3 R's-Rheinstein Castle, The Rhine river and Rüdesheim

Happy Mother's Day!  I hope yours was as wonderful as mine!


What a fun week we have had around here.  

On Monday my friend Karma and I took a USO train tour.  We rode the train to Mannheim to go to the Mai Markt (May Market).  The Mai Markt is like the expo center at the Fair only it's twenty times as big. It's held in several buildings and many, many semi permanent tents.  It's divided up by categories like food, fashion, furniture, building and remodeling, travel and vacations, health and fitness etc...  It's so huge, you need a map to know where to go.

We went really like the food tent the best.  We bought some good salami in three different flavors; herb, fig, and olive.  We also had some strawberry and cream waffles.....Mmmm! 


On Tuesday, I had a German baking class.  This was a special class featuring Authentic Black Forest Cake.

We also made a chocolate orange swirl bundt cake and some poppyseed pastries.

On Friday, Travis celebrated his 15th birthday by having some friends over to watch a movie, play video games and some Apples to Apples.  He requested a "transformer" cake.  The kids had a great time and we are so grateful for Travis and his wonderful friends!  They make life fun and interesting every single day!

On Saturday, Mike and I went to the Homburg Flohmarkt.  We had heard lots of good things about this flea market and so we wanted to go check it out.  It was huge!   It just went on and on and on.  We saw lots of cool stuff like pics of Hitler, lots of world war ll mementos, and of course some interesting antique stuff. We didn't buy anything but we had a great time just looking around.

We took the back roads on the way home.  This is the time of year that the fields are covered with blooming yellow rapseed.  Rapseed is what they make canola oil with and it's everywhere and wow! Is it beautiful!


For Mother's Day, Mike and T.J. surprised me with a USO tour that I have been wanting to go on.  A tour of the Rhine River area.  This was pretty nice of them considering it was also Travis' birthday.  He would rather have been with all of his friends at church but he was a good sport!

So early on Sunday morning, Mike, Travis, Chris and I got on the tour bus at Vogelweh and headed off to the Rhine River.  Our first stop was the Romantik Schloss, the Rheinstein Castle.  It was so interesting!!  It is perched on a rocky outcrop on a steep hill overlooking the river.

switchbacks leading up the steep hill to the castle

The castle was built in the 1300's and was gifted to the arch bishop of Mainz to protect the area from the unruly knights of the Rhine river.  Although never destroyed, it fell into decay and in the mid 1970's it was purchased by former opera singer Hermann Hecher.  He and his family have been restoring and preserving the castle ever since.  It is a small but very beautiful "little castle".


**Remember, you can click on any picture to make it bigger!


 We took about 10 minutes to climb up to the castle and we were met by our guide, who is the daughter in law of Hermann Hecher.  She told us all about the history of the castle and then turned us loose to explore on our own.  We were able to see several furnished rooms, the kitchen, and to climb up to the basket turret.  What a view from up there!!

 We all climbed up to the top of the "basket turret".  It's the one on the right in the picture above. The view was amazing from up there!!   The basket was used to put bad people in to teach  the villagers a lesson..."Don't be bad!"

The kitchen and the chapel.The red arbor courtyard.

There are just way too many good pictures and it's hard to choose!  But you get the idea.  It was a small castle that was easy to explore in an hour and it truly gave you the feeling of stepping back into time.  I kept saying that if I had lived in these times, I would have wanted to live in this castle!  

After this stop, we rode the bus up to St. Goar, where we boarded our tour boat for a  two hour trip upriver to Aussmanhausen.  This is the most scenic part of the Rhine.  The weather was pretty cool and misty, so the boys stayed inside at a table by the window. 

 I just couldn't stay inside...the view was so much better up top!!  We passed the famous Lorelay Rock, which legend has it that many, many boats never made it around this bend because of the siren Lorelay who would distract the sailors by her beautiful singing and long flowing yellow hair.  They would be so overwhelmed, they would crash on the rocks.

We passed many quaint little riverside villages and about 6 or 8 castles. Most were built in the 13th or 14th century and then destroyed in the 1600's when France was retreating out of Germany and burned and destroyed everything they could on their way back to France.  Many of the castles have been restored and are used now as hotels or youth hostels.

This is one of several Toll stations that were built by robber barons in the middle of the river to collect tolls from the river boats.

After disembarking in Aussmanhausen, we took the bus to the Rüdesheim area, where we had a traditional schnitzel dinner in a huge beer hall.  After dinner we went next door to a winery and were entertained by a very fat, jolly, German.  It was actually a wine tasting, but since we don't drink, we were served fanta and just sat back and enjoyed the show! 

Then we had an hour to walk around and shop in Rüdesheim.  It is pretty touristy, but full of character and charm.  I bought a german music box/water globe to remember this wonderful Mother's day in Germany.

oompa band

On the left is the Burgerhaus  (no..not that kind of burger....it's the town hall)  that was built in 1684.

We finished off the day with a trip up the hill to see the monument, Niederwald-Germania. She was built to celebrate the reunification of Germany in 1871. The monument is much bigger than you'd expect, standing 132 feet tall and built on a huge hill overlooking the Rhine River.




Wow!  That was a long one!!   We really had a fun week.  
Travis has been teasing me and saying he was going to tell everyone his mom made him miss church and go to a wine tasting instead for his birthday.  Isn't he funny??   

Happy Mother's Day to all the wonderful moms who are a part of our lives.  
We love you and miss you all,
-corri