August 6th: So we set off by 9 AM, all ready to rock and roll all the way to the Rhineland, where we are hoping to drink some wine and see a castle. By 12 noon, we have learned two important lessons. Lucky us to be learning so much so early in the trip.
Lesson #1: Don't realize you have left your cell phone at home when you are already at the army base picking up supplies. Especially when you have to have your phone on you because you are on standby. It means you have to drive an hour home again, after already driving an hour to the base, which is on the way to where you were going. Which sets you back, oh, at least two hours.
Lesson #2: Buy a car with Air Conditioning, regardless of whether the car with Air Conditioning is blue, rather than red (which you like much better), and doesn't have the cool wheels that the red one has.
So, we arrive in Moselkern, on the Mosel river valley, in the late afternoon, sweating like maniacs and cranky. OK, maybe I'm the cranky one. The scenery is very beautiful, vines after vines after vines. I can already taste the Riesling.
And we find our hotel, Zur Burg Eltz, which turns out to be bizarre. For so many reasons. But I don't care, and we take a nap. Upon rising, the weather seems to have cooled down.
We shower (a must) and head up the road, winding along the Mosel river (an eysore) to the little town of Koblenz for a nice meal and a glass of the good stuff. We end up at a lovely little place with a view of the river and friendly staff. The wine is delicious and the food fresh...all in all, a success.
Not so much of a success are our efforts to find a happening joint to have a brew back in Moselkern, which appears to have had its entire population massacred by zombies in the time we have been away. As such, we head for some seats outside of our strange hotel where the even stranger waitress/front desk girl/jill (or jack, we really can't tell) of all trades takes 45 minutes to pour us a Bitburger, which appears to be the Budweiser of Germany, except it's not crap. Once we settle into the silence with our beers, we feel a bit better but also congratulate ourselves for not staying in Moselkern more than 12 hours.
We wake up to dreary weather, which we don't care about because it's not 500 degrees and we have to drive to the Black Forest today. However, at this point we don't know that the dreary weather will continue throughout the week.
So off to Burg Eltz, the reason I dragged poor Xander to the Rhineland (besides the wine, of course). Somehow, by the grace of God, or whoever/whatever you believe helps you with these things, we find the parking for Burg Eltz. I really don't know how we found it. Really. It was like Groundhog Day up there in them hills. Which, incidentally, reminded me of a German version of Tuscany. What that means, I'm not sure, but they reminded me of Tuscany, anyway. Perhaps Tuscany with sausages instead of risotto, Bitburger instead of Prosecco.
We walk the surprisingly vigorous walk to the castle. I say surprising because somehow a horde of tourists, not so much in shape ones, have made it through the rain to the castle as well, which pisses me off because I am sweating. And because they are those super-rude tourists. You know the type.
We take a tour of the grand old castle, which is pretty rad, I admit, in Dutch and Xander translates. This is my life as of late. Not really knowing what the hell is going on. Which is what I wanted, so good. This 15-century castle rises out of the surrounding valley like a fortress...what a good vantage point to see who was coming to take you out. The Eltz family still owns it, crazily, but they don't live in it anymore. Which I don't blame them for, as it is drafty and likely haunted by 5000 or so ghosts.
After some goulash soup and a coffee, we get on the road to the south of Germany and Freiburg im Breisgau.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment