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| Erin's Journal for 10-09-02 Today we left Munich on our way to the Rhine. We got up a bit early to make sure we could spend a little more time with Helena and Andreas before they left for work, and hustled out the door shortly thereafter to catch an early train. Due to a short stop in the corner bakery to get some snacks for the train, we missed the U-Bahn we could have made, and were pretty sure we no longer had time to catch our train at the huge main station. We hustled up the steps nonetheless, and were pleased to see our train was leaving 5 minutes late! We hopped on and enjoyed the ride up to Mainz. Our first concern once there was to find out if we could get on the boat up the Rhine the next day. With this in mind, we set out to find Information, which was shown on our guidebook map near the water. Well, after asking directions of a friendly local man, we walked...and walked...and walked... Finally we pulled out our book and checked our location, only to find that we'd walked the wrong way. By now we were both tired with our heavy packs, but gamely set out to walk back at an angle to our original path. Eventually, after much winding and checking the book, we found tourist information, and were given the boat schedule. They also told us that there was a convention in town, and we'd be unlikely to find accommodation! This turned out to be ok, though, as the off-season boat schedule showed that the Rhine boats didn't even pick up from Mainz any more except on weekends! As this was Wednesday and we wanted to boat on Thursday, we saw that we'd need to relocate. We huffed and puffed our way back to the train station and only waited a half hour for the next train going to the local Rhine towns. We wanted Bingen, a medium-sized town at population 25,000, since it would offer more rooming choices and was the 2nd pickup of the morning for the boats. We got into town around 4pm, walked a short ways along the train track looking for information, and ended up finding a couple of hotel offerings right by the boat dock. We picked one quickly and checked in, just to get rid of our packs. It turned out to be a pretty nice room, actually, with a private bathroom/shower and all, so we were pleased. Then we went to get information on the boats the next day, but found that the employee had stepped out, even though the sign said 'open' and their hours said they'd be open till 6. We walked a short way down the waterfront to a playground and watched the kids play in the fading sunlight, then went back to check the boat office at 5:30 and found it closed up! So we gave that up, then walked through town a bit till we found an internet spot. We spent about 40 minutes checking email, but were too tired to try website work and quickly went on to find dinner. We had an early dinner in this small but charming town, in an Italian restaurant run by an Indian family. It was nothing special, but we both enjoyed the salad enough to write home about. We don't get many good salads out here! After this we were tired and went straight back to our room to relax and watch CNN. Glenn surprised me by falling asleep before 8pm, so I stayed up and read my book only till about 9, then crashed too. |
| One of the (many) Rhine castles |