Monday, September 07, 2009

Finish Bacharach -- off to Hamburg

We spent 2 full days in the Burg Stahleck castle-hostel at Bacharach. At first we had a room with 5 bunkbeds, only 1 other person was sleeping there, and he happened to be from Victoria (Sidney)! Then we moved to a room with 1 bunkbed and private bath.
The first day was just lounging around, enjoying the ambiance and the views of the vinyards, forrested hills, and the Rhine River with all its boat traffic. The second day, we took the long, very steep hike down to the small village of Bacharach and spent the day walking in the park by the river, sampling various foods & wines, window-shopping, and taking pictures--up to a point.
Our camcorder was DOA -- dead when we got there. So we were snapping photos all over the place until the still camera quit on us, too. We learned a valuable lesson -- get everything fully charged the night before any excursion.
After having a nice dinner, we took a taxi back to the castle. There was no way I was going to walk back up that steep trail. That's an added expense of staying at the castle. The 10-minute taxie trip costs €8 = $12. You have to use it for arriving & leaving (you have to be very young, with backpacks only, to take your baggage up or down the trail).
Food here is very good, but like most of the world, it's overpriced at airports and on trains. We are now on the 5-hr train from Koblenz to Hamburg. There is a Hi-speed train that does it in 3 hours, but it costs extra. A Chinese guy just came by selling coffee and we took some-- $4 each for plain coffee in paper cups. We probably could have saved $$ by paying the surcharge for the fast train and not buying food.
Now we are going through farmland. Lots of cows and corn. Quite a few big windmills are dotted here and there -- not a lot together, like the wind farms in the US. We're in a 1st-class 6-seat compartment, by ourselves. OOOps -- we just passed a real wind farm! Just to make me a liar. There's no wi-fi on the train, so I won't be able to post this until I get to some hot spot.
Photos haven't been downloaded yet, will add them later.

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