Saturday 4 June 2011

Rudesheim, the Rhine and Andernach

Sailing through the night we reached the confluence of the Rivers Main and Rhine at 10.40am.

About to turn right into the Rhine

First stop was Rudesheim for a stay of just three and half hours during which we visited Siegfried's Kabinett, a business which restores hundreds' years old musical machines. On the face of it not the most exciting of exhibitions which turned out to be a delightful experience. This machine was found in pieces in a home in Hungary and was lovingly restored to working order.

Musical machine

Rudesheim

Then we sailed down the Rhine passing thirty castles and the Loreley Rock to Andernach. I can't really pick between them all for scenic attraction so will just post one photograph which includes two of the castles. One castle is located on an island in the Rhine and the other on a nearby hill.


We reached Andernach at 9pm and immediately took a brief walking tour of the city. For a Saturday night the city was amazingly quiet...well dead actually. A row of combivans camped by our dock and containing Dutch tourists found our and our ship's arrival as the night's entertainment.

Here we are looking at an old gate to the city with an almost empty lane in the background.


Finally back to our ship for the night.

The Amabella docked tonight at Andernach


Tomorrow we go to Cologne and two optional tours are offered en route. One is to visit Maastricht in the Netherlands to see, amongst other things, the castle where Andre Rieu lives. We won't be doing that tour. Instead we will remain in Germany and travel to Koblenz, at the confluence of the Rhine and Mosel rivers, to see the flower show.

No comments:

Post a Comment