July 12, 2022

This morning we returned to the back hills to walk through Steeger Tor and climb up Postenturm, used as a water reservoir and now a beautiful observation tower. From the tower, we had a unique panoramic view over Bacharach. The vineyards on the steep hill were well-known, and it would not be hard to imagine how hard to work in those fields. We continued to climb up the steep fortification wall to Spitzer Turm to have an even better view of the Rhine River. We wanted to continue our hike, but we had a sightseeing river cruise scheduled at noon.

The middle section of the Rhine River from Bingen to St. Goer is the most beautiful portion of the river, with countless ancient castles on both sides and the hill slopes overlapped with grape terraces. We boarded from Bacharach and disembarked at St. Goar. We had lunch at Italy café there, then hiked to the Rheinfels Castle on the hill. We didn’t have time to go inside and turned around to walk back to the terminal to catch our return cruise boat. On the way down to the cruise terminal, we strolled through a tiny downtown dotted with beautiful little shops, restaurants, and ice cream stores. We had our first Riesling flavor ice cream, which was good.

The returned boat went upstream to Bingen and disembarked there, and we skipped the stop at Bacharach and went all the way to Bingen for a short visit. The round-trip ride took more than four hours, and the sightseeing river cruise was very comfortable. Most important, the ticket was €24 per person, which was the most affordable way to visit the Rhine. We had taken several river cruises by now, and today was the best. We used to say that we would come to Europe to take an expensive cabin river cruise on the Rhine River and Danube River. After this experience, we were not sure that taking a costly cabin river cruise would be our priority anymore.

The dinner at Bingen was Chinese food, and they were okay. After dinner, we went sightseeing and walked to Klopp Castle, the Bingen civil administration center. Stairs could access the top of the tower, and it was not an easy walk but well worth the effort. We could see almost the whole town, and it was beautiful.

We returned from Bingen to Bacharach by a regional train. The street of Bacharach at night was tranquil. Since the weather was so lovely, we decided to go to the river bank to relax and to write our travel journal for the day. It was a full moon night. As we stared at the beautiful full moon hanging in the sky, we were thinking of our families in Shanghai, hoping that they would no longer be anxious and suffering from Covid soon.

欧洲游第五十三天：今天早上先去后面山上走一走，然后坐船游莱茵河。莱茵河中段，也就是说从Bingen到St. Goer 那段是最漂亮的，两边有无数古城堡，斜坡上重重叠叠都是葡萄梯田。我们从Bacharach 上船，在St. Goar 下船，在那里吃了午餐后去小山上的城堡看了一眼就又回到船上，然后往上游走到了Bingen 下船，前前后后坐了四个多小时的游船，船很不错，非常舒服，船票也就每人24€，这是游莱茵河最经济实惠的方式。以前一直说要特地来欧洲坐游轮游莱茵河和多瑙河，那些船票价都特别贵，有过这次的经历，不会再去坐那种贵的船了。在Bingen吃的晚餐是中餐，味道一般。晚上回到住的镇上后在河边写着自己游记，突然抬头看见圆圆的月亮挂在天空，思念着在上海的亲人，希望他们早日不再为清零而焦虑受难。