Return to Germany

Guten Tag from Germany.  From Prague we drove to Heidelburg in central Germany and camped by the River Neckar where we could barges slowly drifted by. 

Day 1: The next morning we watched a huge barge negotiate the lock – fascinating!  After checking out the Cathedral in Worms we started our leisurely trip up the Rhine.  Grape vines covered the hills and castles dotted the landscape at every curve.  We stopped at several villages to explore.  The area is famous for its Riesling (yes Nick bought wines from a local vintner) and characterized by half-timbered houses that reminded me of Hansel and Gretel.  Lorch, where we camped on the banks of the Rhine, even had a tower – an ideal location for Rapunzel to ‘let down her hair’.  We had a beer in a pub in existence since 1643 with an intriguing collection of steins of varying sizes.  We could see the local castle lit up at night from our camper.  Very picturesque.

Day 2: The next day we continued to meander up the Rhine as far as Linz where we made a stop to grab some morning tea.  Again narrow alleys and half-timbered houses built between the 15^th and 16^th centuries.  Here we over crossed the Rhine via an exorbitant car ferry (6 .30 Euros) which took all of 3 minutes and travelled down the other side.  At Korblenz we turned south-west and headed down the Moselle.  Similar landscape with cute villages nestled amongst the grape vines but only the odd castle.  The sides of the river are more mountainous with vines running vertically up the slope.  We decided that harvesting the top most vines required danger money!  There are over 4000 wine growers in the Moselle.  The first vines were established by the Romans – and yes Nick bought more wine!  Again we camped by the river, gazing up at a sea of vines as we had our nightly drinks and nibbles.

Day 3:  Continued down the Moselle to Trier.  Once we had obtained a fresh supply of Nick’s meds involving 2 trips to the hospital to get a script and purchasing them at 400 Euros – not cheap over- ouch there goes my shopping money- we spent what was left of the day exploring Germany’s oldest city.  Very pretty and a real mixture of Roman and 15-16^th century buildings.  Porta Nigra, a huge black Roman gate, the oldest bishop’s church in Germany-‘The Dom’, and the Konstantine Basilika - a huge building that was the throne room of Emperor Constantine were the highlights.  We ended the day eating in the town square and people watching – a very pleasant day after a frustrating and time consuming start sourcing Nick’s drugs.  Back to France tomorrow.