Ben came home one day and suprised me with the trip. To make it even better I was going with 2 girl friends, no husbands or kids, just the girls. To top it off I found out that the other husbands would be out of town that day, so Ben offered to watch ALL the kids (there were 5!) What a great guy :)
When they bought the tickets the bus was full, which meant we had to drive ourselves from Heidelberg to Assmannhausen and meet the boat. No problem, we prefered to do it that way because that meant we got an extra hour of sleep since the bus had to make several stops to pick everyone up. We followed the GPS and when we were about 5 minutes from our destination we dead ended at the Rhine River. None of us thought about having to cross it on the way and there are no bridges for miles and miles along this stretch of the Rhine.
Our dead end landed us at a stop for the car ferry that ran every 15 minutes. You were charged by car and by the number of people in the car. The toll for the three of us was 6.20 euro. They also transport people who don't want to walk to the people ferry. Many people got out of their cars and talked during the short trip and some even used a big brush hanging over the side of the ferry to wash their cars with river water.
We got off the boat and drove a couple of miles to Assmannhausen where we found a small gravel parking lot to park in. We walked through the town, down some stairs, through tunnel under the road, and back up the stairs to get to the docks on the river side. We stopped at the first boat we came to and struggled to ask them if it was the right one. Thankfully the man recognized the word USO and told us it was the next boat over and we had to wait for the tour guide. This was our boat:
We boarded and went straight to the top of the boat to sit in the sunshine and enjoy the views. The town was cute and little with half timbered houses that were mostly hotels and restaurants. This house was my favorite. I told the girls that we all need to buy it and live in different wings. Here is my house:
A waitress came by and gave us a drink menu. Even though it was only 10am we had to order a glass of the local red wine from Assmannhausen. It was very good, so we had two!
We saw several castles as we sailed, but turned around right before we got to the Marksburg Castle, which is the one that we toured last month. I have pictures of the castles at the bottom of this blog. We also saw many little towns speckled along the river. They were cute, half timbered towns beneath giant castles, ruins, or rows and rows of grape vines.
Rhein wine is very popular here and the town of Rudesheim apparently has the best wine growing areas of fine Rheingau Riesling wine. We docked in Lorely and picked up more people who were coming from Ramstein Air Base. It was the same USO Mother's Day Cruise, but as they boarded they got presents! Next time we are touring with the Air Force!
After we picked them up we headed back down the river to dock and tour the Rheinstein Castle. We had to hike up the hill on a dirt path to get to the castle. Needless to say we were thankful that we didn't bring the kids and strollers, or wear heels.
Here's what the castle looks like from the other side of the river.
When we got to the castle we gathered in the garden where the Castle's current owner told us where to find all of the sights.
The garden had beautiful vines all through it. I think it was called the Chrimson Garden.
The history of the castle originates in the 13th century and was built as a customs post to serve and protect the Mainz territory from the unruly knights of the Rhein River. It was never destroyed by attack, but from the 17th century on it gradually decayed. It was bought in 1823 by Prince Friedrich of Prussia and rebuilt. Later is was sold to the former opera singer Hermann Hecher and preserved.
After she was done, they let us explore the castle on our own (which is risky when you are traveling with people like Jayde who likes to touch things you aren't supposed to and open doors that say "no entrance".)
As we enter there are animal heads and armor (quite small armor).
The staind glass windows were brought in from Koln.
They hung people in this basket for punishment. They were to think about what they did wrong. The owner said people used to use this to scare their children into behaving.
Myra and Jayde in front of the fountain on one of the balconies.
The view of the garden from the tower.
There is also a cafe next to it.
The view of the Rhine from inside the tower.
The huge fireplace in the dining room with medieval helmets on top of it.
A VERY pink music room. They had music compositions locked inside a case. We tried to find out who the composer was, but didn't recognize the name.
The bathroom building was surrounded in barb wire, which we thought was pretty funny because there was nothing but trees around.
After the tour, we headed back to the dock to board the boat and head to Rudesheim. The boat left on time and did not wait for stragglers, therefore a couple people got left behind. We ended up seeing them sitting at a cafe in Rudesheim, but have no idea how they caught back up with us.
It was already 4:30 and while sitting on the boat we realized that the iteniery had the tour going until 8pm. It was a Sunday and had no idea what time the last ferry left to get home. If we missed the last ferry we would add close to an hour on to our travel time. We started asking around and one person said the last one is at six. The tour guide told us that Rudesheim is right on the other side of the hill that Assmannhausen sits on. We could take a chair lift up to the top of the hill, see this famous monument, and take the lift back down the other side to Assmannhausen. Here is a picture of just a small portion of the vines in Rudesheim with the Niederwald Monument on top of the hill.
When we got off the boat someone told us that the ferry runs til 10, but we were still thinking of taking the chair lift because we were tired and didn't want to stay in Rudesheim until 8. The tour guide told us to meet the boat at the dock at 6:30. Ok, we thought, we must be leaving early, so we won't bother to take the chair lift. There's no way it takes an hour and a half to make it 3 miles up the river.....Oh yes, it does! That's because the boat had to travel 40 minutes down the river to get to an area to turn around and travel all the way back up. We ended up docking around 8:15 instead of 8.
But before we took what felt like the longest boat ride ever, we enjoyed shopping the town of Rudesheim. I wish I would have known it was famous for the Riesling, I would have looked for a bottle. Instead, we bought hats and toys for the kiddos.
We did stop in a wine/liquor store and Jayde grabbed a bottle of something. When she paid for it the two men working in the store gave us each a little chocolate in the shape of a wine or liquor bottle. We couldn't read anything on it because it was german. Great! Chocolate with something cooked into it, how yummy. We clinked our little chocolate bottles together. Prost (cheers)! We took a bite and....it was hollow with a shot of brandy in the middle!! blah! None of us were prepared for that. I bet it was pretty funny to see the look on all of our faces. At least we didn't eat them in the store.
There was no place to buy a water unless you sat at a restaraunt or cafe and wanted to pay $12 for one. We decided to wait for the boat to get here and buy water there. Well, the boat was late, but we finally boarded and got our water. We decided to sit downstairs by the door, even though it was steaming hot because we thought it would be a short trip. That was a mistake, but we were too tired to move. Once we realized it was going to take over an hour to get to the car we decided to order food. Sorry, kitchen is closed (even though we saw someone walk upstairs with a giant schnitzel 5 minutes before.)
That was a bummer, but we made it to the dock without starving to death. As we walked to the parking lot to get the car we jokingly commented that it would probably be towed since we parked in a residential lot. If it wasn't towed, the gate would be locked. Boy, that would make it memorable trip!
Thankfully, the car was not towed and the gate was open. Now to see if we could catch the ferry.
We made it!
As the toll man came around we gave him our money. Suddenly another man popped in our window talking German. We told him we were americans and he stumbled with his english. We thought he worked on the boat, until he started to ask Jayde about her "boat map" in her car. We were having trouble understanding each other, but Myra ended up speaking to him in Spanish and he understood perfectly. He wanted to know if it was bought in the USA and if it still worked in Germany. Turns out he was talking about the GPS.
He said thank you and hopped back into his car behind us. Once again, I was amazed with how many languages people speak over here.
We ended up getting home around 9:30 that Sunday night. Ben and all of the children survived the long day. It was a lot of fun to be out with the girls and was an amazing trip. Now, I have to think of something for Father's Day.....
Here are a few of the castles we saw:
