A relaxing day, with unintended side effects

Sunburn and hangovers (luckily both minor) were not today’s intended outcomes… oops! That said, we’ve had a brilliant day, relaxing and going with the flow.

After breakfast, we packed the van, left the campsite and headed off to explore further along the Rhine.

First stop was Loreley, at the narrowest part of the Rhine. We walked along a spit, used as an emergency dock, to see a statue of a lady on a rock. Legend is that she threw herself into the river in despair over a faithless lover. On dying she turned into a siren, singing and luring sailors into danger on a difficult stretch of the river. The name Lorely is thought to originate from old words for ‘lure’ and ‘rock’.

After this, we climbed 3000 steps to the viewpoint on Lorely rock… well it felt like 3000 steps! At the top there were lots of other people, most of whom had driven up!

The views were stunning and Bertie and the spit with the siren looked a long way below us. At the main viewing area, there were beautiful bronze information plaques.

Back down the steps, we carried on along the Rhine to Rudesheim, stopping to take a photo of Burg Pfalzgrafenstein, a fortress on an island in the middle of the river.

After a detour inland, uphills and round some hairpin bends, because the road along the river was closed, we reached Rudesheim. The sat nav tried to send us along a cycle path, but we finally found the campsite. Unfortunately, it was closed until Thursday so we decided to move on to the next town, Eltsville.

In Eltsville we found a place to stay at a winery on the edge of the town. There were just two places, both nicely landscaped and just what we needed for one night.

After some lunch, we walked through the pretty buildings of the old town to the river.

Then we visited the 14th century burg or castle, and it’s gardens.

It was a beautiful place to walk round, and the weather was lovely. It’s so nice to be able to wear T shirts instead of being bundled up in coats!

Next stop was the ice cream shop. Well we are on holiday and the sun is shining! And as we’re in a wine town, surrounded by vineyards, it’d be rude not to try the wine!

John ordered a large glass of dry white wine for each of us and was handed a token. He was confused by this until the man standing at the bar next to him said ‘happy hour, you get another one free’. Fantastic!

After the next glass of white, we decided to try the red. Happy hour was actually two hours long, so we also had another glass free! We now thought we’d better get some food so we had a flammkuchen (a flat bread pizza) with goats cheese, pear and walnuts. Delicious!

Rather tipsy and with pink faces from being in the sun all afternoon we headed back to Bertie. I fell asleep as soon as I got in. What a lovely day!