Day 5 - Getting Thrown in the Dungeon

The day started off with sunny rain showers, everything smelled clean and fresh if not a little humid. Grandpa and I had a little time before our tour was to leave for Markburg Castle. So we decided to hop off real quick and take a few pictures of Koblenz. Keeping a careful watch of the time we zipped around. We arrived at the boat 5 minutes later than the meeting time, but with the slow group we have we felt that they would just be getting off of the ship. We were wrong, the ship was empty and the young woman at the desk ran up the gang plank and pointed for us to go across the park to where the buses would be. So Grandpa and I quickly walked in the direction she pointed and found no buses. We returned to report we had missed them and asked if a taxi could be called. We had no idea that it would take 3 people including the manager to finally find a taxi for us. A taxi arrived and we quickly drove to the castle to join our group. Our program director was happy to see us, she had returned to find us and somehow we missed each other, because the buses were not across the park but just down the river on the promenade. I quickly promised no more early morning excursions from us so that we wouldn't be missed again.

A humongous bronze statue of Kaiser Wilhelm sits at the apex of the Rhine and Moselle river in Koblenz. He must be 20 feet high, just the statue not including the base.

Markburg Castle is the only medieval castle that was destroyed at some point, it still has the original walls and woodwork. Some things had been destroyed over time due to use and those who lived in it, but it's amazing what the society has done to it's restoration.

 Markburg Castle from below, it's sits on the top of a hill like most castles here.

Cool knights helmet we thought you boys would appreciate.

We rode the buses down the hill to meet our ship at the river. Then we spent the day riding the river and viewing castles, just about every hilltop has a castle and every town has 3 churches.

 The Embla coming to pick us up after the castle tour.

 View of the Rhine from Marksburg castle.

One fun pair of castles were built by two brothers. They both fell in love with their adopted sister, but the younger brother was the more charismatic of the two and she married him. The younger brother then went off to Israel to be in the crusades and left his young wife with his brother to care for. The wife fell in love with the older brother, after so long away from her husband. The younger brother returned to find his wife, with his older brother and the brothers became enemies. But the younger brother didn't go to far, he built his castle on the next bump of the hill over. To keep his brother out he built a wall between the two castles. Eventually the wife left them both feeling remorse for it all and lived in a convent. The brothers forgave one another and they died in peace.

The brothers castles.

Overnight we continue to sail along leaving the middle Rhine and into the upper Rhine area. We wake up on a different river, the Main and a new city Miltenberg. Hopefully Grandpa and I can stay out of the brig (ships dungeon) this time.