Hotel Und Gasthaus Berghof Koblenz

... the enormitity of this building.

Our next destination today is the Nurburgring race track(in Nurburg), then Koblenz

The public are allowed to drive the race track, so we paid our money and off we went for 1 lap. the track is around 18 ks long.
Unfortunatley for us the track was wet and the temperature was only 3 degrees C. After about 10 corners we nearly lost control. 3 more ...

Short entry this time....

Only here for one night. Got to the hotel saw a couple of shops with beersteins, birkenstocks and clocks. Had dinner and watched some feral women proceed to get ****** and act like idiots in the hotel bar. Some good news though, won 30 euro on the slot machine in the hotel.

One of the guys (we assume it was a guy) even peed in the hotel hallway and our Tour Manager had to clean it up. People can be such animals.

End

Wow St Goar seriously looks like a very typical little German town, it's hard to describe why but when you just look at the little houses you know your in Germany.
Went to wine tasting last night coz the Rhine Valley produces sweet reslings and i like sweet wines but even i was like dude this is hurting my jaw LoL...
kinda wish i was a mum right now coz it seems like we stop for a second and Kylie ...

... 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.

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.

... 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 ...

... path from Roman times and earlier.

The main feature of the trip was the many castles spread along the route. Most of these were to enforce river tolls, or to claim various sections of the river for a particular baron or, in later years, as elaborate residences for the rich. Dad bought a book about the castles that provided more information to complement the commentary provided on the boat.

... and Amsterdam in Netherlands. Philip and Lawrence both took their cars over for the tour, with highlight of the Nürbergring racetrack. As they say, what happens on tour stays on tour, but we had a brilliant time. Here's a few pictures and video's from the Germany part of the trip, courtesy of Elias, who had the commonsense to bring a camera.

... a dividing wall between the two castles in one of the photos.
Castle 15 - Marksburg Castle - This is stunning perched on a hilltop above the small city of Braubach. It was built in the 14th Century and has never been destroyed.
Castle 16 - Stolzenfels Palace - Located near the city of Kobenz this castle was built as a border fortress between 1242 and 1259. Like many other castles it was destroyed (yes you have guessed it ........ the French) in 1689. It was rebuilt from ...

... with insurance.

So we awoke in Brussels around 8:00 to catch our 10:25 train to Köln. Allergies (hay fever) were starting to get bad for both of us with the humidity so we didn't have a great sleep. We took a cab to Brussels Zuid station (Midi). It was about equal distance from our hotel to there or Centrale so no point heading to Centrale just to catch another train to Midi. Arrived in ...

I slept through most of the flight, awakening to the sound of the wheels touching down at London's beautiful Stansted international airport. I got a full view of Scenic London as I took the train from Stansted to London's St. Pancreas station. I got a full view of the -still standing- London Bridge and Big Ben's glorious clock face. I left London at 1:30pm, on the Eurostar train straight through the Chunnel to Brussels, Belgium ...