Hotel Hillen Bacharach

... by the ancient Romans. Now, in Japan and Turkey and Hungary, baths are sex-segregated for the naked parts, but clothed for mixed-gender. Not so here...everyone's junk was out for all to see and holy **** was it weird. Especially with the combo of hot sauna; steam room, and cold dips. 'nuff saId. Anyway. My eyes are burning.<br><br>Tomorrow we are visiting the little towns on the Rhine for more neuer wine and pretzels. Then it's home on Monday!

... 8217;s dinner and I enjoyed every course. Dessert was the traditional Baked Alaska with a flaming procession by all the kitchen staff. It took almost three hours to finish dinner so it was almost bedtime by then.<br>I stayed up, though, and watched the ship pull in to Cologne. Very pretty sight. St. Martin&#8217;s church and the Cologne Cathedral were illuminated and stood out against the dark sky.<br><br>

... from with educational stands of animals, seeds and crops as well as meat and beer. So the ease of a good meal was at every other stall with lots of Charcoal fire pits after much thought we ended up with HUGE rotisseried Ham cobs and a couple of beers. <br><br>We then spent the day meandering the cities shopping district before going down to the river and returning to the coach station at 4pm, for the long trip back.<br><br>

... it was 4 trains away to Bacharach in the Rhine Valley. We made it to Wurzburg, then Frankfurt, and then Mainz... and then we missed the last train out to Bacharach. Thinking we were going to spend the night in a train station and NOT in castle, we reluctantly asked the clerk what we could do... she handed us a voucher, said to go get a taxi, and he would drop us at our door! So we basically LOVE the German Train system, especially since it was ...

Bingen OR<br><br>We had a bit of a sleep-in this morning before our breakfast in the Bingen Hotel. The hotel was really crowded and the breakfast room was packed and generally lacking in food. It was not a pleasant experience, especially bumping up against other tourists who had their chairs and tables crammed up against the buffet tables serving cereals and other food.<br><br>Apparently one of our tour ...

... class, so I sat in one of the 8 first class seats on the very short train. Just before we left, this family of 5 comes and sits across from me&#8212;a mother and 4 grown children &amp; spouses. They were all talking really loudly and carrying bottles of beer. One of the women starts talking to me in German so I told her, &#8220;Sorry, I don&#8217;t speak German.&#8221; And she said that&#8217;s probably good. <br><br>So shortly after the train leaves, the mother makes ...

... at this point. Both banks are green and lush, with vineyards climbing hight up on the hills much of the time.<br> Dotted along the river are long narrow villages, such as Bacharach and St. Goar. These appear to be made mostly of half-timbered buildings with abudant window flowerboxes. Many of them are now hotels. These villages are without exeption neat, well tended and photogenic.<br> As if all of that is not enough, there are ...

Travelled to the Rhine Gorge - a particularly dramatic part of the river Rhine - via Trier, which is Germany´s oldest city. There were some Roman ruins still there - the main gate into the city which you can go up, roman baths with just the floor plans left so you can go underneath into the tunnels &amp; steam rooms &amp; some very lovely churches.<br><br>The Rhine gorge was really picturesque, we got a boat trip further up the river &amp ...

... racially, etc.) and included a short speech as well. Afterward, everyone stood and talked while eating pretzels, so we had a chance to compliment the cellist. We then took a train ride from Bacharach to St. Goar, one of the towns on the Rhine that we had seen from our boat ride on Saturday. We ate lunch at a café there that served mainly sausages, which four of us enjoyed. Alecia had a cheeseburger and Kathryne had a bread and cheese plate ...

... family today. Makes my place look like a dump! We hiked back down to Moselkern and just missed our train. The next train would come by in an hour, so we decided to find a place and have a drink. We went to this nice outdoor cafe that was along the Mosel River and I had a Bitburger (very good beer!). Hartley had an apple juice and of course I had to make fun of that! We caught our train and headed to Boppard, a Rhine River ...