Thursday, June 30: 4 Cities Today!

By: Mr. Harried

Here we are in front of Marksburg Castle.

Whew, we made it to Day 2, and as happens on trips, it was a furiously insane travel day. Day 2 meant a Eurail pass train ride to Mainz, walking the city to arrange a river boat trip up the Rhine River to Braubach, where we had reserved a tour to see the Marksburg Castle. The Marksburg is the only castle on the Rhine to (if I'm repeating the guide correctly) never be breached or overtaken by the enemy. As it turned out, the riverboat in Mainz left before we arrived, which precipitated taking the train to Braubach. This turned fortunate because the train brought us by numerous castles, architecturally beautiful towns, and German vineyards growing grapes on the side of the bluffs/hills. And, as we found out, the boat wouldn't have arrived at Braubach until 5:00 PM, which would have caused us to miss the tour. All in all, the kids were real troopers today. What follows is a brief city by city synopsis of our exhausting.

1st City, Frankfurt.

A view from the bridge by our hostel.

2nd City, Mainz.

Walking from the Riverboat tours in Mainz to the train station instead. Mainz turned out to be a brief visit.

Leaving Mainz by train, going to Braubach to see the Marksburg Castle.

3rd City, Braubach.

From the train station in Braubach, we walked through the charming, narrowly made city streets, and found a pathway up the hill to the castle. Good exercise for the group! A half mile walk through Braubach and then a quarter mile hike up the steep hill. Flip flops were not a good idea for this trek.

A view of Marksburg Castle from the bottom of the hill in Braubach.

Some students before our tour outside of the restaurant on top of the hill where in front of Marksburg Castle in Braubach.

The castle was fabulous. During it's day, it would house the owner family, and servants. And only during warring times would the city folks be protected within the castle grounds. The tour took us up stairs, through very short doors, viewing four poster adult beds one would think belong to children cause they're very short in length (the guide said 800 years ago the people were superstitious about laying flat to sleep because they burned fires inside the rooms and people would get chest/lung illnesses from the smoke and die in their sleep, if they lied flat), a huge wine cellar with kegs of wine and two gallon pitchers (they drank wine cause the water wasn't considered drinkable - a gallon per adult at meals!), the outhouse - which really is a tiny single seater room off the dining room and juts out over the exterior wall of the castle (leaving all droppings out side the castle wall!), the castle's own sanctuary, an armory and cannon, a massive kitchen with fireplace large enough to cook an entire cow, and livery to shoe work horses the size of tanks (an exaggeration, just not the race horses we see today). After the tour we dined at it's restaurant and gift shop over looking the Rhine. Beeeeautiful!

Wine kegs from the middle ages.

Canons for defending the castle.

Canon.

Looking at the Rhine River from Marksburg Castle in Braubach.

The group at the Braubach train station waiting for the train to Koblenz.

4th City, Koblenz.

Because we didn' get a river boat ride, we decided to go further up the Rhine to Koblenz, a recommended city to see. Whoever told us to visit Koblenz was absolutely on target. Koblenz is hosting this year's German National Garden Exhibition (Bundesgartenschau). The show and Koblenz are gorgeous. If you ever visit Germany, go to Koblenz. The streets are narrow, green, and impeccably clean. At night, the citizens come out to the boutique restaurants and open shops to just enjoy life. They sit sipping kaffee (coffee), tee (tea), bier (beer) or wine and visit or play cards. And of course, shop the stores!

The flower show was incredible. It's being held at three different locations (national parks within the Koblenz surrounds). Two are right along the Rhine and in order to get to the third location, one takes the cable car over the Rhine to a high bluff fortress on the opposite side of the Rhine. Each place was remarkable for what they exhibited. I particularly loved the high fortress area. It examined vegetables, various agricultural industries like cheery growing, corn, and honey. They one had an exhibit set up to mimic bats sounds, as they want to dtermine how bats use sonar to do what they do and how humans can adapt they technolgy for our use. Very ingenious idea. One exhibit they produced for the show was a Memorial display for grave sights. I was floored by the creativity, stone design, and colorful flowers and plants they combined to decorate the gravesights. I don't easily cry, but the thoughtfulness and meaningfulness each sight gave to their loved ones brought tears to my eyes. I didn't let the students see my emotional state! I thought, wow, America should be doing something like this at our cemetaries. What beauty and connectedness this would bring to families.

Palace in Koblenz at one of the garden exhibits.

One of the three huge exhibitions was on this hill behind the castle in Koblenz. We rode a cable car up to the hill.

A view of the Rhine River after it meets with the Mosel River from near the castle above the city.

The beautiful grave exhibition showing a variety of monuments and garden art.

After visiting the show, we had to dash back to the train station to catch the last train to Frankfurt. The bus system in Koblenz had closed by then, making the mile and a half walk to the train station a critically fast exercise. We made the train station on time, and were even able to buy McDonalds (no German fast food shops were open!) for the train ride to Frankfurt. We arrived in Frankfurt late into the evening, and ended wallking back to the hostel in the wee hours of the morning. The students and chaperones were exhausted from the 4 city excursion. Everyone rushed to bed cause we were leavng for Greven early the next morning. But it was a day I'll never forget.