River Rhine, Wine & Ruedesheim

In November I visited friends in Germany and we embarked on a trip along the River Rhine. It had been a very rainy Fall and the Rhine was in flood. Many ferry crossings where closed and we made long detours to get to the other side.

The leaves had turned, the grapes were picked and fermenting in the wine vats and most tourists had left the area for sunnier climes. That's the best time to travel - everyone is happy to welcome a traveler out of season.

We thought we'd spend a night in a castle on top of a hill. We arrived in the late afternoon and the place was very spooky in the twilight. The owners looked like they belonged in the previous century - so did the castle. Well - I suppose it should, seeing that it was built many hundreds of years ago. They showed us the dining room - a grand hall furished with a huge long table and the ancestors looking down from the paintings on the walls. The hallways were freezing cold - no central heating in the middle ages - and the guest rooms were decorated in heavy brocade and velvet. This is a great place for a Halloween party ... but we decided to stay in a hotel down by the river.

One day we hiked up to the statue of the Lorelei - legend has it that her beauty distracted the captains of the ships plying the river and caused many a boat to sink. In fact the Rhine is very treacherous here, and that may just have contributed to all those wrecks too.

Every village makes it's own wine and we enjoyed the many winetastings and good food the vintners had to offer. Ruedesheim and it's famous Drosselgasse are a prime example of the well-known German 'Gemuetlichkeit'. Prost!

Click here to find out more about Germany

For more information e-mail Chris Boecker