Castle Day

Quick shower at seven am and down to breakfast. Then back up to lounge to settle in for the morning of castles. Sitting in the lounge the scenery sails by. Vineyards and towns with old style German houses. So pretty and picturesque. 

Heidi runs up to the roof for a bird's eye view. 

It is only two degrees out there but she is determined to get better shots of the towns as they pass by. Me , not so keen and stay in the lounge. The half timbered houses are everywhere. Villages go by and every opportunity is a photo one. 

We sit and drink a mug of green tea and soak in the scenery that surrounds us. We travel past the town where Engelbert Humperdink was born. Castles were tax buildings. The owner took the taxes from the ships on the river becoming very rich in the process. The lords put chains across the river until the taxes were collected. Horses would pull the boats along if there was no wind. The boats were a lot smaller than and did not of course have engines. Just passed the Lorelei. The sun was in the way so it was extremely difficult to get a good photo of her. We clicked away in the hope that we would get a good shot bit won't know until we check later. The Lorelei is a small statue of a woman on a rock situated on a small island in the river. She is taken from a poem of the same name which is so lovely in German.

Die Lorelei poem

Onwards and upwards. Enjoyed a hot chocolate in the lounge as the scenery passed by. Plenty of photo opportunities on the upper deck. Crisp up there but not cold. Hard to take everything in. One castle we saw was unique "Ship of stone eternally floating in the Rhine."

We glided past vineyards where the wine was grown for Charles and Diana's wedding. So many historic places along the way. The oldest remains from human bones were found in this area. They were thirty thousand years old and Neanderthal. The oldest Germans lived along the banks of the Maine due to the water, fish and game. Three hundred and sixty thousand ape men lived here. They had no chins and flat foreheads. Neanderthals were found in a cave near Bonn. 

Neanderthal man

Cro magnon man was found in a cave near Cologne. AAll Rhinelanders , the hunters and gatherers collected honey, hunted bison and mammoth.