles along the Rhine... well, not before stopping for the night in Koblenz, Germany. This little town was considered the gateway to the Rhine Castle tour and a good spot to call it a night. My wife was feeling a bit ill from my zoom-zoom driving (or maybe it was from the bad lunch in Maastricht)... either way, she took a nap in the bad hotel (Mercure, Koblenz is not a recommended hotel on our tour of below average hotels. We would recommend against it for those of you planning a trip down the Rhine. It wasn't aufuhl, just not good).

The town of Koblenz was nice, but since things had all closed down when we got there, it was really just a nice place to walk around. The church at the right was very beautiful from all external angles. I wasn't able to go inside, but I was finding myself wanting to snap pictures of it.

The town street was kind of quiet, but nice. Few people were out the night we arrived--and we later figured it out. These shops all close early on Saturday. Like 2 o'clock. Speaking to some German friends back at the office, I found out that German laws protect the citizens from working on the weekends. Stores are supposed to close early on Saturday and stay closed on Sunday. Some stores do stay open on Sunday, and might press things by staying open late on Saturday's (like 6pm), but for the most part we found that if we wanted to shop in Germany we had to do it from behind the glass.

My wife was a bit dissapointed in these shopping rules as she found the shops more interesting than those back in The Netherlands. In fact, she was in the picture I took of this little German shop, but let's just say it was in my best interest to crop it down to just the goodies behind the window.

If you know my wife, you'd understand the sadness of not being able to go into a shop selling carousels. If you know me, you know how much I enjoy these shopping rules the German's have adopted. We were able to run through all these shopping villages in no time... more Autobahn for me! Hey, the shopping was like "shoppingbahn!" Flying by little shops so fast you don't get to enjoy them. Just like passing those little German towns at 120 mph!

We got an early start on Sunday and headed down Highway 42 to see some of the Castles. Our goal really was to hit one or two, see some of the nifty ones from the road, enjoy the Rhine and shop in some of the little stores along the way (ok, so we didn't do much shopping, but who really needs the silly stuff they sell in those stores?).

To give you an idea of what things looked like from the road, you should be able to squint and see the castle just above the town in the picture below. Try to ignore the big cell tower at the top of the mountain, as there weren't many of those back in the days these Castles were in their prime. What we found interesting was that as you drove along the highway, you'd just see these guys pop up along the ridge of the mountains. It was easy to imagine what life must have been like long ago with the towns folks living under the watch of these big buildings.

Ok, so the Castle is pretty small in that picture, but you can see how cool it is driving along the road and seeing Castle after Castle sticking out on in high spots (like the one at the top of this blog). NOTE: I need to do some research to match the Castles with their names. I took lots of pictures and didn't think to write down the names. I will do that soon, I promise.

We did make a stop in our first Castle (Marksburg) and went on a little tour to get the full idea of what things must have been like. Unfortunately, the tour was in German, but we had a little English version which we read along as the tourguide spoke. The view from Marksburg Castle was stunning as you could really get an idea of what it was like back in the old Castle-defending days.

The unfortunate part of this was that it was a real castle... right away you get a feeling of life in this building. Cold. Not much in the way of heat... carpeting is, like, non-existence... and Air Conditioning?! Well, it did have open windows all over the place. You could call that Air Conditioning.

We did get some interesting perspective on life here... barrels of wine in the basement, a big kitchen with huge fireplace, and no running water of course. The most interesting aspect of Castle life had to be the mundane process of, well, going to the bathroom. Take these two pictures, for example:
The first (above) is the master water closet/toilet with nice wooden finishing. This toilet was on the 2nd floor and was designed so that there wasn't a need for emptying any pots to keep it fresh. Instead, there was just a whole, dropping any material directly through to a garden below. The picture below is from the outside of this bathroom.

There is a garden just below this openning, and the picture I have of it includes my wife smiling in front of a bunch of roses. In context of this story, I felt it best for the longevity of my marraige to pose that photo around a different topic--maybe one about all the flowers in Europe.

