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| Glenn's Journal for 10-09-02 - The Rhine River We awoke in time to say thanks and goodbye to Helena and Andreas before they left for work. We then quickly got ready and made our way to the train station to catch the 9:33 am train to Mainz. We left around 9:10 am and after stopping at the corner bakery found ourselves running to catch the train. We made it with minutes to spare, again!!! Once on the train we settled in for a 4 hour train ride going through Stuttgart and heading towards Frankfurt. We transferred trains in Mannheim and arrived into Mainz around 1:30 pm. Our first task was to verify that we could get the boat up the Rhine river for Thursday morning. We packed our way into town to locate the information office where we were provided the boat schedules. We were also told that accomodation in Mainz may be hard to find due to a book convention in Frankfurt that had most of the surrounding towns sold out. We had run into a book convention on our last trip in Bologna that had the town and surrounding towns sold out. No worries!!! After further review of the boat schedule we determined that boats only left from Mainz, in the off season, from Friday to Monday. The boats did depart daily from a little town a few stops up the river. We worked our way back to the train station where we caught the next train to Bingen. We arrived in Bingen around 4:00 pm where we located a hotel for the night and settled in until morning. We did spend a few hours checking out the town, including stopping in an internet cafe and finding a restaurant for dinner. We were back at the room before 8:00 pm where Erin rubbed my head and I fell asleep before 9:00 pm. |
| One of the many castles along the Rhine River. These castles were used to run chains across the river to force anyone interested in passing to pay a toll. |