Little Old German Towns

We have been spending a lot of time over the last week in small, old, very pretty German towns. We moved from the Moselle valley to the Rhine valley staying in a town called Bacharach and spending the next couple of days exploring the surrounding hills and villages both hiking and bike riding.

The striking thing about the Rhine was just how turbulent it was. We rode past the most treacherous part, the Loreley, a sharp bend in the river with rocks poking up at scary looking angles and were amazed by the boats they manage to guide through.

The other notable thing about the Rhine valley was the amount of castles and ruins. The landowners over the centuries would extract taxes on passing ships and built forts and castles at regular intervals. We rode past heaps, scrambled over a couple and spent several hours exploring the giant ruin at St Goar.

We then drove East to the town of Bamberg, stopping on the way in Wurzberg to buy a new camera- Yay! Bamberg has been recommended to us by a handful of people and we'd have to second the recommendations. It was really pretty -and that's after seeing a lot of these towns- it has a huge cathedral/palace district as well as little winding streets, a river and canal wind through the town and they have their own type of smoked beer!

We also had the good luck of a quiet campground next to a river where we could sit back with a couple of the above mentioned beers (it tastes like bacon so you don't need snacks to go with it). It is pretty rare to get a quiet campground with most being positioned next to motorways or railways so we really enjoyed the peace, watching the sun set and the bats fly over the water.

Winding our way back West (I think we'll have covered every road in this country by the time we are finished) we stopped in at the walled town of Rothenburg Ob Der Tauber, a completely walled town where we tried the local speciality, a pastry called a Schneeball. When our guidebook dissuaded readers from trying the pastry with comments like 'Europe's worst local specialty' we were intrigued but were forced to agree within a bite. Rothenburg has a well fed sparrow and pigeon population we believe.

The town of Heidelberg was another stop, lovely old town, great big castle ruins on a hill overlooking the town, sound familiar yet? A highlight was the 'Great Vat' a giant old barrel in the castle which can hold 221 726 L. Impressive.

We are currently in the Black Forest hoping to break up the little old town route with a couple of days of hiking. It might help us shed some of what we are calling the 'schnitzel layer' which is mysteriously attaching itself to us. Although it very well may be replaced by the 'Black Forest cake layer' quite soon.

Photos: Our camp on the Rhine, An old town square in the Black Forest, The old town hall in Bamberg, Adam cooking up a feast in Bamberg