More Castles!

For our second day in this area, we decided to do a "rundfahrt" (and no, that isn't rude!); it means a round trip and our plan was to drive up one side of the Rhine and back down the other.

The Pflatz - a castle in the middle of the Rhine which functioned as a "toll booth" during the Middle Ages

 We started by driving north on the east bank to Sankt Goaerhausen and up to Patersberg, a place I had discovered quite a few trips ago.  From there, there is a place called "Dreiburgenblick" which basically means a view of three castles.  The promontory it is on overlooks several castles as well as the Lorelei.  Two of the castles in view were Burg Katz (Cat Castle) and, yes, there is a Mouse Castle in the middle of the Rhine.  The other big castle you can see from there is Burg Rheinfels, a stunning ruin which is highly recommended by Rick Steves to visit.

The Lorelei

Burg Katz

Burg Rheinfels

We continued north stopping to take photos of Marksburg, a lovely looking castle, before crossing the Rhine at Koblenz.  We had wanted to visit Deutsche Eck (German Corner) which is the confluence of the Rhine and Mosel rivers.  However, as it was a holiday, there was absolutely no parking so we gave up and continue south on the west side of the river.

We stopped a couple of times to take photos of more castles before parking and having a walk around the pretty village of Bacharach.

After that, we continued our drive south with our destination being Bingen.  From there, we could get a ferry over to Rudesheim (6 Euros) and, from there, it was just a short drive back to our hotel.

We'd had so much fun the previous evening, it was sort of a "no brainer" that we would go back to Zum Anker for dinner.  Later we went to the bar which has a decor equally "over the top" to the restaurant.  Kath scored a table in a "Bierfass", a beer barrel, sort of the German equivalent to a "snug", I guess.

Tomorrow, we leave the Rhine valley.  Our next stop is Koln (Cologne).