We are very relaxed as we have arrived here...close to the airport (10 min. away) and we have returned the rental car...all went well...it was undamaged which is a friggin' miracle. If you would have only seen how many times we cleared a passing car or whatever...by only an inch or two, you'd know what I'm talking about. The narrow roads were at times a bit stressful, but we did fine! Ok, Leo is reading this as I type and he says to give credit where credit is due (he drove the ENTIRE time). It's sort of sad...we paid an extra 90 Euro for me to drive, but it never happened. Oh well, I was prepared (but thankful that I didn't need to do that).
So...for a recap of today: we started off with frustuck at the gasthaus...it was really good...with the usual bread, warm hard boiled egg, cheese, meats, jams, yogurt, honey, and nutella, juice and strong coffee...sehr gut! Not bad...70 Euro for the room and breakfast. Here's what the place looked like:
Here's a picture I took in the parking lot before we left. The sun was bright and the morning shadows, long. I looked down at the ground as we were loading the car, getting ready to leave, and this is what I saw...my legs. I really like this self-portrait, especially because it looks like I never even went into one conditorei!
So down the road we went...heading towards the Rhine. Crossed the Rhine to the other side at Bingen. It was a bit overcast, but still pretty. Here's a view from the ferry;
So we programmed Gwendolyn, and yes, we are going to Assmannshausen!
It was pretty overcast today so didn't take as many pictures as I would have liked to have. The Rhine is full of vineyards on each side of the river and there are tons of castles sitting high on the banks.
We went through lots of little towns along the Rhine. We're not sure if we were driving on the sidewalks or not! We did get some strange looks. (Dashboard of the car in the foreground)
And finally we arrived at our destination! I haven't mastered the art of the arm stretch portrait....but you get the idea!
Other sights along the Rhine:
We came to the point in the Rhine ...the Lorelei...where folklore has it that the sirens of the rock located at a turn in the Rhine, lured sailors with their songs and voices which caused many shipwrecks because the sailors were distracted by the sirens. Anyway, we parked the car and walked out on a long jetty. On the far end of that jetty sits a statue of the siren. It was about 1 km out to the end...and nice to get out and get some fresh air. Here's a few pics of the Lorelei siren. The first one is far away, but shows the jetty that it's on:
Here's a close up of the siren...or sireen, as Leo calls it:
Along the jetty are several sets of stairs...very steep. I think the entire jetty is slate...the stairs included. They must have tied ships to places on the jetty because there are large iron links secured to the ground.
Leo threatened to do a George M. Cohen style skip down the stairs (from Yankee Doodle Dandy). I told him if he did, he'd land on his assmannhausen!!
We stopped off and got our last treat at a conditorei and I asked for a plastic fork...but instead, I got a fife...or is that a knork???
Started to head back down the Rhine towards Frankfurt and every single town we came to, Gwendolyn told us to go on the road that led to the ferry to cross the Rhine (which we didn't need to do since Frankfurt is on our side of the Rhine). We figured that Gwen really likes ferry rides!
Got into Frankfurt around 3:30....and like I said at the beginning of this post, we enjoyed some of the good wine...actually all of it!
Walked across the road to go to a German restaurant and had a beer and schnitzel for dinner. We were feeling pretty good...here's a picture of us with our last delicious beer in Germany:
Came back to the hotel and finished off the bottle of wine and went to bed. We need to wake up really early tomorrow. Hard to believe our trip is coming to an end.
Location:our last full day in Germany
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