Rhine River Pictures here:
Boppard Pictures here:
This post will describe our journey from Woelfersheim to Boppard. When we woke up on Wed. morning, the sky was an ominous black and then the downpour let loose. So MUCH rain pouring and pouring. There is a good reason that area is known as the Wetterau. Well, we were torn, because there had been some terrible storms in Dusseldorf the night before where some people had even been killed, and from what we could tell of the forecast, there might be bad weather where we were going too. Add to our limited internet, we had also found that the cell phones we acquired for use in Europe don't work, so I could not call our host in Boppard to inquire if it was still a good plan for us to come by way of boat on the Rhine. So after breakfast, we just decided to go for it - meaning, stick to the original plan, which was take the train to Rudesheim, and then the boat up the Rhine to Boppard.
Well, as soon as we decided that, the weather started to clear. The hotel manager kindly gave us a ride to Friedberg since EVERYbody told it was a bad idea to the take the bus. The switch of trains in Frankfurt went aok, and before we knew it, we were in the wonderful village of Rudesheim on the Rhine with sunny skies.
The ride up the Rhine took about 2.5 hours and it was just wonderful. It reminded me a lot of the riverboat trip I took with my mom a few years ago, only this time there were old castles and churches and villages all dating from something like 1200. The boat provided some explanations while the rest of the time I was madly reading my guide book. I will try to provide a link to some pictures once I get to Zurich so you can see a little of how wonderful it truly is!
So then we got to Boppard, and there we met Trudel and Wilfried (these people are not related to us, but they are now easily friends for life!) who were our kind hosts over the last 4 days. They bought us some ice cream and then took us on a walking tour of Boppard - a wonderful little village. Then we hopped in the car and headed up the high hills to some overlooks of the Rhine we had just traveled - the views were magnificent! While hiking between one overlook and another, we ran across a man who was just closing up camp from a long weekend of making charcoal, of all things! He was happy to speak in English and explain everything about the process, which was quite fascinating. Who knew?
Finally we got back to Trudel's house in Udenhausen, the village where the Schaefer emigrant ancestor lived before coming to America. Trudel and Wilfried have a lovely house that overlooks open fields to the west. They had meat marinating and soon on the grill, and there we were having dinner on the deck as the sun was setting over the fields. Trudel and Wilfried were so nicely attempting all their communication in English, but suffice it to say that we were all using our little dictionaries quite often. So even though our communication might have been halting here and there, we got along just fine and had some good laughs at some of our misunderstandings!
So this ended day 1 in Udenhausen. More description to come soon.
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