Day 23 Speyer to Boppard on the Rhine - Sid and Doris Bonkers and their Epic Journeys

In which Sid and Doris go to a Rhine tourist town and have a wonderful view of the river traffic.

After the excitement of yesterday’s autobahn this was mostly a small roads run to a very scenic little town on the Rhine. The small roads round here are fun to drive, being well-maintained and mostly empty.

En route we are charmed/fascinated/insert verb of choice here to see this building project in progress. On a variation of “an Englishman’s home is his castle”, this house is being upgraded with pointy towers, and, we observe as we draw closer, [sorry missed this one with the camera – D.] a drawbridge.

Along the Rhine there are castles crowding every flattish highish bit of land, in a way that feels vaguely disproportionate… rather like the concentration of “experiences” in DisneyWorld. Were there more castles than people at some point?

The Rhine is a big river and as there are no major towns between Mainz and Koblenz it is not worth building bridges. Instead there are ferries taking cars bikes and cyclists across.

Our apartment in Boppard is right opposite the town ferry so we can, and do, watch them ferryglide all afternoon. On the far bank is the railway. The river itself has large barge traffic and a few boats for trippers. As I look up a long train carrying pipes goes right to left. A tanker barge goes stolidly upstream left to right and the ferry is coming across with a few cars and bikes. It is very Sid and Doris. Hermann is parked with a view of the river and will be staying there tomorrow.

[Here are only a few of the pictures that Sid took of the river, the barges, the trains, the ferry… D.]

We have found the bakery for Sunday morning and I predict a day of idle river tourism. Busy, busy.

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