Three days in Boppard on the Rhine...

We moved on from Andernach on Monday to Boppard, though not until we’d had ridiculous amounts of trouble filling with water. Sounds simple, and always has been until now. I thought it was funny, Brian was not amused!

We arrived in Boppard, 45 minutes away to find the carpark with 5 motorhome spaces had become a building site, we’ll go back to that campsite we passed, 4ish km but with a big flat cycle path along the river, it was closed for the season. Hmm, ok, park4night, what can you tell us? There are 2 motorhome spaces in free carpark 2 by the police station on the other side of town. We got there, to find a van in one and a Volvo in the other and the rest of the carpark full. Brian on the roadside while I nipped to look at another possible got hooted at, twice, by a bus before he could reverse out of its way. (He wasn’t having a good morning!) With that the car next to the Volvo, in ‘our’ space left so while I stood in it he went to get Ted, by which time Mr.Angry from Boppard has tried to run me over and I assume told me I couldn’t ‘keep’ a space. He went on a bit, I could do nothing other than speak English and try to explain..... to be fair to him, he did see another space and move in to it, but not before he’d spread the ‘not having a good morning’ feeling!

The market square and church in lovely Boppard

Our parking spot in Boppard

So, closer, but not legally parked, does it matter? Who knows. We’ll have lunch and see what happens. Just about to give it all up as a bad job and move on the woman from the Volvo appeared. Hurrah. I’m sure it would have been fine, there was another van just parked up in the car park, but not inhabited, but we just don’t want to upset anyone, don’t want to risk being moved on after a glass of wine, and we were parked behind the police station after all! Parking place location: 50°13'55.1"N 7°35'57.7"E

Setting off towards the Via Ferrata by the chair lift to the summit

Feeling much happier we skipped off to the tourist information to plan the next few days. A walk around the pretty town filled the afternoon and all was well with the world.

We set off the next morning to do the via ferrata, or kletersteig as they are called in Germany, mentioned in the Rough Guide. The woman in the TI had looked a little worried when we asked her about it, but we’d told her we had the equipment so she’d given us the leaflet, in English! We were slightly thrown as the first ladder, when we finally found it, went down. As did the second. 

Unusual for a Via Ferrata to start going down!

We carried on and had a thoroughly enjoyable time. It wasn’t hard, and was certainly contrived, but had a few interesting sections amongst a hillside walk with some fabulous views. The sun came out and we got back to town in time for a sausage in a bun (we’ve been eating a few of those), some chips and beer. Fabulous.

The next morning didn’t dawn quite so sunny, in fact there was quite a lot of mist on the hills, a shame as we were planning on taking the Hunsruckbahn train, Germany’s steepest scheduled railway route to its first stop before walking the 8km back down. It’s only €3 and it’s not raining, we might as well give it a go. Nice little 10 minute train journey, tunnels, views, fab. Equipped with our map, but only a German description we set off overtaking another couple. Now this was probably where the problem started, we shouldn’t have followed them at all, before skipping past them. I’d just uttered the words “OK, we can see some wild boar now” when there they were, mummy, daddy and four or five piglets trotting along on the other side of the stream, great. 

But then it got better

Steaming off downhill we soon found ourselves at a road, hmmm, shouldn’t be a road here, and the workmen weren’t much help! It would appear we’d taken the direct route down, and were back in town after an hour, rather than the two we were expecting. We hadn’t seen the viaducts the train went over, and hadn’t had the views (though we may not have had them anyway), but if you are going to get lost then halving the time taken rather than doubling it is definitely the way to go!

We were really tempted to get back on the train and try again, but it was an hour and twenty till the next train and by the time we’d had a chilli hot chocolate from the Choccobar and my knees still hadn’t recovered it seemed like tempting fate, so we didn’t bother!

With views that got better and better

More interesting bits

Overall however we are delighted with our stay in Boppard, from the minute we got into the ‘legal’ space.

We left this morning, and arrived at Bacharach after a very pretty half hour drive. We are on an Aire, so paying some money, but there are some services, which is always good. The washing machine however is busy till 11.00 tomorrow morning, so we’ve booked our slot! (Campsite location: 50°03'17.7"N 7°46'19.8"E)We walked in to what Brian has decided is an even prettier town, we’ve walked most of the town walls, and convinced the Tourist information lady that I am mad. On our second visit I asked her how come there are no cats in Germany? We’ve seen cat doors, and cat food bags, but no cats. “Cats? Meow cats?” She asked. “Yes”. “Well there is a black and white one lives on this street.....” 
Coming down from the town walls, on our way back to Ted and who should we meet? A big black and white cat. He had places to go, and things to do, and was obviously nervous about being catnapped by a nutter he’d heard about, but he did stop for a few strokes. Perhaps my luck will change?

Not a bad place to take a break

A particular place on the walk (after we finished the Via Ferrata) where the River Rhine looks like four lakes. It was mentioned in the Lonely Planet guide so we had to find it (obviously!)

That's a very big chair (or a small Jackie)!

Walking back down beneath the chair lift with fabulous views of the Rhine and Boppard

Boppard was such a photogenic place

We liked Boppard, but Bacharach is probably even better...

We had to walk up to that castle on the hill...

Nice view from the top

The town walls of this 14th century town are still partially standing

Here's some of them

And little alleyways to walk through. There's Jackies face peeking round

The Peterskirche Protestant church in Bacharach. Our Lonely Planet guide told us to look out for the naked woman inside with snakes sucking her breasts. It said its a warning about the consequences of adultery. 

Intrigued we had to go and find it

Quite a nice church inside

Jackie finally finds a cat, but it wasn't that interested in her

So here we are on our campsite overlooking the Rhine for a couple of nights stay