Day 34 - [R]hine River Cruise (Koblenz; Rudesheim), Germany

A classic day sailing on the Rhine

Morning view from my cabin porthole

The first issue for today was having to resolve that my carefully made arrangements to have lunch with a dear friend of Aunt Cath’s, Angela, had turned to custard the day before when I’d received the sailing schedule. Having arranged to meet Angela in Koblenz for lunch at 1 pm, the sailing schedule said that the ship would leave at 12 pm! Unfortunately, there just wasn’t any way of making those arrangements work, and so we had to cancel the lunch. I am very disappointed that this arrangement had come to nothing.

The other arrangements for the day were still in place, so it was a busy day regardless. I had signed up for a visit to Marksburg Castle, that sat high on a hill above where the ship was docked (in Braubach). We were shepherded by a lovely young guide, Jason, onto a coach for the drive up the hill (yay! I’d though it might have been a walk.) The castle has never been taken or destroyed, so is in the same condition (more or less) as when it was built, starting in the 1100s. There were additions and alterations by different owners over time, but those are preserved now by the Castle Association that now owns the castle (and many others) and is headquartered in the buildings. The Castle Association took ownership in 1900 and the castle has been preserved since then.

Marksburg Castle, from the ship	Marksburg Castle, from the drop-off point at the top	The drawbridge castle entrance The drawbridge was a very late addition, which fell into disuse almost immediately
Concession area, built into the drawbridge tower	View across Bruesbach from the drawbridge tower	Entry to the castle proper – the bricked in larger arch was originally for horses to enter, then made smaller when horses were no longer the main transport
The main entry, the floor is carved from the bedrock	The insignia of the various castle owners over time	The entry portico with watch tower over
Cannon in place for defence – never used in anger	A special, quick-loading cannon	The quick-loading cannon was an innovation where shot and powder are loaded at the breech and a heavy breech block is jammed in the end. Apparently, as many people were killed at the breech end as where the shot fell, as the breech ‘plug’ would frequently blow out backwards. The castle guide, challenged the group to lift the breech block, “any strong men here?” Of course, I had to try. The breech block was about 50kg, so a relatively straightforward two-handed lift, which surprised the guide because I lifted it well out of the breech and he was saying “Put it down. Put it back.”

Panorama of the commanding view across the Rhine River from the Marksburg Castle battlements

It’s a very impressive structure and has all the hallmarks of classical castles that one imagines. Consequently, it’s also quite difficult to photograph meaningfully, especially when full of a group of tourists. We were guided through the castle by a different guide, Kai, a middle-aged German man who was stereotypically brusque and exercising his German humour constantly. It was quite an experience.

Scenes of the buildings inside the castle walls
A pictograph showing how wine was made in the castle	A display of the archaeological finds from the site	Armour from previous military occupants

The tour wound around the castle visiting the main rooms and Kai explained what living in the castle was like during different periods.

The kitchen	The two fireplaces in the kitchen	Section showing the interior wall construction
The ‘master’ bedroom	Sitting area in the bedroom, built into the 11 foot thick wall	Common room
The Knights’ room
The old stable, set up with punishment and torture equipment	The rack – early Pilates Reformer prototype	The blacksmith’s shop

Our day guide offered to escort us around Braubach as the castle tour was shorter than the programmed time for us to be off the ship. The group agreed. We were driven back to the river and then walked with Jason around this medieval town.

The church tower in Braubach, below Marksburg Castle	The main street through Braubach	Entry through the old town walls
Street scenes in Braubach
The oldest house in Braubach	The front side of the house (note the build date 1597)	The front door of another house (detail)
Street scene	Original marketplace of Braubach	Classical architecture in Braubach (and medieval Europe)
Entry to Schloss Phillipsburg	Formal gardens of Schloss Phillipsburg	The palace building

We returned to the ship and it departed for Rudesheim, with the special cruising experience of passing through the narrowest part of the Rhine, passed the Loreley Rock, and nearly a dozen castles perched on the ridges above the river. This was exactly the sort of cruising that I had hoped for when investigating river cruising. (It was still a shame that it had ruined my lunch arrangements.) The next couple of hours were spent in the lounge working on my blog entry and photographing the passing scenery and castles! Below is just a few, to give you a taste. (Looking back on the photos, they are routinely very poor, mostly because shot from inside the lounge. Castles are named based on reviewing the provided castle map after the event.)

