Bacharach

I can't believe I have been here three weeks! How quickly the time flies....


This weekend we travelled to Bacharach, a little old town on the Rhine River valley. Such a great little town with such history and so much to see - it was perfect for a quick weekend trip. We rented bikes and attempted to ride the path along the river but unfortunately the weather had other ideas and we ended up in a little wooden hut a couple of miles outside of town waiting for the rain to clear. We chatted it up with a guy from Edmonton who was also visiting Bacharach with his family and was also waiting out the rain. After it cleared, we headed back to the town and thought we would ride up to the castle when, once again, the weather had other plans. We ducked into a wonderful little restaurant called Altes Haus for a berry strudel and waited for the rain to clear....again. We decided to give up on the bikes. We walked up through the grape vines that grow along the sides of some very steep hills to a lookout tower for some really spectacular views. Then back down to the street and over a couple blocks to the bottom of the billion steps that lead up to the castle. (I'm convinced that Steve is using all the fun castle tours as part of his evil plan to whip me into shape.) The castle is now a youth hostel - seems kind of a sad fate for the building that once stood proudly as the German capital back in the 1200's. But, it's cool that you can say you stayed in a bona-fide castle for the bargain price of 17 euros per night.

We opted for the bed and breakfast run by Ursula Orth where we enjoyed a gracious host, comfortable beds and a traditional German breakfast. I'm having a hard time buying into the German idea of breakfast. Not that it doesn't taste good.... Our breakfast consisted of a couple slices of Swiss cheese and prosciutto on a roll.... sort of sounds more like lunch to me but I ate it graciously and actually enjoyed it. What I did not enjoy was the soft-boiled egg that I had assumed was hard boiled until I broke into it. Something about it looked a little too much like a baby chicken fetus and left me wanting to run from the table and lose my proverbial lunch.

In other news...we visited the Church of Christ in Wiesbaden yesterday morning....something I have been thoroughly looking forward to since I got here. It is a small church consisting entirely of either active military or civilian contractors. Sadly, it is shrinking almost weekly with so many changes in our military presence here. Yesterday they were saying goodbye to a couple that is relocating back to the U.S. this week and there are several others that are waiting to find out what will happen next. One nice thing about going to such a small church is that we were CLEARLY visitors and everyone knew it.....so everyone was eager to introduce themselves and get to know us. We actually had lunch with a family that lives in Arlington (when not living in Germany) and attends a small church in Fort Worth.......small world....