Thoughts on Sicily

Our last week in Sicily has been fun with beautiful warm sunny weather.

Sicily is a microcosm of all that Italy has to offer in a compact island in the shape of an equilateral triangle with sides about 200km long. It has the Roman and Greek and much older ruins. It has the weather. It has the lovely food and wine. The interior reminds us of Central Otago with its browns and rock strewn countryside. And it has Italian drivers, the only thing we will be glad to get rid off. They drive like a dog on drugs. Inconsiderate, pushy, impatient and taking huge risks with their overtaking and pulling out of side streets. If a parking place is too small on the side of a road, they will just park in it at 45 degrees and not care about the traffic snarlup it causes. They may have good technical skills but they are the most unsafe drivers in the world. I imagine that driver training covers only the mechanics of driving and not like most other countries concentrating on road safety and consideration to other road users. They totally ignore ALL road signs and just drive as if they are the only car on the road.

Then there is the rubbish. Not for Sicilians the concept of home collection. Each town has one or two big bins that you carry your rubbish too. They are collected too infrequently and consequently they are always full with rubbish bags strewn all around the bins, ravaged by dogs and blowing in the wind.

Still the island has a soul and the music of its charms will reverberate in us for many years to come. If you haven’t been to Sicily then we strongly recommend it.

But back to this week. On Monday we drove to the big port of Trapani about 100km away in order to visit the mountain town of Erice. We were hoping to go up by cable car but that had closed for the season, so we drove up the tortuous windy road and wandered around the car free streets.

On a clear day (which it wasn’t) you can see Cap Bon in Tunisia. On the way back we called into Segesta to see another perfectly preserved Greek Temple. It was never completed for some reason but it is in almost new condition.

On Wednesday we went into Palermo which we were not as impressed with as we thought we would be. Narrow streets with bombed out buildings still there from WWII. The markets were smaller than we thought but still very colourful. Palermo is surrounded by mountains with a lovely sheltered bay.

We wandered from side street to side street  and having thought we may feel insecure were pleasantly surprised by the friendliness of the people. The Teatro Massima is a magnificent but modern building, that hosts the lovely Opera that Palermo is famous for.

And the Piazza Pretoria had lovely fountains with beautiful statues surrounding it.

There are lovely churches galore, a lovely cathedral but we gave our main attention to a Monastery on the outskirts of Palermo where in the 1800s, the dead were embalmed and dressed in their finery and placed on the walls of the catacombs below the monastery.

They look quite grotesque in the dim light. There were hundreds of bodies, divided into sections depending on the age, profession and nobility.

  For the rest of the time we have been relaxing in our villa and enjoying the wonderful view over the countryside and sea.

We are 200m up a hillside which is almost vertical below us.

This is the last entry in the blog for 2009. Tomorrow we are setting off for Rome, driving along the coast road by the Tyrrhenian Sea to Salerno before cutting inland on the A1 to Rome, where we board our flight on Tuesday for Hong Kong transit and then Auckland. It has been a year of great contrasts starting off in Holland, then the battlefields of Northern France and then the Neckar valley and the Main valley to the Danube before hitting the great Rhine Gorge and our trip back to Holland. Then by car to Provence, the Amalfi Coast and now of course Sicily.

It has been a pleasure having you follow our adventure.

Ciao from Wendy and David

And so to Palermo

We have had a week of super weather and showers. Luckily we have managed to see everything we have wanted to so on the two days it wasn't as good we enjoyed relaxing in the villa.

On Monday we drove South into the Monte Iblei, a barren range of mountains about 80km away and visited Noto, reputed to be the most baroque city in Italy, which is to say the World. After a lovely lunch, we drove in the misty rain to see Pantalica, Sicily's greatest ancient necropolis. Here deep in a remote gorge there are several thousand tombs hollowed out of the valley sides.

It goes back 3500 years. In fact much of Sicily is actually Greek in origin, it having been a Grek colony rivalling the city state of Athens for thousands of years before the Romans eventually took over the place about 200BC.

Next day we visited lovely Syracuse which was surprisingly empty of tourists which made it a lot better experience than other places we have visited. It was the home of Archimedes and has history oozing from every street and house. We stopped at the fish market and bought some lovely mackerel which we BBQ'd that evening on the terrace. They were superb! Then we wandered up to the main Piazza where the Duomo is.

It a lovely old church based around an old Greek temple. Then onto the Fountain of Arethusa, a freshwater spring right on the edge of the sea and in large part the reason for the settlement of Syracuse. The ancient Greeks held that the nymph Arethusa rose here after swimming across from the Peloponnese.

The oracle at Delphi foretold the founding of the city by referring to a natural spring beside the sea.

Then off to the Archeological Park to see the Greek Theatre built over 2500 years ago and still used today for plays. It can house 15000 people.

There are many other impressive ruins and structures in the area and we spend an enjoyable hour or two exploring them before going onto the Church of St Giovanni which has been destroyed twice by earthquakes and remains as a ruin. But deep beneath lies a secret. The most extensive network of catacombs in the world outside of Rome. We were escorted around by our guide and saw the altar where St Paul and St Peter preached on their visits, as the church goes back some 2000 years. Syracuse is a gem of a city. You can feel the history of the place in every building, every vista - a sort of subconscious layer overlaying the sights and sounds of the city.

On Wednesday we left bright and early and headed up the hill and up and up towards Mt Etna. It is about 3350m high and at 2000m we parked the car and caught a cable car up another 700m, and then got into a unimog and drove another 300m up to the site of the craters of the 2002 eruption, about 3000m high. That is as far as one can go as the main crater (As you can see in the photo) is still smoking from a number of vents. The 2002 craters are still very hot.

 

The 2002 Craters

It cost 52 euros each but was a great experience to see the the barren landscape of only 7 years ago.

By the time we got back to the bottom of the cable car the cloud had set in and we had cloudy weather until Saturday when we left Pozzillo for Palermo. The villa here is very picturesque as you can see from the view from the terrace.

On Thursday night the heavens opened and we had torrential rain and it wasn't until the next morning we found out that the rain had caused many deaths and  lot of destruction in Messina just 60km away. Pozzillo is built on old lava flows from Etna so the water just runs down into aquifers.  This is the view from our terrace of the lava rocks and a fishing boat leaving the small harbour.

Messina  backs onto the Monte Nebrodi mountains and the water can only flow down streams.

We left on Saturday for our next villa in Carini near Palermo. We went via Agrigento on the South Coast, to see what is the probably the greatest ancient site in all Sicily - The Valley of the Temples.  Actually it's not a valley as it is on a ridge but from the valley you can see a line of temples along the ridge remarkably well preserved.

The Temple of Concordia is reputed to be the best preserved temple outside of the Parthenon in Athens.

We also saw the ruins of the greatest Greek temple built anywhere in the world. Then on to Palermo and through it to our lovely villa on the top of a mountain overlooking the Gulf of Carini. The GPS found it OK but we weren't sure which house it was so we had to knock on a few doors to find out. Apparently we were the first people ever to find our own way to the villa. Thankyou Garmin!

Today we went to see the great cathedral of Monreale on the outskirts of Palermo. There is no picture as it is impossible to photograph its glory. With its ton of gold leaf and stupendous mosaics covering the walls, it is one of the great wonders of the world. It was built in just 10 years in 1070 and looks as good today as it ever did.

This week we shall explore Palermo and surrounding towns. More next week. Ciao.

Betwixt Mt Etna and the Ionian Sea

It is 5 o’clock in the afternoon as I write this penultimate chapter on our 2009 adventures. We are in Pozzillo in Sicily on the Eastern side about halfway between Messina and Siracusa. On one side of the fisherman’s cottage I look out onto the slopes of Mt Etna, and on the other side onto the Ionian sea which the cottage nestles up to. It is warm but with a lot of cloud which we have seldom lost since we arrived in Italy.

Our stay in Praiano was tempered with fine days and drizzly days. On Monday we set off bright and early to go to Amalfi by bus, but when we got to the bus stop we saw dark brooding thunder clouds so we decided to call it a day and went back home just arriving before the heavens opened. The view is simply stunning from the villa with 180 degree views across the Bay of Sorrento.

We look across Praiano to the Littari Mountains that form an immense ridge down the back of the Sorrentine peninsular, past the lovely mosaic tiled church. Or down over an umbrella pine tree to the blue waters below.

Next day we tried again and the weather was excellent. We caught the bus to Amalfi admiring the way the bus drivers weave in and out of traffic on roads that are no more than one lane wide. It can be chaos when two buses meet especially when cars bank up behind and there is much shouting, waving of arms and hooting until one side or the other back up and the traffic flows again.

On arriving in Amalfi about 8km and 45mins away by bus! we caught another bus up to the heights above Amalfi to the most pictureque village of Ravello where we visited the Villa Ruffolo home to many great movie stars and famous people in the past. The views across the bay are divine.

The houses cling to the cliffs, hundreds of metres about the sea and earth and sky seem entwined as one. The gardens at the villa are very colourful.

We had a lovely pasta lunch in a quiet square in Amalfi, and wandered around with the thousands of tourists, and bought some limoncello, a lemon flavoured liqueur that is the local speciality.

Wednesday was another fine day and so we caught the bus to Sorrento and the train to Herculaneum, which together with Pompeii were buried in Roman times by Mt Vesuvius. Unlike Pompeii Herculaneum was buried by mud (not ash) and it has preserved the city much much better than at Pompeii. You can clearly see three story buildings still intact and even wooden staircases inside.