The Marksburg Castle was placed in a really good spot and, apparently, was never attacked. This left it in pretty darn good shape. The picture to the right is of the Master bedroom. You can still see the drawings on the wall and beautiful chest (well, it was probably beautiful like 400 years ago). If you squint, you can make out the bed through that doorway. Interestly, that doorway is only about 5 feet 2 high or so--since the tourguide spoke German, not English, we didn't hear how tall the original owner was. Maybe it was kept small to limit drafts of wind...

We did spend some time in this castle, ending up in a little museum in the basement where they keep a series of armor from Roman times to the 1600's or so. It was a nifty collection, especially seeing one after another. The hat (center of the picture) was placed on a young kid to give us an idea of what it must have been like to try to fight with that stuff on your head. The tourguide pulled it off before I could get a shot of it--but let's just say it couldn't have been easy to maintain your view through the small holes during battle.

After the tour finished up, we hiked down the many steps to our Volvo and headed back out to see some more castles.

In this case, using our Rick Steves' guide to pick our next spot we fell for his recommendation to see the Rheinfels Castle near St. Goar. Now there might be something really nifty here with the right instructions or guidance, but to us it was just some Castle ruins. The best part, though, was taking the little ferry across the Rhine... it started out by backing up away from docks (we had pulled our cars in and expected them to drive head-first to the others side). The boat backed away then headed straight (the way the cars were facing)... floating up-river a few hundred yards before spinning around and docking in to let us all drive off. It was a pretty neat ride for about 5 Euros (if that).

In the picture on the right, the actual dock was directly to the LEFT of the boat. We were spinning around at this point--getting a pretty good view of the little town of St. Goar. Of course, at this particular moment, we didn't know all those shops you see there in the foreground would all be closed. Teasing my wife with their window goodies. Oh, well, there was one shop open--it was a Cuckoo Clock store that we spent about 45 minutes looking at everything in there (twice). The clocks were gorgeous--and expensive. An really regal Eagle clock was just under 1000 Euros... sorry Mom & Dad, but I'll have to find you something else from Europe.

The drive up to the Rheinfels Castle was pretty quick and somewhat confusing to figure out where to park. Thinking back, I probably should have taken a shot of the final parking spot so that those that follow wouldn't do what we did: Park, get confused, drive back down the hill, realize we were there, drive back & park in the same spot. Most of this confusion was due to the fact that we thought we were going to a Castle, not ruins.

Still, the views from the Castle grounds were nice, and walking around this huge structure was nice. Most people had brought their dogs and were walking them around the area like it was a park. Well, to be honest, it was like a park. Most of the area was covered in grass and made for an interesting little hike. We weren't impressed, and longed to see what real Castle life was like. I think it was here we decided we were going to make the trip later to Neuschwanstein Castle--the one that Disney based Cinderella's castle on. I guess once you start seeing lots of castles you get a bit snooty. But we did enjoy walking around this huge castle ruins--but it would have been so much cooler had those shops down in St. Goar were open so we'd have something to do before heading back to Amsterdam. A quick walk through the old streets of the Rheinfels and we were back in our car... hungry and ready to go grab a bite to eat.


It was in St. Goar that Helen (my wife) had her best European meal. It was a small Italian place that was a little out of the way from the closed shops. I always said I wanted to go to Germany and get some good Italian. To this day (about two months later) she still raves about that lunch... saying some thing like "it was sooooaa good." We don't have the name of this little place--just the name on the credit card receipt: Bitburger. Doesn't really sound too Italian, does it.

After lunch, and a really fun drive through some hilly country-side, we were back on a wide Autobahn... the wife was asleep and 200 kph was the average speed for most of the trip back to the border with The Netherlands--where you have to drop down to 130kph instantly. It was torture... not like real torture, which we got a glimpse of in the castle... imagine sitting in this lovely chair (notice the spikes in the wholes that would hold your wrists and ankles...).

... but back to driving fast. I guess for those that are interestd, I should give you an idea what is like to drive at speeds above 120mph, leagally!

First, it is cool. Grab a left hand lane and pass car after car. I really didn't understand why everyone didn't drive at top speeds--it was so cool. The law requires cars to pull over to the right immediately, and the Germans know how to drive here. Every car was in the right lane unless they were passing. On 3-lane highways, however, folks seemed to like cruising in the middle lane...but even then, they gave up the far left lane for the faster vehicles.

