Rüdesheim am Rhein (Friday 15th September 2017)

This morning we headed upstream to the town of Bingen, only 17kms from Bacharach. To be honest if you never get to stop at Bingen when you’re next touring the Rhine you won’t have missed anything. Actually we missed Bingen altogether! Drove straight past the “front door” and didn’t know it until we wound up lost in its suburbs. Lots of roadworks didn’t manage to help maintain our cheery and adventurous demeanor so we asked GPS-girl how to get to the village of Rüdesheim am Rhein on the other bank of the river.

Trap for young players. I typed in “Rüdesheim” into the GPS and so GPS-girl duly took us there. Trouble is Rüdesheim and Rüdesheim am Rhein are different places, the former being 25kms away from the latter, nowhere near the river. Realising this problem we asked GPS-girl to take us back to Bingen where we then asked her to take us to Rüdesheim am Rhein. She directed us to the ferry dock and we crossed the river to our intended destination.

 

After parking the car we visited a nearby coffee shop for morning tea. On the way over the river we had spied a cable-car travelling across the hillside vineyards at the back of the town up to a huge monument on the hill. Too good to resist so we set about finding the starting point. A Dutch lady pointed us in the right direction. Not surprisingly it was at the end of the main tourist lane-way! For EUR 8.00 each we bought two return tickets up to the hill-top. The happy chap at the ticket gate quickly turned not so happy when we declined to buy his photographs of us. The trip up the mountain was very long – it took about 10 minutes to reach the summit. The view down over the vines was great. We even was people busy harvesting. The view at the summit was nothing short of spectacular. We were greeted by an uninterrupted view of the Rhine in both directions and way off into the hinterland.

After the descent we found a little beirgarten. Kerry had a quick drink and then went shopping. I stayed behind to write postcards (for the analogue mothers) and had another beer! 

 

 

We picked up the car and decided to head back home, catching the ferry somewhere further down-stream. Passing through the village of Assmannshausen we detoured from the main road following a randomly selected taxi to see where it went. The taxi stopped to drop off its passenger so we kept on going. The road narrowed considerably and started to snake its way up the steep hill-side amongst the grape vines. This afforded us a fantastic view of the river and the surrounding district including the Burg Rheinstein castle across the river. I sampled a few grapes form the vineyard we stopped near and then headed back into town. Once back on course we soon arrived at Lorch and its ferry back across the river. On the way over I chatted with a fellow, Frenchman who had relocated to the Rhine. He owned 3.5 acres of vines, growing Reisling and Pinot Noir, pointing them out to me as we crossed. He also ran a small restaurant in the village and was renovating a house on the river. He was pretty content with his life. Rain started falling so our conversation was cut short but it will always remain one of those “special” occasions that remind us why we love to travel.

 

 

Back at Bacharach we dropped off our backpacks at our pension and went for a wander around the parts of the village we hadn’t yet visited. Many wonderful vistas greeted us as we wandered aimlessly around. It was late afternoon and the setting sun was shining brightly on the recently dampened buildings, streets and fields giving everything a lovely fresh look. We took a short flight of steps up to the abandoned Wernerkapelle, the skeleton of a once beautiful chapel.

 

For dinner we opted to eat at the local pizza shop. The proprietor was a lovely chap from Turkey or one of the Middle-Eastern countries. The pizza was delicious and only EUR 5.00 for what, anywhere in Australia would be a $10.00 medium pizza. BTW, Kerry’s Coke, the first she’s had in probably two years, cost more than my beer. We retired for an early evening after a great day.

If you're ever travelling in the Rhineland there are many charming villages to choose from should you wish to stay somewhere for a night or two. Bacharach is the village you should choose. You will  not be disappointed.