Sankt Goarshausen, Loreleystadt

We lucked out with our timing here. The Rhine in Flames festival just happened to be taking place in Sankt Goar, a few towns down the train line, when we planned to be in the area. Rhine in Flames takes place over the course of the spring-autumn in four different locations along the Rhine. The main draw is the fireworks and boat parade, but there's also food, live music, and et cetera.

Herr Hai picked the fireworks pictures, except the last one. I decided on that. Back to my earlier Patton reference, that one looked like someone taking a pot shot at the castle on the hill.

It was a bit smaller than I anticipated in terms of vendors, food, wine sellers (we are in a wine region, after all), but some of this might be due to just coming back after Covid. It was a good time despite being small, and then the rain. And it rained. Hard.

We got back from our hike, and I was cold and tired, so we took a nap. It turned out to be a much longer nap than I planned, and Herr Hai didn't wake me up. So we didn't go back to Sankt Goar and wander around or do anything else I had planned after lunch.

By the we got off the train, drizzling. By the time we got to the river, pouring. We ran into another American couple and talked for a while. They were retired army (her, officer, formerly stationed in Germany) who ran a small winery wherever they came from, and had come mainly for the wine. They were headed off the next day for Oktoberfest.

We went to get some food, and found the band. Yay. German traditional music. See short clip below, the entire four minutes on you tube whenever i get it up there. We walked around some more, but because we were late getting out, which turned out to be a good thing, we didn't have to wait for long for the festivities to begin.

There were boats out on the Rhine, some private, some belonging to the various companies that ferry tourists up and down to look at the castles. There were the ferries used as public transit (the only way to cross the Rhine between Koblenz and maybe as far down as Mainz, as there are no bridges, unless you want to do a Patton and build one yourself). Everything was decorated, and at some point they started sailing around. Looked nice.

Then came the fireworks. They were long. Loud. The blasts reverberated off the stone hills. Well done, too. No gimmicky projections or music, just pure light and noise. Okay, some Wagner might have been in order, Mahler, I don't know, something brash and German. Great job all around. It started really pouring at the end, and with a lot of other people, we booked it back to the train.

End of festival. Good thing too because again, I was totally wiped out. I'm like in the "Berenstain Bears: Too Much Vacation".Læs mere