The part that added the most stress, however, was that there apears to be some unspoken rule that you can pass cars as long as the lane is clear--these people do not wait for faster cars to pass, they just pull right in front of you (giving you enoug space to slow down behind them, of course). There was no way to just coast in the left lane at top speeds without expecting someone in front of you to pull into your lane--slowing you down as much as 40 mph in just a short distance.

...it was fun... and stressful.... anf fun.... I'd do it again anytime... zoom zoom.

European Comparison

Neuschwanstein Castle, Bavaria, Germany

So, after being here in Europe for about 3 months now, I have started to spot some differences among the places I've visited. Just for fun, here is my general impression (most over 2 day weekend visits)

1) Amsterdam:
a) Shopping: 1 out of 5. My wife says "Netherlands" is Dutch for "crappy shopping." For a petite woman, there is nothing to buy. For a guy who likes electronics, there is little to shop for. There are no malls like we have in the US, all the shops are in stores that are aligned on shopping streets that go for blocks and have no cars (although some have trains--strange...). CREDIT CARDS are your friends. Please start taking them! I cannot believe that the biggest grocery store in town doesn't take plastic. Or the Centraal station--you have to have CASH to buy a 70 Euro ticket. For goodness sakes, get with the '90s!

b) Meals. 2 out of 5. In general, even the best food is average. It is hard to find a place you want to return to regularly. We like: Foodism, Dorrius (really the Crown Plaza's room service is from the same place and we don't have to leave the room), Gaucho's Argentine Steak (the meat is great, but no real flavoring), Rozenboom Cafe (they even have a non-smoking section downstairs), and McDonalds for fast food.

c) French Fries. 5 out of 5. Consistently the best "chips" we've had anywhere, including the States.

d) Bakeries. 1 out of 5. Aside from the local grocery store, the little bakery shops serve 2-day-old bread all the time. They use the First-In-Stale-Out concept here.

e) Street people. 1 out of 5. The people on the street here will walk right over you. They do not move and they seem to have no problem bracing for impact rather than stepping aside. The first few weeks I played dodge-people; now I just play the locals game of acting like I'm looking somewhere else and lower my shoulder for a good smack. I don't get this--the Dutch seem like such nice people--until you meet them in the street.

f) Cleanliness. 3 out of 5. Maybe there are dirtier cities, like New York or Detroit, but for this place has a serious amount of trash. I just don't get how many people seem to just throw their trash on the ground. And dog poop is a bit more prominent here than anywhere else I've ever been. Keep one eye on the sidwalk or you are bound to spread it for a block or two. Oh, and you have to pay to pee in this country. Everyone wants you to pay 30 cents or so to use the bathroom--that covers the cost of cleaning them. So they were clean. But who carries small change everywhere??? and who expects a woman to be walking in cleanin the sinks while you tinkle in the urinal?!

2) Bruge (Brugges)
a) Shopping: 4 out of 5. My wife loved this place--lots of tapestry, chocolate, lace, trinket and other fun shops.

b) Meals. 3 out of 5. The pub spaghetti was great, but a little family run place in the city was just ok. The food was decent, but not incredible.

c) French Fries. No Vote. Didn't have any, so can't compare.

d) Bakeries. No Vote, but my Apple pie in the pub was to die for--an applie pie that goes down in the books as one of the best I've ever had. (a year 1515 Pub called Herberge Vlissinghe)

e) Street People. 3 out of 5. Lots and lots of people. Rick Steve guidebook had said we should just be prepared to "share the place with the rest of Europe" and it was good advice. They were all very nice and pleasant, but a whole lot of them getting in your way.

f) Cleanliness. 4 out of 5. Really a nice clean city. There was very little litter on the ground and the shops were well maintained. No complaints, really. You have to pay to pee here, too. Bring small change. Why do they ask you to pay to go to the bathroom in the central train station?! You should plan ahead and visit the WC on the train before you arrive. Oh, and the lady that cleans the restrooms gets to watch you use the urinals here, too, as the mens room door is wide open and the stalls are right in side. Did I say the woman that works here--I meant all the women that stand in line for the ladies room watch you...


