EUROPEAN RIVER CRUISE BUDAPEST TO AMSTERDAM - 2018
Thursday Aug 16 - Rüdesheim
I had no interest in a tour so the plan was to see what we could of the town and then bike the path along the Rhine. Two years ago we had biked this area on the opposite side of the Rhine between Bingen and Bacarach.
The center of Rüdesheim. You can barely see the railroad track to the left which separates the river bank from the street, which is a main highway. Also, what you can see are shed-like additions to the buildings that detract from the towns appearance. What you can't see is a bike lane or even any bike signs because there are none.
Another view of the sheds on the front of the buildings.
Vineyards appear even before we leave town.
I can't quite make out the sign; but it is some kind of "burg" museum.
Trying to find the bike path. We had reached the train station at the north (downstream) end of town, but couldn't find any indication of a bike route along the Rhine. What was hilarious was that groups of bike tourists would appear, try to figure out which way to go, and go off in a direction. Soon they would be back and repeat the process in an other direction, and back they'd come.
So we headed back to town; and by this time the tourist office was open. The lady said the only bike path was upstream.
Sure enough here was a bike trail heading upstream right at our ship. There was no sign. In fact the first sign we saw was about a kilometer out of town. Rüdesheim was the only bike unfriendly place we encountered.
Jesuit Garden
A crane for loading and unloading ships at Oestrich on the Rhine. It dates from 1744.
Sign board explaining the crane at Oestrich
Very attractive hotel in Oostrich
Back to our ship. Oops! It's no longer ours
As mentioned previously, due to low water in the area of the Rhine Gorge, we would board a K-D (Köln-Düsseldorf) touring boat and sail as far as St. Goar so as to not miss the most scenic part of the Rhine. Obviously this ship didn't need as deep a channel to operate. The main attractions of this area are castles and vineyards on the hillsides along the river.
We took a bus to reach the K-D ship and got a bonus tour of the houses and vineyards above Rüdesheim.
Castle #1
Vineyards, ship, and regional train. There are frequent inter cities and regional on the west bank and regionals on the east bank. A relatively new high speed intercity express line, mainly tunnels, runs on the west bank between Köln and Frankfurt am Main.
I can see an antique crane just to the left of the half-timbered house, as well as a modern one to the far left. Europeans seem to use large cranes in regular home construction.
Castles #2 and #3
Our tour boat made several stops to embark and disembark passengers. Bingen was where we began our ride along the Rhine in 2016
Castle #4
Castle #5
No, it's not a castle. The brown building is a protestant church (you can tell by the rooster on the top of the steeple) and the white building is a Catholic church (you can tell by the cross on top)
Castle #6 with vineyards
Castle 7
Castle #8
Castle #9
More vineyards
Castle #10 in Niederheimbach, or is it a water tower?
castle #11
Castle 12 at Bacharach. This is where we turned around in 2016
Castle #13
Oberwesel stop
Castle #14
Castles 15 and 16. Just when I thought we had seen enough castles, we reached St. Goar and transferred to a bus for Koblenz. But we still didn't get away from them.
A nice looking bike path along the river
One last castle, #17
Koblenz Palace, home of last prince-bishop of Trier.
The Visionary, our home for the last 3 days of the cruise
After sailing from Koblenz in the evening, we soon docked at the suburb of Engers, where we walked a short distance for a concert in a palace. It was a classical chamber music concert with violinist and piano. The palace was a smaller version of the Residenz and added a lot of class to the cruise.
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