May 6th we got up and drove to Boppard (small town on the Rhine River, located just outside of Koblenz). The town lies in the upper part of the Middle Rhine. Our hotel literally was across the street from the river--great location! We walked around in the afternoon and had coffee at a sidewalk cafe. Then I had the GREAT idea of taking the 20 minute chair lift from the boarding station at Muhltal to Gedeonseck HIGH up on a hill to view the panoramic view over the largest bend in the Rhine. Jeff, not really enjoying heights and REALLY not enjoying the look of this rickety chair lift, stayed below to video me on the trip. It was a great view and I got a lot of good pictures, but I'm not sure I would do it again. It was really steep and this was not a new-looking lift!The next morning we took a full-day river cruise to Rudesheim. It took about four hours to get there and the large boat made stops all along the Rhine to pick up more groups of people. There was a narrative going on as you passed castle after castle along the way--so cool! I couldn't stop taking pictures. We had three hours in Rudesheim (a touristy old town with lots of shops and restaurants) and ate lunch at a restaurant that had "live music"--a guy singing German polka songs, accompanied by a keyboard. It warmed up more than any day we had been in Germany and we just walked around eating ice cream and shopping. The trip back up the Rhine only took about three hours and there was a cool breeze as you sat out on the top deck and watched the sun going down while passing the castles again (yes, more pictures)!
May 8th we drove back to Frankfurt in the afternoon, returned our rental car and spent the night at the on-site hotel to fly out bright and early the next morning to Dallas. It was a WONDERFUL trip and we had such a unique, once-in-a-lifetime experience. We were pretty exhausted as it was a "working" vacation, but I wouldn't change one thing about it!
