Rhine Valley, Germany

Germany for a day was all we could manage on our back via Amsterdam. We had a one day stop in the Rhine Valley. We visited Bacarach a small village where we did a 3 hour walk up into the vineyards, up a side valley finishing at a castle. There are plenty of castles here and the scenery is stunning. This walk had plenty of seating and litter bins every 100 m (quite a bit different to Italian walks) , and a wildlife food dispenser which we couldn’t quite work out as there was little evidence of wildlife. It was a great walk on a beautiful sunny day.

The Rhine River

Castle in Bacarach which is run as Youth Hostel

Bacarach Castle

We’re camping 2 m from the Rhine River and it is a never ending procession of trains, barges and boats. It is good to see the movement of so much cargo off the roads. A train just passed carrying 200 cars worth more than $5million. The barges are carrying coal, gravel, gas, petroleum, bitumen, shipping containers and tourists.

One of the hundreds of Rhine River barges we saw. This one is particularly long.

Castle behind our camping ground

The other thing you should do if you only have 1 day in Germany is buy some Birkenstocks which I duly did. They cost 40 euro or about $70 AUD. Great and I finally got Ron some decent sandals as well. These northern Europeans know how to do comfortable shoes.

A good thing about Germany is you don’t have to pay road tolls but you seem to have to pay for toilets, 50 cents a go. I suggested to Ron that he could drink less beer and we could have a saving at both ends. He wasn’t convinced.

Toilets

We have seen plenty, not found them when we needed them, and they have been of varying standards. Italians still persist with the squatters which often have very ugly stains. However this video shows the best ever toilet I found in a Service Station in Germany. It has a seat cleaning mechanism. Ron thinks the males, with their dangly bits, wouldn’t have a bar of it. (I have a video but is has failed to load. Maybe blogger is not happy with toilets in their space. I will try again)