Life of a Traveler

The Rhine River Germany

So here it is… January 2016 and I haven’t shared much from our Europe Vacation back in September. To make up for all my slacking, I decided to share with you our second day in Europe : “The Rhine River Germany”.

For those who know me well, you will agree that I like to be in control. Not in a bad way, but in an “I like to have a plan, to know the options, the costs, and make an educated plan of attack” sort of way. There is always a reason why I do what I do. I want to make sure we plan enough time early on. The same holds true when I go on vacation.

My husband had so little to do with the planning (he just doesn’t care where we go) that when we were going though customs on the way home he was asked where he visited and where he stayed. He had no idea! He had to yell for me across the room (where I was in a different line) so that I could answer the questions for him. It would have been almost comical if they weren’t eyeing us like we were trying to sneak back into America. I mean who has no idea where they just came from??! Apparently Nick.

So, the plan was that we would fly on the First and arrive on the Second due to the time change. On the third, we were supposed to do a Rhine Cruise because we would have jet lag and that was the easiest/laziest thing to do. The morning of the 3rd we woke up and there were low lying clouds filling the valley. Since the point of the cruise was to see the villages and castles, we ended up deciding to just swap our 3rd day and 4th day plans. You can read more about what we actually ended up doing on the 3rd day by clicking HERE and HERE.

Day 4. We woke up to clouds again. They weren’t quite as bad and the day before and we noticed that they cleared up later in the morning so we just decided to go or it! We drove south 15 minutes to Bingen and parked our car. It was easy to find the KD Rhine ticket counter and boat dock and soon we were on our way!

*NOTE Almost all images & video this day were taken on a cell phone – We were on vacation and did’t want to lug around the big camera. The video can be viewed in 4k so make sure to adjust the settings if you want a clearer picture*

We made our way down the Rhine, past castles, cute little towns and the Lorelie Rock until we finally reached Boppard. We got off the boat, wandered around the little town for a bit before taking the train back to our car. It was a lazy day with beautiful scenery!

The next day we decided to check out the local town of Bacharach. It was actually a fun little town but sadly many of the stores were closed on a Saturday. We went into this cute little shop where an older gentleman sold prints of the town. We went in and talked to him a bit and purchased some prints for my moms house. He said that many younger shop owners like to close up and go out on the weekend. So… be warned!

The town has a wall around part of it that you can walk. 

As we were walking around we noticed 20*C+M+B+15 written in chalk above many doors. We later found out that by using chalk either above the door, or at the side of the door and marking 20 + C + M + B + 15 , they are blessing their home. It also signifies a christian home. The 20 and the 15 being the year (2015) and C, M, B being the intitials of the traditional names of the wise men, Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar, they can also stand for Christus Mansionem Benedicat, the Latin words meaning, May Christ bless this home.

Have a nice weekend and until next time… XOXO

-Stephanie