Stonehaven and Dunnottar Castle in the rain

The view from our Aberdeen hotel room. We couldn't figure out how to get to the front of this building, as it seemed to be hemmed in by other buildings, so we are not sure what it is. Maybe a church (maybe decommissioned?).

We started the day with a trip to Primark, where I bought the girls lightweight rain jackets. They didn't have any in the big girls' department, so I had to buy a women's extra small for Avery. Lots of room to grow into it! We also bought two umbrellas. We had bought a plaid umbrella at a shop in Edinburgh, but it seemed to have "issues" so I didn't feel confident about it. The ones in Primark seemed a little sturdier, although they were plain blue and black -- no hints of Scotland.

We then walked to the train station and boarded the train for a 20 minute ride to Stonehaven. This is a small coastal town with beautiful stone buildings and a harbour.

From the Stonehaven train station, we walked down to the harbour, where the coastal path to Dunnottar Castle begins. The walk was downhill, past lots of beautiful stone houses with lovely gardens, and we found the coastal path with no trouble. However, only a few minutes after we started walking, it became extremely windy and rainy -- so bad that I decided we should take a taxi instead of walking. We found a coffee shop where we took shelter and I asked where to get a taxi. The young guy looked quite sorry for us as he said we would have to walk quite a distance to the taxi rank in the town square. Of course we were not thrilled to hear that, but we set off and after about 10 minutes, we reached the square, where we found one taxi. Whew! The driver was very nice and gave me his contact info in case we wanted a ride back after touring the castle.

Again, we had to go up and down a lot of steps to reach the castle. The girls counted, but I forget exactly how many -- maybe in the 70s.

This castle is perched on a cliff overlooking the sea. I must admit, it would have been nicer to explore if the sun had been shining, but even in the rain, it was spectacular.

The steps leading to the castle

As we were leaving the castle grounds, we met a family who had walked from the down along the coastal path, so I stopped to chat with them. They were all enthusiastic about their walk and persuaded us to give it a whirl. The rain was much lighter now and even let up at times, and the view was breath-taking.

Scottish thistles are subtly different from the ones we have here. They look prettier, but maybe it's psychological, a result of knowing they are the country's national symbol?

Interestingly, despite the wind and rain, we saw quite a lot of people out in boats -- sailboats, kayaks, and other small craft. 

Part of a healthy Scottish meal! Irn Bru and a shortbread variety pack.

We each had a sip of Irn Bru and decided that was enough.

We also had sandwiches, delicious UK carrots, and fruit for dinner, and then after eating went out for a walk. I was hoping to walk down to the beach, but I let the girls lead, and we just ended up exploring the streets near the hotel, finishing up at the park we went to yesterday.

The other thing we had to try -- a deep fried Mars Bar. Avery and I agreed that it was NOT delicious, but Zoe thought it was OK.

Our step total for today was quite impressive, especially the "flights climbed" section!

Marksburg, Köln

 

The next morning, we left Koblenz and took the train to Cologne (Köln).

Koblenz train station

We stayed at the CityClass Hotel am Dom, and our room had a little balcony with a wonderful view of the cathedral. Unfortunately, the room was only available for one night.

After we checked in, we took the train across the river to a little town called Braubach, where we planned to tour a castle called Marksburg.

The trains to this town run every hour, so we caught the 8:58, which -- even though it was late -- got us to the town with lots of time to spare. The castle opened at 10:00. So, we rode around a bit, enjoying the sights - more old buildings, towers, etc. The streets of this town are very quaint -- cobblestoned, narrow, and winding, but we saw people driving cars up them anyway. 

When it was time to head up to the castle, we rode past this tower and followed signs pointing to the castle. However, after just a few minutes of riding, we came to stairs. There was a convenient railing where we could lock up the bikes, so we did that and continued upward on foot. The route to the castle was a combination of stairs and a muddy footpath through the woods. It would have been lovely in nice weather, but of course it was raining again!

When we reached the top, we made sure to notice where we would have to go down to find our bikes.

This castle is open to the public, but you have to join a guided tour. When we paid the admission fee (11 euro - quite reasonable), we were told the tour would be in German, but they gave us a paper in English to help us follow along). 

It turned out our tour group was very small -- a family with three little boys and a man with a dog -- and our guide spoke English. While the main tour was in German, she told us the main points in English. This is the only hilltop castle along the Rhein that was never destroyed, so it is in its more or less original condition. The tour was really very interesting, although I had hoped to be able to go up in the tower. No such luck!

Incidentally, large portions of the tour were outside, and it was raining the whole time, except for a few brief moments when it was snowing! We definitely were not in Germany to escape the fickle Alberta spring weather!

photo from greatcastles,com

After the castle tour, we headed back to the top of the stairs and made our way down. It was raining hard by this time, and the path was slippery as well as muddy, so we were glad to reach the bottom. However, no bikes! Somehow we ended up at a different part of town, where there was also a staircase leading up to the castle.

We thought we would have to retrace our steps, going up again to find out where we had taken a wrong turn, but I had used Map My Walk for the walk up, so I realized I could find our starting point on that map, enter it into Google maps, and hopefully find our way to our bikes. That worked just fine, and we were reunited with our bikes.

By this time, we were cold and wet, so we decided it was time to duck into a warm pastry shop. As usual, it did not disappoint!

Boppard, Sankt Goar & Oberwesel

 April 21: more riding along the Rhein River

Today the weather was better than yesterday, by which I mean instead of 100% chance of rain, it was only 70% chance.

We had chosen three other towns we wanted to visit: Boppard, Sankt Goar, and Oberwesel.

