sleeping between two giggling boys...

I forget where I left off, so I'll recap: Our entire class (consisting of 17 students, 2 house parents, 2 professors, 2 spouses, and 7 munchkins) traveled from Oxford to Stanstead, Stanstead to Berlin, Berlin to Whittenburg, and Whittenburg to Leipzig...in 2 1/2 days. We then broke off into personal travel groups.

Brian Schmidt, Jeremy Ponds and I planned a short stay in Germany--with a little help from Rick Steeves of course. Our goal was to get to Baccarach, a small town in south central Germany situated on the Rhine River. Rick suggested a River Cruise from Cologne, so we booked a sleeper train from Berlin to Cologne and hoped to get on the boat there. We missed that boat, so we took a train from Cologne to Koblenz, then hopped the boat to Baccarach--which actually worked out a lot better than Rick's suggestion anyway! I've included a map so you can see what kind of ground we covered in three days. Baccarach is not on this map, but you can find its approximate location just north of Mainz.


So the sleeper train was definately my favorite part of my entire stay in Germany. The sleeper car is a space about 5ft by 7ft. The left side of the car sports a sliding ladder and a closet washstand (its double doors open to reveal a mirror and an ity bity sink, towels and soap). There is then a 1ft space for you to walk into the car in and 3ft-4ft of beds. There are three beds and they stack on top of each other with about 2ft in between. I begged Brian to take a picture of this arrangement, but he said not even his best wide angle could get far enough away to capture this car. Think TINY. So Brian was on the bottom, Jeremy was on the top, and I slept in between two giggling boys. It was a pretty commical situation...especially was the fatigue set in and they started giggling for no apparent reason!

We arrived at Cologne around six in the morning and, after a brief Starbucks stop for Jeremy--that kid lives on shots of expresso!--explored Cologne's cathedral. The cathedral is located immediately outside the train station and, finished in the 1880's, is the largest cathedral in Germany and the largest church facade in the world. It was also the tallest building in the world until the Washington monument was completed. For a nominal fee, you can climb the 509 steps to the top of the spires--Brian and Jeremy did, I happilly watched the bags and took these pictures.



This is Baccarach from the boat. All the little towns along the Rhine look like this: lush greenery and vineyards scaling the steep slopes, a single castle (of the robber-baron style, according to Rick) overlooking the town, and then the small, sleepy town nestled along the bank of the Rhine. Undeniably beautiful, undoubtedly picturesque, and the best part--quiet. Very few munckins visit small out of the way towns. Absolute heaven. Castle Stahleck, which you can see in the first and second pictures has been turned into a youth hostel. We almost stayed there, but it was booked.

This was our hotel, The Rhine Hotel, a very clean, nice place to stay including air conditioning! We were also given breakfast in a diningroom overlooking the Rhine. ::sigh:: I could get used to that! The river was truly beautiful, especially in the early morning sunlight--even if Brian and Jeremy were mad at me for waking them up in time for breakfast! Also note the vineyards in the background--these are reasonable! Some of the vineyards we saw were almost vertically planted on the sides of the mountain. Amazing!

And last but not least, the scary train advertisement I saw in Berlin. Who wouldn't be frightened of this??