September 16, 2017
Oberwesel: Castles rising from the mist
Last night we met and had dinner with two Aussies, Stephen and Vera, from South Australia slightly younger than us who were having their first trip to European. Stephen has been restoring old Singer cars so he and Ken had a great time talking cars. It was good to be able to talk English for a while
This morning we went back to the Moselle and followed the track beside it to the Deutshes Ek which is the point of confluence of the Moselle and the Rhine. There were hundreds and hundreds of people many of whom seemed to be getting on boats to go cruising on one of the rivers. This area beside the Rhine is really beautiful and it looked as though it was going to be the centre of the festival that is going on in Koblenz this weekend. The sun was trying hard to shine and almost managing it though it was cold and remained like this all day
This part of the ride is the Rhine Gorge and is famous for its amazing castles which guard it from up high. We stopped at Boppard as my brakes needed some attention and enjoyed lunch in a backerie. Boppard too was jammed with people as a couple of tour boats had spilled there passengers out into the town
There really are a lot of big barges going along this part of the river some laden high with containers and others with coal You would need to be a pretty smart skipper to navigate along here. The current is strong and of course there are the Lorelly Rocks. Myth says that there were mermaids here who lured hapless sailers to their destruction. It looks a very hazardous part of the river to me even without mermaids
Our booking was for Oberwesel and we are very comfortable.
Today's ride: 51 km (32 miles)
Total: 2,237 km (1,389 miles)
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