Travel to Germany, Koln and Bacharach

OK...this was a LONG travel day. We didn't get to our destination in the Rhine Valley until 7pm after a 9:30am start.

Once again, we missed a train due to hesitation and had to wait an hour for the next one. We were on the platform, the train was there, but we saw doors closing and assumed we were too late. Come to find out later, we could have just pressed the little green glowing button on the doors and they would have opened. Oh well, the joys of travel!


We stopped in Koln (Cologne) on the way to Bacharach to see the cathedral. Well worth it. It was pretty spectacular...hopefully the pictures do it some justice. We sat outside at a cafe just beyond the front steps of the church... providing a full, head craning view of the cathedral. We ducked inside for about twenty minutes to view some ancient religious artifacts: a crucifix from 976AD, a silver gilded Shrine of the Magi that contained the skulls and crowns of the three Magi (wise men), and stained glass windows from the 12th and 13th century that were saved just before the WWII Allied bombings (which leveled 95% of the city). The Shrine of the Magi was incredible, it featured two rows of statues: the top row were the 12 apostles from the New Testament, the bottom row were 12 Old Testament prophets. After snapping a bunch of photos, we headed for the tracks again to move on towards Koblenz, en route to Bacharach.

We stayed the night in Bacharach (the correct pronunciation indicates that the Klingons first established the town). Bacharach is a perfect slice of Renaissance/Medieval Germany and features its own castle that has been converted to a hostel. We later found out that the hostel had been overtaken by a bunch of D&D kids for the weekend, all dressed up in their costumes. We never made it up there to check it out. We ended up in a hotel right by the tracks. And by right by the tracks, I mean RIGHT BY THE TRACKS. The windows are triple paned and surprisingly cut the volume down to a dull roar. Standard issue in each room is a set of ear plugs. Ha...gotta love it.

At dinner we ended up being surrounded by a couple from Boston and a dad & daughter from the mountains of VA. Go figure! We joined in their conversation and shared stories of trips. The dad/daughter were on a three week trip and had been to Prague, Austria, Southern Germany, intended to hike through Switzerland but due to bad weather they bypassed and did Paris instead. Most of their trip is the current leg of ours! The Boston couple were mostly staying in Germany--searching for the best beers! The guy talked awhile about smokebeers--one of which I had tried prior to leaving for the trip. The one I tried out of a bottle tasted like I had just drank a campfire. He said it tastes much better fresh. I hope so. After dinner we walked around a bit, then went back to the hotel for some much needed sleep.