Celebrating 5 years of marriage in the Rhine Valley

Noah and I recently celebrated our 5^th wedding anniversary by spending a long weekend on the Rhine.  When looking for a place to spend our anniversary, I focused on the idea of staying at a castle hotel.  My search turned up the Burghotel Auf Schönburg in Oberwesel, and I fell in love with the photos online.  Sadly when I tried to book us a room there for the long weekend, I was given the message that it was fully booked.  Being the overly dramatic person I am, I was devastated and sure that nothing could be done.  Luckily my husband is more pragmatic in these situations, and simply emailed the hotel to see what could be worked out.  Turned out only the Saturday was booked, and we could stay there Sunday and Monday nights no problem.  Whoo hoo!  So that meant I needed to find a different option for Saturday night only. 

Hence on Saturday we made the drive to St. Goar to stay at the Romantik Hotel Schloss Rheinfels – also booked as a castle hotel.  Well we ended up in the Villa next to the castle, and not IN the castle proper, but we had a beautiful view of the Rhine from our balcony. 

The view from our balcony

As the castle hotel is connected to the ruins of Rheinfels Castle, built in the 13^th century.  It stood as a central figure in the area until the French Revolution, when the castle was blown up at the end of the 18^th century.  What is left are the ruins of tunnels and walls that you can extensively explore on your own.  Noah and I were both incredibly impressed with this castle – for only 5EUR each, we were given a map and suggested route, and are set free.  You can crawl inside these narrow tunnels, climb the stone staircases, and wander through the entire grounds.  Luckily I read that a flashlight was suggested, as some of these areas do get very, very dark. 

After we were done exploring the ruins, we went into town for a super romantic anniversary dinner at Asia Kim.  Ok, so this wasn’t supposed to be our big celebratory dinner as our next hotel came with fancy 5 course dinners included.  And knowing that the next two nights would give us such fancy dinners, we decided to keep Saturday night’s dinner low key.  And as we get plenty of Germany food already, we settled on Asia Kim where we had the place to ourselves (based on the phone calls we heard, I think most people just get their food to go). 

Back at our hotel after dinner, we decided to use the spa and go for a swim.  Actually I tend to just float around while Noah does all the swimming.  Then we spent our anniversary night watching the Eurovision finale, where Germany came in DEAD LAST.  Our favorite was Latvia, but she only came in 6^th. 

Noah splashing around

Night on the Rhine

Sunday we decided to check out the Sesselbahn in the nearby town of Boppard (I had read about it in our Germany guidebook we brought over with us – who needs the internet??).  I wasn’t sure what kind of ‘bahn’ this was going to be, and the guidebook mentioned a 20 minute ride up the mountain.  This led me to assume it was some kind of slow cog train that left only every hour or so.  This is why when we parked, I rushed Noah to buy the tickets, assuming that the approaching time of 10:30 could be meaningful.  Nope.  Turns out it is a continuous chairlift, so my rush was not needed.

At the top of Gedeonseck, we walked to the advertised ‘Vierseenblick’, or ‘Four Lakes View’.  So the thing is, the river forms an oxbow right around here.  You first come up to a café with a beautiful (or at least when the weather is nicer) view of the entire oxbow.  But you see these signs for this ‘Vierseenblick’ view, so you keep going.  Then you get to a second café with this alternative view…. What I think really happened is the café owner bought this land, and then later realized, ‘Oh crap, we have an obstructed view of the river that the other café doesn’t have.  I know – let’s market it that the river looks like 4 lakes from here since you can only see bits and pieces of it.  Then people will come even though our view sucks!’.  <End scene>. 

After backtracking to the first café with the better views, we shared a piece of strawberry cake (where I had to scrape off the gelatin that surrounds the fresh strawberries - I just don’t get why Germans do this and ruin a perfectly good cake with gelatin). 

The full oxbow view

As it was getting close to check-in time at the super amazing castle hotel, we hopped in the car and drove south to the town of Oberwesel. As my mom has a better photo of this castle/hotel from her Rhine trip last year, I will use that one (we never had clear blue skies this last weekend). 

I have to say – this place did not disappoint.  In fact it blew us away.  Minus the four flights of stairs to get to our room (good exercise) – there is nothing negative I can say.  Our room was decorated how you would want a castle hotel room to look, and it had a balcony with a gorgeous Rhine view.  I only wish I could have checked out each and every room because they are all different (based on what I saw online).  For our records, we had room 35. 

After picking up our jaw from the floor, and Noah lugging in our luggage (he didn’t want to use the advertised luggage service since he is big and strong), we set off to check out the gardens.  Because hotel guests have exclusive access to the castle gardens.  Even more wows.  I mean there are so many nooks and crannies in the multi-level garden that you can sit and read a book.  And they have things like a tree-house, a bocce ball court, a dart board, and a pool table – all hidden around the gardens.  They did a FABULOUS job for sure! 

A small hut on the left with reading chairs inside, the tree-house on the right with two levels of seating

Not the garden, but the pretty courtyard of the castle hotel

Because the gardens were so pretty, and we were dressing up for dinner, Noah had the idea to take the tripod back down there and have a photo shoot of us.  Like I am going to pass that up!!  I only wish I had something other than green dresses with me to keep me from blending in.  We ended the photo shoot at the dartboard, so naturally we had to play.  For whatever reason, these darts just wouldn’t work for me.  I ended up dropping one on my leg (thank goodness I have my tetanus shot) and only made a few hit the board.  It was a dumb dartboard.  

Soon it was time for our 5 course dinner (included when you stay at the hotel).  It was all very fancy as expected, but also very delicious.  We ate things like snails and truffle pasta and homemade peppermint ice cream.  Yum!  And they even had our name on the table – it made me feel important.

Based on another tip from our German guidebook (I think this is only the second trip we even looked at the book), we drove down on Monday to the little town of Bacharach.  This town is super adorable – it is full of timber-framed houses and is surrounded by pieces of the old stone town wall. 

As the guidebook only suggested going here, and didn’t tell us what to do beyond parking and walking in, Noah and I began to wander.  We took a side street and found a sign with a picture of a donkey and an arrow leading up some steps.  Naturally we followed the sign, and soon found ourselves gaining elevation above the town and eventually made it to the Postenturm – an old tower along the town wall.  We were able to walk up most of it for some amazing views, and to help plan our next move. 

We followed a path that led us through a magical part of town where people’s entrance ways to their front gardens took you over a bridge over a creek (I don’t have photos because I just don’t), and eventually up to the Wernerkapelle.  Photos of these ruins don’t do it justice – it is so beautiful to see these windows without the glass. 

After a picnic of PBJ’s by the river, we drove back to our hotel for some Piratenbilliards (my gift to Noah for our ‘wooden’ anniversary) and maybe we watched Dumb and Dumber… isn’t that what you do on a romantic anniversary trip? 

After our last (fancy) dinner, we made it back to our balcony to see that the clouds actually parted to give us a sunset!!!  It was the best ending to an amazing getaway! 

We came back home Tuesday to some tiny dogs (we had them shaved last week) who were happy to have us home.  I was glad, seeing as Sadie gave us some major shade on Saturday when we left them.  She was sitting in the living room, so I went to pet her head goodbye.  She ducked from my hand and moved over 2 feet.  So Noah goes to her and tries to pet her goodbye, and she ducks him and goes under the coffee table to avoid us both.  Good to know all is forgiven!