Autobahn or Bust

Driving in Germany is like a dream come true. We were renting a Toyota hybrid called the Auris… which is kind of like a Prius except not ugly. Andy has data and texting in Europe so even though we had built in navigation, we were relying heavily on Google Maps which proved more reliable than the car’s system. We spent a total of seven hours on the road and in those seven hours no one tailgated me, cut me off or did anything dumb… a driver’s miracle. To give some perspective, the autobahn has no speed limits except in certain sections like bridges, sharp turns or construction zones. Checking your blind spot before getting into the left lane is almost a worthless habit, because what you really need to do is check your rear view mirror for cars coming up behind you at maybe something like 120 mph. Trucks go 90-100 km/h - which I don’t know the exact conversion, but it felt similar to how fast trucks go at home. With that kind of speed differential between the right and left lane, you find yourself not needing to check your blind spot but really just checking if you see any cars coming at all… and if they’re an Audi or BMW… maybe just wait it out. Let me tell you, a Toyota hybrid does not have the get up and go to not inconvenience an Audi doing 100+ mph.

So we’re cruising at what I consider a comfortable speed of 135 km/hr (maybe 80 mph?). We took the autobahn from Köln to Koblenz where we picked up highway A9 that follows the Rhein river. We were so lucky that it had mostly stopped raining by this point and we were able to enjoy counting the castles along the river. No wonder those Viking river cruises are so popular… the scenery was truly spectacular. It reminded me a little bit of fjord-land in Norway with sprawling villages built on inclines but with extravagant castles atop of the mountains overlooking the entire countryside. At this point, I was probably driving too slow and annoying the people behind me (it’s a two-lane country highway and I got passed twice - hehe), but it’s hard to drive and count castles at the same time! I tried to make Andy take pictures but none of them do it any justice.

If we didn’t decide to get the car, another nice option would have been to do a cruise from Köln to where we were going in Bacharach. I didn’t even look into these short cruises but I know they exist. Rick Steves also mentions that you can pick up a 2-3 hour round trip cruise from Koblenz just to see all the castles along the river and perhaps make a stop in Sankt Goar… which is where we stopped next. The Rheinfels castle in Sankt Goar was highly recommended by the guide book due to it’s size and the views it offers of Rheinland. Oh man, though, good thing we didn’t even try to get a manual car - we would have never made it. The grade going up to the castles is SO steep (not surprising), our little hybrid was burning gas and making a racket to get up there. But assuming your car (and driving skills) allow, Rheinfels castle is really nice to visit by car because there’s actually a parking lot right outside - not free, but we didn’t need to pay for more than an hour.

 Can you believe these castle "ruins" are only about one fifth of the size that the castle once was?

View from of the river from the castle

After the castle, we drove back down and had a small lunch of open faced sandwiches and cake at Sankt Goar Cafe. You know it’s vacation when you have dessert with every meal :P these cakes looked too good to resist… we ended up choosing a hazelnut cream cake. We were almost at the point of speaking to servers in restaurants completely in German…. But I was too curious about what all their cakes were so I did end up asking him to explain them to me in English, which he seemed happy to do. Getting there.

Bacharach was only another 20 minutes further along A9. This was the town we would spend the night in; I booked us a room in the Berg Stahleck castle which is a medieval castle converted into a youth hostel. We followed the signs and drove up yet another mountain to get to the castle entrance (ignoring the complaints of the car engine) and parked in a small lot just off the main road. It didn’t seem like the right place to park… in order to get to the hostel you have to follow this foot path that was quite a steep hiking trail (we noticed the next day that we could have just taken the road… typical).  The first thing we notice is a horde of small school children (ages 8-12 or so… several different groups) heading to the castle with backpacks. I guess when they meant YOUTH hostel, they weren’t joking. The castle was just overrun with children shouting and running around… we were supposed to get dinner here tonight but we didn’t actually feel like standing in line at a buffet with 50 8-12 year olds… slightly disappointed that we paid for the dinner and didn’t feel like we could enjoy it, we hiked down to the mountain to the town in search of food.

 These were our bunks.... we had about ten of them in a room to ourselves... it was silly

Posthof restaurant where we had dinner, is in the old post station where the carriages would come to change horses back in the 1700's.

Enjoying the view with a dunkel weissbier

Can't get enough of this view

The next morning we had a small breakfast with the horde of small children. There really didn’t seem to be enough chaperones for such a large number of kids… but it was OK because they were just so well-behaved. I was really impressed… maybe my standards for how kids should behave have been lowered by living in America and watching children be pampered and spoiled a lot of the time? (Not all the time, I know, please don't take offense.) Because the fact that I was impressed that these kids (the young ones, like 7 or 8) could all handle themselves at the buffet with their own plate, make their own sandwiches (including cutting the roll), and clean up after themselves including wiping the crumbs off the table, is kind of sad. But nevertheless, I was impressed.

We checked out of the castle hostel and did one last walk around the town partially following the guide book walking tour. I noticed some flooding down by the river walk… I guess we were lucky that we didn’t have any flooding issues on this trip because parts of Germany were affected in a addition to the horrible flooding happening in Paris and other parts of France right now.

I guess the river had gotten a little too high

Picture of the Berg Stahleck castle we stayed at from the town

St Werner's Chapel... built in the late 1200's but never completed. Werner of Oberwessel was found dead when his body washed up in Bacharach in 1287... Christians blamed his murder on the Jews. Claiming that he was a martyr, they built this chapel in his honor and made him a saint.... At least it's quite pretty :P

Our next stop was Rothenburg ob de Tauber, the most well preserved walled city in the country. It’s mainly just a tourist hub now but I was drawn to visiting because of how picturesque and classically German it still looks.