19/09/25 On A Boat

Today we fronted up bright and early to catch the ferry up the Rhine to Bacharach. Yesterday the cheerful lady at the ticket office informed us we were in luck: our boat was the "Nostalgia trip," the historic paddle steamer 'Geothe' would carry us all the way to Bacharach.

I suspect 'steam' was a bit of a misnomer: there was a big diesel engine in there somewhere, with auxiliary propellers to help with manoeuvring around the other traffic in the river and steam was only used to blow the whistle. 

The paddles were real though.

I held a vigil along with other photography tragics, waiting for the steam whistle to blow and celebrating when we caught the moment on film.

The Goethe had multiple viewing decks and two restaurants on board, so it wasn't exactly a hardship posting and we had impossible choices to make, like what to have for second breakfast and was it OK to eat ice cream before noon?

First castle straight ahead.

Quaint little villages came and went alongside the river, and at regular intervals castles in various stages of ruin or rehabilitation gazed down at us from cliff tops.  

Donning our hobbit hats, we had second breakfast and then ice creams for elevenses.   

The Goethe stopped at all the little towns along the river, gaining and losing passengers, dodging the multitude of cross-river car ferries, and giving way to the fully loaded industrial barges as they charged downstream with the powerful current.

At the last stop before Bacharach the routine changed. Crewmen ran back and forth, and extra ropes were deployed to secure the Goethe to its berth. Long announcements in German triggered lots of conversation among the passengers and sent us searching for an English speaker to translate. It turned out that a boat had run aground up at Bacharach and we were indefinitely detained while passage up the river was cleared. Passengers with deadlines immediately jumped ship to catch the train. We bought a drink and considered our options.

"This might take a while..."

A short walk took us to a little ferry across the river and then a bus delivered us to Bacharach where we raced down to the river to see the culprit boat still stuck on a sandbank with tugs harrassing it free and all the passengers standing on top deck in life-jackets.  Half of Bacharach had turned up at the riverside for the excitement.

They'll dine out on the story for decades:  all the drama and at the end of the day no-one got hurt.

It was a short walk from the river up to the Bacharach Hostel but don't be fooled, it took us a while because the hostel was in the medieval castle (Burg Stahleck) that perched on the cliff above the old town.  There were a lot of steps. I stopped often to 'admire the view.'

Up.

And yet more up.  At least the castle was now in sight, and a seat had been provided for the purposes of resting and taking water.

When we arrived, puffing and panting, it was to find that our room was on the 3rd floor in the turret which was all very well but... more stairs!

Just a few more stairs and we're there.

Roger was overtaken with reminiscing again, so surprised was he by how much things had changed since the 80s. Mind you, the hostel had been there for close to 100 years so they did hostelling pretty well by now.  And meals were provided for a (reasonable) price which was good because nobody was doing the hike down to town and back up again.

We ate on the terrace overlooking the river, watching as sunlight slowly left the valley and bells rang in the night.  

As I lay in my bed in our Rapunzel room someone somewhere played a piano lullaby to end the day, while far below trains rumbled beside the river.

Home for a night: Burg Stahleck Hostel.