Reisen mit Eltern, Teil 2: Rheintal

Our second mini-trip with my parents during their visit was to the Rhine Valley. While in Bavaria, we experienced German beer culture, and in the Rhine Valley we got to experience German wine culture.

Slumping tower of Heidelberg Castle

Prior to their trip, my parents expressed an interest in the Rhine Valley based on hearing relatives relate their experiences of river cruises up and down the romantic Rhine. We obliged them, but first we made a stopover in Heidelberg. I remember stopping in this university town along the Neckar River (same river as Tübingen) as a teenager on my first trip to Germany, and so I was eager to see it with older eyes. We packed a picnic lunch and hiked/took the funicular to the castle looming over town. We had a gorgeous view and our picnic was the envy of the other tourists. We spent a while longer wandering through old town, which dates back only a few hundred years, and ended our afternoon by traversing the "Philosophenweg" (Philosopher's path) - a path incised on the hillside and framed by stone walls - it was a famous place for professors to walk and talk (who has time for that now?).

Mäuseturm through grapevines

Rüdesheim, a wine-growing town on the Rhine, was recommended to us by a colleague. We arrived in the rain hungry after our hike in Heidelberg. The food was bland compared to the culinary highlights of Bavaria, but the wine was excellent! The next day my parents boarded the "Seilbahn" (chairlift) to the top of the wine hills and the "Niederwalderdenkmal" (monument commemorating a German-French war). We hiked along the sloping wine hills in the rain, with views of the Mäuseturm (Mouse Tower), a famous toll-station of the Middle Rhine in the Middle Ages. My parents boarded a second "Seilbahn" down to the adjacent wine village of Assmanhausen, and we met them at the bottom. We caught a ferry back to Rüdesheim and continued our journey North to Koblenz by car.

Cruising the Rhine

The wine excitement didn't stop there, because we stayed two nights at a family-run in and winery of sorts located on the Moselle River just upstream of it's confluence with Rhine in Koblenz. Joe and I got to try the wine and it was delicious. The next day we hopped onto a historic paddle boat for a day-long boat ride to Rudesheim and back. There is a castle about every two miles on this stretch of river, so we spent the day viewing castles from the boat deck while sipping Rhine wine. A nice repose after all of the hiking we'd done. The highlight for most Germans was the famous Lorelei Rock of lore. I actually thought the boat would tip as we went past it because all of the Germans moved to the Lorelei side.

We ended our second trip with a stop in the spa town of Bad Kreuznach, where we took a relaxing dip in some healing spa waters. It was good we got that little bit of relaxation in, because once we got back to Tübingen we were fully focused on moving into our new apartment. We expected help from my parents, of course, in exchange for all the travel planning. Up next: Joe's account of our new apartment.