Day 4: The Rhine Valley - Bacharach

After a few wrong turns, we arrived at our destination in Bacharach around 4pm - a pretty little village on the most scenic part of the Rhine. We managed to find Orthodox Zimmer, the little guesthouse kept by Irmgard Orth - I'd called her earlier in the day to hold a room for us in her cute little guesthouse. (We bought a cute little German go phone on base through Stormy and put $20 worth of minutes on it to help with reservations and whatnot - since we booked absolutely nothing before we left!)

Bacharach was sort of like Florence was on our girls trip in '08. Europe somewhat shuts down on Mondays, which is the day we were in Florence (which i think might have been my favorite Italian city if it hadn't been a Mon.) So we got to Bacharach on a Monday and the following day was May 1st -May Day, basically a national holiday... double wammy! It reallly wasn't too bad though - just that many things along the Rhine were closed those days - lots of restaurants, the TI (tourist info), shops, the grocery market...

Bacharach's castle is Burg Stahleck, now a hostel, we didnt go see it, but rather walked around for awhile, checking out the "town" (it's tiny), looking at the sites, watching the train fly by, and trying to find an open, affordable restaurant with outdoor seating. Finally found a spot -only about 4 open options. Food was nothing spectacular but apple streusel was excellent - not very sweet, the ice cream complemented it well. Walked around, had the famous Rhine Valley Riesling. I usually don't like Riesling because it's always so sweet, but here they have different types. Sweet, dry, and half dry. I got dry and chris got half - very good. Ended the evening with gelato - chocolate for Chris and the "Italia Eis" owner's special creation - local Riesling flavored - for me. Sounds weird but so good!

I've failed to mention how awesome the weather has been... Apparently it was still cold and wet pretty much until the day we arrived when everything cleared up and spring set in. It's been absolutely gorgeous since then - I hope this doesn't jinx it, but seriously beautiful! Sunny, cool breeze every once in awhile. Perfect.

It's weird to me how many Europeans still smoke, especially since so many Germans seem to be so health conscious. I had really bad allergies when we left SA and was so happy to escape the pecan pollen. But then with everything blooming here, people smoking everywhere in the city, and the fact that I swear someone has been supplying German women with 2 distinct perfumes, both extremely strong, my sneezing and allergies have been non-stop until we got out the city and into some fresh air - much better now.