Today we disembarked at Koblenz & took a bus for a 20 minute trip into the start of the Rhine valley up to Marksburg castle. Our home followed us & later picked us up from Braubach. We spent a couple of hours going through the castle with its many rabbit warren rooms & skinny spiral stairs, it was far more interesting than we expected.
From there we spent the rest of the day (that means at least till 10pm) sailing through the spectacular Rhine valley. The hilltop castles were all the way up the river about every 3 or 4 klms. There are 72 castles on this stretch of the Rhine & the hillsides are covered with terraced vineyards.
The river is very busy with many cargo barges, many of which are twice the length of our boat & laden so heavily that the top deck is only a few inches out of the water. There is an average of 1440 vessels
passing any given point on the river each day. It must keep tens of thousands of trucks off the roads.
We spent a very pleasant afternoon on the sundeck taking it all in. Nightfall saw us entering our first river lock, after 4 days sailing, which eveyone found exiting as our vessel is 12 metres wide & 135 metres long. It only clears the lock by about 4 inches on the sides & each lock lifts us about 12 feet. As you can imagine the captain enters very slowly. We are probably going to get sick of locks as we have to pass through 64 of them. I will put up some lock photos in the next couple of days.
Entering Marksburg castle
Inside Marsburg castle
Marksburg castle from the Rhine.
Begining of the Rhine valley from a window of Marksburg castle.
Cruising past another village in the Rhine valley.
This must be a great waterfront hotel, with a name like that.
Moving further into the valley along the extremely busy Rhine river.
One of many hilltop castles in the valley.
Loreley castle.
The Rhine averages 1 large barge every 60 seconds, 24 hours per day.
Another well kept castle.
Its hard to believe that most of these castles are around 1000 years old.
Heaps of vineyards in the Rhine valley
Our home following us up the river. Taken from Marksburg castle.
