Rhine Valley, Germany

we got on the coach at 12:45 in Amsterdam and started our journey to the Rhine Valley area of Germany to a little village called St. Goar. during the ride Rachel, our tour manager, talked to us about the optional excursions. she did a great job at selling the stuff, but i didn't give in on a couple of things.

a couple of hours later we stopped at a service area ... clean bathrooms, nice restaurant with fresh, buffet-style food (freshly prepared though), and a convenience store. the bathrooms here in europe you have to pay for though. sometimes you have to pay a certain amount and other times you just put down 20 cents or something. most times it was 50 cents or 1 euro. there was usually a person standing there with a tray to collect it, but other times, like in Amsterdam, you had to put your money in a machine that allowed you through a turnstyle. needless to say, most of us really monitored how much we drank in order to make sure we didn't have to go on the coach (which was frowned upon unless it was an emergency), or made sure we had money if we had to go at the services. basically, it's a sticky position to be in. especially for those who didn't have any euros yet.

anyways... once we got into Germany the scenery became really beautiful and fun to look at. there were mountains, the Rhine River below, castles everywhere, lots of green. it was fun and exciting and somewhat surprising to most of us that Germany was such a beautiful country. i think the whole Nazi thing put a negative spin on our ideas of Germany as a whole.

we arrived at our hotel in St. Goar about an hour before dinner. this little quaint and peaceful village (and the Rhine Valley area) is famous for beersteins, wine, teddy bears, cuckoo clocks, and Birkenstock shoes. we dropped our stuff in our hotel and then went for a walk around the village. had dinner in the hotel which was served to us as three courses. chicken broth with rice and carrots in the bottom. then an entree of a yellow spaghetti-like noodle, pork, and peas & carrots. then dessert was a chocolate cherry cake. it was all fairly good.

afterward we went for wine tasting in an actual undersground wine cellar. it was dark and a little chilly, but very cool. we got a shot glass (but bigger than a normal glass) as a suvenier and four wines to taste ... one red and three white. it went from dry to sweet to sweeter. all very good and tasty with some cheese and bread to nibble on as well. then at the end you could taste a wine called "ice wine" if you wanted. it was REALLY sweet and is meant to be drunk as a dessert and very cold. ours wasn't that cold and we only got a little taste cuz the wine is expensive to make and expensive to buy. but the evening as a whole was a lot of fun and after all that wine i was feeling pretty good, to be quite honest. :-)

we strolled around the village and by the lake, then went to bed. the room was nice, but on the fourth level with no "lift" (elevator). not a problem for me since i bought a special suitcase i could just strap to my back and take off, but those with huge wheely cases had a bit of a struggle.