What you can see from your River Cruise

Blog #85

When taking a river cruise, you are close to the banks and easily able to see numerous things on the shore or in the immediate vicinity of the river. In my case, when recently on a river cruise on the Rhine, I spent a wonderful afternoon on the top deck of our ship, enjoying sailing past a number of castles and interesting buildings.

I want to share with you a few photos I took on the portion of the Rhine between Rudesheim and Koblenz in Germany. This area is called the Upper Middle Rhine Valley and boasts a number of castles and castle ruins. Knowing that I was going to see a number of interesting buildings, I was on the top deck of our ship, binoculars in hand, and ready with a list of castles reportedly on our route.

• Rheinstein Castle.

• Reichenstein Castle.

• Fürstenberg Castle ruins.

• Stahleck Castle.

• Gutenfels Castle on the hilltop; Toll Station Pfalzgrafenstein below.

• Schönburg Castle.

• Rheinfels Fortress.

• Katz Castle.

I quickly learned that there were castles or castellated toll stations all along this area of the Rhine. I was unable to identify the buildings without quickly trying to match their photos with those on the internet. Quite the challenge as they were coming along fast and furious. Additionally, there were some wonderful churches and interesting buildings that also captured my attention. I gave up trying to identify everything and soon settled down to simply enjoying a beautiful, sunny day with fabulous scenery capturing and holding my attention.