Sterrenberg Castle	Leibenstein Castle	‘Mouse’ Castle
Rheinfels Castle	Katz Castle	A statue of Loreley
Approaching Loreley Rock, where sailors were lured to their doom by Loreley’s song	Loreley Rock (narrowest part of the Rhine)	Oberwessel, beyond the rock

Panorama of Oberwessel, opposite the Loreley Rock
The building beside the two light dashes is the harbourmaster’s office for the Lower Rhine

Schoenberg Castle above Oberwessel Church	Gutenfels Castle over Kolb	Pfalzgrafenstein, the toll station below Gutenfels Castle
Stahleck Castle, these days a youth hostel	The town of Bacharach under Stahleck Castle	Nolling Castle, over Lorch

I was booked on a night-time tour today, a wine tasting at a monastery. I’d booked this tour, like the Beer Culture tour in Cologne, to make sure that I experienced some of the food and drink culture of Germany (in this case) while I was touring. The tour was combined between two Viking ships docked together at Rudesheim. The other ship, Aegir was travelling down river. The group was loaded up onto mini-buses and driven for 25 minutes through night-time Rudesheim to the monastery, under the care and attention of Ivan, a young Croatian-born German man with impeccable but idiosyncratic English. Another in the unfailingly welcoming and hospitable guides that Viking provides.

The monastery was first built in the 900s and has never been destroyed, though it’s had ‘renovations’ applied over time. As a monastery it functioned initially as a scriptorium and developed the largest collection of books in Europe, until taken over by by a French conquerer (I think) who had the books distributed or destroyed in an anti-religious pogrom. Apparently, only seven of the original manuscripts remain, all in the British Museum (perhaps unsurprisingly).

The entry to the Monastery complex

The church of the monastery

The cellar area where we did the tasting

The monks turned to wine-making largely because they were in the middle of the Rheingeld, a hugely productive wine-making region. Eighty percent of grapes grown in the area are Reisling and something like 600 styles of reisling are made in the Rheingeld. The monastry became a famous centre for the best wines in the region. We were guided through all this by Eric, a long-standing local residents who obviously knew a lot about the local history and the local wines. He explained all this history and the wine making process while offering us three ‘tastings’. (I’ve highlighted tastings, because each tasting was almost a standard drink pour. The person beside me and I decided it was a ‘monk’s pour’.) Here were the wines we tried:

Weissenberg Reisling (photo at left)

A dry, minerally wine – a strong reminder to me of Watervale reislings; palate is down to the volcanic soils of the region

Steinberger (the monastry’s brand)

A floral, more fruity wine – a lighter style, more Polish Hill than Watervale; very pleasant

Steinberger cabinett

A much sweeter, cloying wine – named for the cellar where we were tasting; “cabinett” (from French, apparently) represented the best of whatever style was being fashioned. Apparently, a high sugar content was prized by wine drinkers of the time.

After our tasting, Eric took us through the main part of the monastery – the chapter house, where monks congregated daily to discuss matters and have one of 39 chapters read to them. Apparently, the Cistercian monks were required to pray seven times a day, including once during the night, had a morning meeting in the chapter house, and then spent the rest of the day in silence, working in the scriptorium. The lay brothers (illiterate brethern who also lived in the monastery) did the manual labour associated with gardening and cleaning, and later wine-making.

The Chapter House, with vaulted ceilings added in a later period

A detail of the windows in the Chapter house, showing the original romanesque window, with later gothic window added above.

Eric then took us into the church proper and it was astounding! This 83m long, 35m wide, 20+m high church was the original church built in the 900s. Eric explained that the monks charged with establishing a monastery here were determined for it to succeed and went straight to the best church they could imagine. It is over-whelming how large this church was for a monastery built at that time. Not as ornate as cathedrals built elsewhere around that time and later, but that’s because it’s a monastery.

The church nave	The altar	The altar from the far end of the nave
Shrines to passed abbots	Tombstones, original in the floor but placed on the wall in recent renovations to protect them from wear	Another shrine to a local knight (I think)

The tour ended with dinner in another building of the monastery, accompanied by more of the reisling that we’d tasted. It was lovely. We were returned to our ship and I headed for bed.

Daily facts: Location: [R]hine River (Koblenz; Rudesheim), Germany Temp: 9-11 Weather: Overcast, some light rain