06 May 2009 Bacharach & St. Goar-Germany

  This has been a wonderful day!  Breakfast at 7:45am and departure with our local guide Herr Jong at 8:30am.  What a fabulous and interesting man.  Brought us to tears more than once about stories of the war, but yet he has such a vibrant and passion for life still at 78 years old.  As a young German boy he remembers the war well and spoke of many moving stories he can tell.  His brother was forced to go to war as one was taken and shot if they refused to go.  After the war he waited 10 years for word of his brother and when the final prisoners of war came from Russia his brother was not amongst them and he knew then his brother would never come home.  When he was a boy a plane was shot down near where he lived then (not here in Bacharach) and he ran to this plane and saw a dead American soldier from this plan and prayed one day he could tell the family of their son.  When he was 14 the night before his confirmation there was an air raid and as he hid on he ground he prayed to God that if he was spared he would believe in Him.  One of the girls to be confirmed with him did not arrive, because she had been killed.  After the war they were so hungry and staving, he used to look for dried potato skin in the storage baskets and then make soup from that.  Now this is the sad and touching parts of his life, but this man also rejoices in the life he has had too.  Such humor, appreciation, thankfulness, and love of life he has.   We visited a shopkeeper who played the piano for us.  He also paints and we returned later in the evening to buy a small painting of our hotel.  We just loved Herr Jong, with wishing wells, special doorways, tidbits of history and other interesting information  his zest for life was so apparent.  At one point he pulled out slate to give an example of the roofing material and he asked if anyone was celebrating a birthday or event.  No one said anything so I said our anniversary was in January but this was our trip to celebrate and he scratched our names in the slate as you can see here and gave it to us.  We will never have a more meaningful souvenir.  If our day ended with just the morning walk amongst the town, hills, vineyards, ancient city walls, and back we could not as for more. 

   However, now we had a quick bathroom break and boarded the bus for St. Goar where we will visit Rheinfels Castle.  First we had a brief orientation of the area, then we  had our lunch break with some extra time, and lastly we met for the hike up to the castle.  For lunch we split a small sandwich and a full sized apple strudel for each of us; delicious!  Alas, it is time for the trek up to the castle.  She kept telling us it would be a difficult climb, and it was.  Three of our group began the climb but could not make it, thankfully we were not one of those three. We were slower than the rest but we made it.  The castle tour was conducted by another local guide, a young girl, and she was very nice.  The castle was interesting, the views from up there were fantastic, the walk down through the forest was a lot easier than the walk up, and then we headed for the next adventure of the day, a short cruise from St. Goar back to Bacharach.  Again the views as we sailed up the Rhine just cannot be compared. 

   The vineyards are unbelievable with such steep slopes, planted in slate, yet delivering delicious Riesling wine and other varities.  In fact as we walked this morning we went through a vineyard where our exact wine from last night (which we finished tonight) came from.

   So now we have had another lovely and inspiring day.  We are tired, back to the hotel and we had a simple meal here at the hotel; an artichoke salad and more of that delicious asparagus soup.  Then we came up and packed our bags as we depart in the morning for Rothenburg where we will have free time after our arrival and spend just one night before we continue on to Austria.