Cruising the Rhine River and Romantic Road

Castles, castles and more castles. In hindsight, we should have packed a bottle of wine for the 8 hour cruise weaving its way down the Rhine River. The scenery was beautiful, but it was a leisurely pace.

We started the cruise in Koblenz. The youth hostel was in a fortress high above the city. There was a great view of the Rhine River where it forks with the Mosel River. Unlike other hilltop youth hostels we stayed at, it was easy on the legs. We arrived by chairlift.

The restful cruise ended in Mainz where we stayed for a couple nights. We explored around Mainz and nearby Wiesbaden. I have surprisingly little written about these days along the Rhine River in my journal. We would have cruised by Bacharach, my last entry on my list of places to return to. But I have no mention of it in my journal.

Then we made our way to Rothenburg to start yet another long day of touring the German countryside. This time we travelled by bus. The Romantic Road is a picturesque tour route through the dense Bavarian forest passing by “quaint” towns with timbre framed houses (we stopped in Dinkelsbühl and Landsberg). You can catch glimpses of more castles as well. It was a rainy day and again my journal is sparse.

Perhaps it was because there was no beer garden for me to babble about.

The bus route ended in Füssen. Guess what the main attraction is there? A castle! And we finally went inside the castle walls. It was actually quite impressive. But that’s another story.

This is one entry from my 1992 European backpacking trip with my friend Sarah. If you want to start at the beginning, please check out The journey starts in Nice.