Koblenz

Lively kids at breakfast again. I could see that Germans like all kinds of herbal teas from the selection available near the hot water urn.

It was raining as I crossed the bridge to the station. There was uncertainty whether there would be services due to the threatened strike. An old lady at Cochem station checked with me which direction the train was going. She was from South Africa and travelling around Germany. At Koblenz station I bumped into her again. She told me that Bingen hostel was full of groups. So much for the idea of overnighting in Bingen. She didn't hold much hope for Bacharach either. Ah, youth groups, they are the scourge of indy travellers during high season.

The rain was starting to depress me. It didn't help that a train strike was threatened for Sunday which might make it difficult to get to Frankfurt Airport. It occurred to me that I could get my plane ticket brought forward by a couple of days. I needed to think about this. In the meantime I put my backpack in a locker and walked into the city to see the monument of Wilhelm I on horseback at the Deutsches Eck (German Corner) which stands at the confluence of the Mosel and Rhine. On the other side of the Rhine is Ehrenbreitstein where there is a hostel which I had considered staying a night in. No idea if it was full of groups. I would have to cross the Rhine if I wanted to do this.

The currents of the Mosel and Rhine are very strong and this cruise boat had to oversteer by a lot to go where it wanted.

In the town there is Münzplatz, where the mint used to be, and these statues depicting a market woman and a local official. They don't seem to be mentioned in the official tourism site.

Jesuit church.

Windows with fancy decorations.

A building with an old corner tower. If I recall correctly it's one of 4 towers at the crossroads like this, each slightly different.

Government buildings.

By this time I had made up my mind. I was tired and a bit homesick, and I didn't fancy sticking around for the train strike. I went to an Internet and call centre and looked up the phone number and address of my airline's Frankfurt office on the Web. Over the phone they said that it should be no problem to leave earlier, lots of seats, but come down to our offices. So I got a ticket to Frankfurt for 20€80. A bit of sticker shock, coming from Italy where trains are relatively cheap, but to be fair, it was a long distance up the Rhine then the Main. Also I was not eligible for any of the discounts offered to residents, or special offers.

90 minutes by train to Mainz. Lots of schoolchildren getting off and on the train. Going home from school or from trips, I wondered. Then 40 minutes on the S-Bahn. This passed Mainz Sud, the nearest stop to a possible hostel then passed Frankfurt airport where I would be returning to. The airlines offices were just around the corner from the Hauptbahnhof. Piece of cake and no charge to change the ticket to leave the next day. The deed done, I then had a fast-food lunch and sent my relatives a SMS to let them know I would be 2 days early.

I decided spend my last night in Germany in a hotel for a change. If I got one near the airport I could get shuttled between the hotel and airport both ways and avoid any issues with trains. I went back to Frankfurt International and asked the booking service to locate me one. An unsmiling woman consulted her book of addresses and found me one in a village near the airport called Sindlingen.

The hotel seemed to be run by Indian or Pakistani immigrants, and was perfectly serviceable with all the standard amenities. Lest you think Sindlingen is a bucolic location, it's on the edge of an industrial park and I had views of factories and chimneys from my window. It was probably rustic a long time ago, before the factories took over. The village is neat and quiet. It had good services and there was a supermarket just around the corner from the hotel. I couldn't resist buying a last bag of cherries there.

The sun peeked out to taunt me, on my last evening in Germany. But there were still black clouds in the sky and the forecast on the TV predicted bad weather until Saturday. The news also said that the train strikes were predicted to continue. I walked down the street and found a Vietnamese restaurant whose owners were actually Chinese. I chatted with them a bit over my meal, then went back to become a bed potato facing the TV.

Cochem

My friend had to go back to her hometown to work and I would go down the Mosel. (Yes, this is the region that gives its name to the wine.) I had decided to go straight to Cochem and perhaps take some river cruises from there.

After a leisurely breakfast we left for the station at 1030. My train was at 1130 so there was a lot of time. I bade my friend and her parents goodbye and I was off. It was drizzling all this time. About 1½ hours later I arrived at Cochem via Trier. The hostel was very easy to find and I left my backpack there while I went to explore the town.

The town lies the banks of the Mosel and the land rises steeply behind it. When I saw the pictures and maps of the region I was sure it would be picturesque and I was not disappointed. There was a cruise leaving for Belstein at 1330 but I wasn't sure if I wanted to take it, so I took lunch first. There were many tourist restaurants to choose from. And the usual coffee houses and souvenir shops. My friend's father had said that this was a popular town with the Dutch. Heh heh, maybe they like the novelty of seeing hills.

After lunch I decided to walk up the Reichsburg, the castle in the picture overlooking the town. From there I had a good vantage over the valley. The youth hostel is on the other bank of the river, near the further bridge.

And this is looking upriver. You can see some vineyards.

I declined to do the castle tour, though it seemed popular with tourists; this was the queue for the next session.

And this is the view from just outside the entrance.

I descended from the castle via another path (I dislike retracing my steps) and found myself back in the middle of the town.

It was time for a coffee break. I didn't finish pronouncing Schwartzwälder Kirschtorte before the waitress completed the name for me. Sure is a touristy town. But what I got wasn't that distinguished, despite the yummy cherries of the area; I'd had better Black Forest Cake in my home city.

Wandering down to the river bank I noticed a marker well above a person's height on a wall indicating the highest level of the December 1993 floods. Wow, that was some flood, these buildings would have been several metres under water.

As usual, a river attracts waterfowl.

By this time I was sure that I didn't want to take any cruises as the weather was off and on, the views would be about the same up and down the river, but maybe the towns might look a bit different.

I walked back across the bridge to the hostel and checked in. The dorm was very tidy and the ensuite bathroom was spacious. I was the first in the dorm, but a couple of German backpackers arrived later. Later they invited me to join them in drinks in town or similar. I was somewhat tired because of the gloomy weather and declined their kind offer. Maybe I should have been more sociable.

I decided to take dinner in the hostel to avoid having to walk into town again. So I found myself allocated a place in the dining room with a lot of noisy youngsters. They were well-mannered though. There seemed to be two groups in the hostel, a Berlitz English camp and an excursion group. The food was bland but nourishing enough. And that was my day in Cochem.