We decided to take the train a few kilometers upstream to Boppard, and from there we would ride to the other towns.

Boppard has some beautifully restored timbered buildings. The old town is not very big, but quite breath-taking.

It also has a lovely old church, St. Severus, which was built in the 12th and 13th centuries.

We saw these old clocks in a few different churches. Not sure what this is about, but maybe they are the original clocks??

St. Severus Church, Boppard

As we wandered through the town, we suddenly came upon this amazing sight, the remains of an old Roman fort (Kastell Bodobrica). Unfortunately, all the information plaques were in German only, so we just admired. By this time, it was raining, so we just took a quick look and moved on.

If I ever move to Boppard, I want to live in this cute pink house, right across from the fort.

The Electoral Castle -- I liked the roof, with its many little dormer windows.

We couldn't resist stopping in at this café for coffee and something to eat. Dave had one of these cream horns, and I had a piece of hazelnut case (at the back below). Delish!

And then, rain or no rain, it was on to Sankt Goar. 

This is such a classic shot, with the little town nestled in the hills, the church, and above it on the hill, the castle. It would be nice to spend a year or so in this area so that you would have time to visit every town and every castle. There is only so much you can see in a week!

A police boat

 

We think this is a monastery of some kind:

Some more wonderful views:

We came across this on the path. It is made of granite and shows the Rhein from Bingen to Koblenz.

And then we arrived at Sankt Goar, where we were greeted by the sight of this castle. There were signs telling us to follow a road uphill, so we did that for a few kilometers. We lost our way, so we put the name of the castle in Google Maps and tried following that for a while, but no luck. We ended up at a hotel.

We decided to give up and head into the town.

We soon came to another road with directions to the castle, so we decided to try that. This one was extremely steep; we ended up walking our bikes. But it took us to the castle where we met up with a young woman who told us the castle was closed to visitors. There was a scouting event going on, but also she said it was extremely muddy on the grounds. Since it was still raining on and off, the mud was not hard to believe.

I spent a little time chatting with her; she told me that she was in university preparing to become an English teacher, so her English was excellent and she seemed to appreciate the chance to speak. She also told us that part of the castle is now a hotel and suggested we might ask if we can see inside, but seeing how busy it was, we decided against it.

From the outside, we were able to see quite a bit and took some good photos.

After this, we flew downhill and into the main part of the town of Sankt Goar. Rick Steves described this town as a wonderful place to shop for souvenirs. Of course, since we only had our bike bags, we were not planning to buy much, but we thought we'd check out the shops. 

The first was this one, with the world's biggest cuckoo clock! They had a really nice tea towel, with a picture map of the Rhein, but I wasn't really in a shopping mood. I thought I would probably be able to find the same thing in another store somewhere along the way, but no such luck. Overall, we weren't very impressed with this town or its shops, and we didn't buy anything.

We visited the town square, with the typical red and white church.

I also had to take a photo of this toilet. When we were getting ready for our trip, I read a blog where the person described German toilets. According to them, the toilets were backwards from North American toilets, with the hole at the front. I couldn't figure out what this person meant because all the toilets I had used up to this point were just like what we are used to in Canada. 

But finally, in Sankt Goar, I came across one. Make what you will of it!

Now we were ready to ride on to Oberwesel. When I read about this town, I learned that there were 16 towers, part of the old city walls. so I was really excited to see them.

Some more views en route:

The bike path

Many of the train tunnels were decorated similar to this.
I read on a blog that this was done during World War II as an attempt to disguise the train tunnels so the Allies would not bomb them.

The Lorelei Rock
There was a girl named Lorelei in my grade in high school.
I had no idea about the origin of her name!

We were curious about the town in the background

I loved the pastel buildings (houses?) in this town across the river.

After a rainy ride of a few kilometers, we made it to Oberwesel. Even with our limited German, we could understand this sign!

The first tower

Our original plan was to try to locate all sixteen towers, but again it was raining hard and was also cold and windy.

A funny thing here was that we met up with a guy we had passed while going uphill to the castle in Sankt Goar. I had noticed him because he was wearing a scouting tie, and I wondered what that was about (I found out at the top of the hill!) 

More from Oberwesel: more towers, the Rathaus, the church, a castle, and some timbered buildings.

The Rathaus (town hall)

Burg Katz

And then it was time to head back to Koblenz -- on a train that was, of course, behind schedule.

After we got back, we decided to get dinner from a place close to the hotel that. When we looked at it on Google Maps, we thought we'd have the option to eat in, but when we got there, it turned out it was take away only or standing at tables in front.

This is a screenshot from Google Earth, on what was obviously a much nicer day! When we went, it was raining, and standing outside to eat was not appealing. There were a few people doing just that, however, and while we were waiting for our food, I saw a guy come up, order a beer and drink it down, just like Italians do with espresso. I told Dave about this, and he remarked that it would be hard to drink that much beer so fast. I said that the glass was quite small -- maybe 200 ml. This will be important later in our saga.

Dave got a bratwurst and fries, but I don't like bratwurst, so I ordered something that I thought was like a chicken shish. That was what Google Translate said.  It turned out to be some sort of meat in some sort of sauce. I was hungry, so it was OK, but I would never order it again!

I forgot to mention that we stopped in at another pastry shop and I bought a Lorelei rum ball. It was just as good as it looks.

And the irony of this sign did not escape us. At the one hotel where our bikes were NOT welcome:

To be fair, they did allow us to keep the bikes in the luggage room once the tour group had taken their bags out, and that worked out fine. Overall, our stay in Koblenz was good.