Castle cruise on the Rhine.

On Grandma and Poppo's last full day here we all took a short cruise on the Rhine river. The weather has been rainy and cool, so there were very few people on the boat. We took a train from Frankfurt out to the town of Rudesheim, just north of Mainz.

The boys began their day, as they do on all travel days, with a nutella croissant in the Frankfurt Hauptbanhof. Then we were off to Rudesheim.





Once we arrived, it was just a short walk to the pier where our Rosseler boat met us.



We cruised along the river for about an hour and a half- our journey was relatively short, but we saw many castles along the way. The Rhine is in a deep valley and on the hills on either side there are many vineyards. We were all surprised to see how steep the slopes were and amazed at the grapes clinging to the sides of the hills.




On this short stretch of river we must have seen 5 or more castles. They were in various states of ruin and perched high on the hillsides.







Once we re-docked at Rudesheim, Grandma and Poppo treated us to lunch at a little pub where we were all able to enjoy some of the local food. Poppo and I each tried a glass of the local burgandy, which was quite tasty.



Thank you to Charlie for the excellent photos!

After a last evening of card-playing Grandma and Poppo left for the airport on Monday morning. We had a great visit with them and saw quite a bit while they were here.