Koblentz

Our ship is now on the Middle Rhine River. We’re done with the locks. There were about 67 of them. This river starts as a trickle in the Swiss Alps and is 820 miles long. We’ll be traveling around 40 miles on it, and we’re in the 530 km mile marker area. Today was all about castles, vineyards and forests along the Middle Rhine as we cruised to Koblenz. There are between 20,000–30,000 castles throughout Germany. Castles were built for war and defense. Palaces, on the other hand, are residences to showcase wealth and power. We kept warm on the top deck with mulled wine. Breathtaking views today.

We visited Koblentz, a traditional German country town, founded 2000 years ago by the Romans. It is at the confluence of the Rhine and Moselle rivers. Eighty-seven percent of the town was destroyed during World War II.

We had a guest lecturer after our walking tour who shared the myths and the reality of the castles in the Rhineland.Lue lisää