3) Germany (Rhine Castle Drive and Neushwastein Castle)
a) Shopping: 4 out of 5 when they are open! Geesh, Germany please open up on the weekends! Shops close at 2ish on Saturdays and don't open on Sundays. We walked into a Cookoo clock shop and loved every corner--but that was the only shop open in a town of neat stores.

b) Meals: 4 out of 5. The Italian place we ate in at St. Goar was simply fantastic. The German food near our hotel, not so good, but we learned the secret. GERMAN RESTAURANT TIP: If the parking lot can fit a tour bus, keep moving.

c) French Fries: 3 out of 5. They were ok, I mean if I hadn't been in The Netherlands with some amazing French Fries I might have thought these were good. They were just ok.

d) Bakeries: 2 out of 5. I had been told how famous the Germans were for their bread. I tried 3 different bakeries and all served me danishes or rolls that were at least a day old, or just not very good.

e) Street People: 4 out of 5. Very nice indeed. I don't recall a single issue with walking along the streets here and even in the tour group at the castles. People were friendly and even were kind and let us through first in some cases.

f) Cleanliness: 3 out of 5. Nothing special, nothing bad. I don't remember having to pay for restrooms like in the Netherlands, and they were just as clean.


4) Paris
a) Shopping: No Vote. We only seemed to shop in the museum gift shops, so it wouldn't be fare to judge the stores here. The giftshops were top-notch, though. My wife would highly recommend them if you spend the day in their museum.

b) Meals: 4 out of 5--and even that was when we ate at quick spots. The lunch we had in a cafe was very good for 13 Euros...and lots of it. The other meal we had was in the food court at the Louvre and my wife says it was the best Lasagne she's had in years... at the FOOD COURT!!! No problems finding good food here.

c) French Fries: 3 out of 5. Hard to really judge on one meal with fries. But they were good. Not Dutch good, but good.

d) Bakeries: 4 out of 5. YUM. A nice place near the hotel had Pain Au Chocolate and they were quite tasty (a bit more butter than I like, but quite good). No complaints--even, when on Sunday it was closed and I had to cross the street to another place. Very good, very fresh.

e) Street People: 2 out of 5. Rude is about all I can say. How can such good cooks be so rude when walking down crowded streets. One Frenchman shoved my wife when he walked directly into her. He (we are talking about a man) just pushed her on both shoulders after he walked directly in to her. One extra step towards my wife and I would have been spending the night in jail. This wasn't the only incident walking around or taking the train. How come people here don't know to let people out of the trains before they try to board?

5) Switzerland
a) Shopping: 4 out of 5. Now, my wife wasn't with me, but the shops were even interesting to me. And, since they seem to have so many Japanese tourists, they might even have her size. Oh, and if you want a watch! They've got plenty. Jewlry, got that too. But... can you leave the country without buying a Swiss Army knife from one of the gazillion stores selling them?

b) Meals: 3 out of 5. The food wasn't bad, it wasn't great. Mostly German food where I was visiting, so the meals were decent. I didn't go to any fancy places, so I may not have a fair assessment.

c) French Fries: No Vote. I can't remember eating a French Fry in Switzerland--other than the McDonald's I stopped in when I got there. I'll have to go back.

d) Bakeries: 5 out of 5. You cannot believe how good the bakeries are here. Oh my goodness! I could not pass a bakery without stopping in for an Apple Strudel -- and they were just 2 or 3 Swiss Francs. Good Good Good. I dream of returnning for more.

e) Street People: 4 out of 5. (Tough not to include the hundreds of Japanese tourists I passed while hiking up in the mountains--they'd get a 2 out of 5. How come they are so rude? Don't they know we don't want to crash their tour group?). In Lucern, or even in the Ice Palace in Jangfrau the people were pleasant and not pushy. In Lucern there were lots of people walking in the covered bridges and the only real issue there were that so many wanted to spend the day crossing over. I noticed the locals taking the open bridges and joined them after my first attempt to cross with the tourists.

f) Cleanliness: 5 out of 5. I was impressed when I got into the airport after landing. I was more impressed on the trains. They have McClean restrooms (nothing to do with McDonald's) that you pay to go into (at the Train station in Zurich, for instance). They are spotless. Everywhere I went, even in the mountains town of Gimmelwald (another recommendation from Rick Steve, who, I sware, I saw there) the streets were very clean... it was really just a nice clean town... like every place I visited in Switzerland.