European Epic # 9: The Mighty Rhine

The particular cruise I'm taking spent less than 1 day cruising the mighty Rhine River, but it remains the most memorable scenic experience of the cruise.

We joined the Rhine around 6:00 in the morning by the city of Mainz.  I may or may not have been awake at that hour but it was a bit early to see much anyway.  What was clear as soon as I looked out was that this was the widest waterway we'd travelled yet, allowing us to roll down the stream at a speed we had not yet achieved.

Soon afterwards, we tied up at our only stop along the Rhine, the small town of Rüdesheim.  Here, because of the distance involved, we were invited to ride for free on the small "choo-choos" (as tour director Sabine likes to call them) -- trailer trains with automotive engines hidden inside fake locomotives, running along the streets.  Well, who hasn't seen something like that before?

In town, we visited a unique museum -- Siegfried's Kabinett -- devoted to the mechanical musical instruments of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.  These expensive and complex creations were valued because people in that age were fascinated by automata, and because there was no other means of recording and playing back music.  The exhibits we saw, and heard, ranged from a Phonoliszt piano which reproduced the performance of a long-dead virtuoso performer to a tiny little music box with a minuscule singing bird.  Here are a few pictures of some of the bigger pieces, which ranged from calliopes to mechanical bands of every kind you can imagine.

After that fascinating half-hour, I hopped on the cablecar which runs up the mountain behind Rüdesheim.  At the top, there are wonderful views of the Rhine River and the cross-river neighbour town of Bingen, and a gigantic and rather intimidating victory monument crowned by the allegorical figure of "Germania," which was erected after the Franco-Prussian war and the Unification of Germany in the 1870s.

The cablecar ride was definitely worth the 8 euro price.

At lunch time, we sailed north from Rüdesheim towards the dramatic scenery of the Rhine River Gorge, renowned for dramatic mountains, romantic castles, and vineyards galore.  I spent a good solid two hours on deck, savouring each new vista as it unfolded -- just as I had done back in 1979 when I made the same voyage on a day-tour boat from Bingen to Koblenz.  As the map shows, his narrow valley is a major north-south artery, with highways and railway lines along both banks, as well as the continuous stream of cargo and passenger shipping in the river itself.

When I travelled along the Rhine before, I sailed on a ship of this line.  Sorry to disappoint my Canadian readers, but the initials on the funnel do not mean that there is an unlimited supply of macaroni and cheese on board.

At this point (and after that lame joke), best to just let the pictures speak for themselves.

Then, at 2:45pm, we rounded a sharp bend and came face to face with the legendary Loreley Rock, inspirer of romantic myths, poetry, music, and art.

A short distance further north, a statue of the legendary nymph Loreley has been erected since my previous voyage through the Gorge.  Here are a couple more castles.

Our all-too-short day on the Rhine ended at 5:00pm when we skidded sideways (coping with the current of the Rhine) around the famous Deutsches Eck ("German Corner") at Koblenz.  This interesting manoeuvre took us past another imposing monument (this one to Kaiser Wilhelm I), to enter the Mosel River -- or Moselle River as it's called in French.  I wonder if Wilhelm would have enjoyed the rock concert right under his horse's nose, which was plainly having its tech rehearsal as we sailed by?  My guess is that he might have enjoyed it, but would almost certainly not say so for public consumption.