It is not a large site, but very well restored with the existing town of Ercolano all around it. Most of Herculaneum still lies buried under 20m of mud below the existing town.

There are well displayed boards in English besides the key houses including the Roman fast food shops that served their hot food from amphora inset into the counters.

It drizzled all day on Thursday so we stayed at home reading hoping to go to Capri on Friday. Whilst better on Friday, the sea was quite rough and it was unlikely that the Blue Grotto would be open in such conditions so we hopped on the bus and went to Positano for lunch.

It is surging with tourists and whilst a lovely town clinging to the mountainside, like Taormina in Sicily which we visited today, the huge numbers of tourists have made the experience just one big souvenir shop experience. Still we had lovely pizzas overlooking the harbour and walked back up the hill to catch a bus back to Praiano for our last night.

On Saturday we drove along the Amalfi drive that we had been using the buses before to Salerno and connected with the A3 autostrada for a fast but long run down 550km over mountainous terrain. The road was again a mixture of long tunnels and viaducts. It was almost as if there was a motorway 800m up the side of the Southern Alps from the top of the South Island to the bottom. The traffic was tiresome with black mercedes or black anythings looming up in your rear vision mirror from nowhere impatient to pass and then roaring off. Like no other country we have ever visited have we observed such total disregard to the speed limit and by quite excessive amounts too!

Then suddenly there it was, the Straits of Messina, narrow, wine dark and busy with ferries and freighters going in all directions. We were still 300m above it all as we descended in long tunnels to sea level to catch a ferry across the Strait. A welcome relief from driving followed for 30 minutes as we crossed the 5km Strait and caught the A18 autostrada for the final hours journey to our villa in Pozzillo. We were welcomed by the owner and relaxed on the large terrace a few metres from the sea and the fishing harbour.

Today we drove 20km to Taormina, the jewel of Sicily but ruined by tourists. Taormina has hosted kings and emperors and was originally a Greek settlement. It is 300m above the sea with views to Mt Etna and along the lovely coast. The Greeks built a theatre in a natural bowl on the hillside and it still hosts performances. What a setting!

We stopped at a pasticerria and bought two cannoli, lovely Sicilian cakes that are filled with creamed sweetened ricotta and studded with chocolate pieces and served in a pastry twist.

This week, weather allowing we will visit Mt Etna, Siracusa (Syracuse) and some of the lovely baroque towns of South Eastern Sicily and the great Greek temples of Agrigento. Ciao.

A 300km Long Tunnel

We left early in the morning on Monday to conquer Mt Ventoux a mountain famous for its wine and for the harrowing leg on the Tour de France in which the cyclists climb to 1910m (7500 ft) on a 7.5% gradient. We drove slowly up the mountain the views growing ever more impressive and the temperature dropping from 25c at the bottom to 4c at the top with an icy wind to boot. About  200m from the summit we hit cloud and drove through the thick mist until we got to the summit.

From time to time the cloud lifted and we saw the countryside below spread out like a map with no detail able to be spotted from the height we were at. Just like a picture we saw the jumble of colours far below us. On a clear day you can see the Pyrenees 300km away.

As we got to the bottom again the cloud all lifted which was a disappointment but C’est La Vie. We drove onto the magic town of Sault for breakfast and looked at Mt Ventoux in the far distance over rolling Provencal countryside. 

We completed a circular tour around Mt Ventoux admiring the lovely Village Perche that Provence is famous for like Montbrun below.

Tuesday dawned bright and sunny again and we decided to drive to eastern Provence via the famous Fontaine de Vaucluse, where the River Sorgues appears from a spring and almost magically forms a wide fast flowing river. We set the Garmin to take us by the shortest route, and very quickly it had pointed us down small tracks crossing the Vaucluse Mountains where it seemed only goats would go. Eventually we reached a quarry in the middle of nowhere and the track petered out so we turned around and using intuition rather than Garmin we drove into what was now a rainy Fontaine de Vaucluse and found a car park. We trudged  along the river in the rain to the spring that the river is formed from and trudged back again in the rain.

Unfortunately the rain stayed with us for the next two days and so we did little sightseeing while we stayed in the sleepy town of Barjols which has as its claim to fame 30 fountains all fed by local streams. The mushroom shaped ones are the most famous.

We stayed at the great value inn called Pont d’Or which is all that is great about French Provincial Hotels. Smallish rooms, great fixed price menus. 17 euros for a three course meal that couldn’t be bettered almost anywhere. The omelette with herbs was the best I had any where, and Wendy’s Daube Provencal (like Beef Bourginonne) was the best beef stew she had ever had.

And so our time in France came to an end and on Thursday morning we left in drizzly conditions for Italy. We had 500km to go that day and once we got to Nice we entered the incredible A10 autostrada that goes all the way to near Pisa. It is just one long stretch of tunnel followed by a viaduct all the way. We lost count of the number of tunnels (hundreds and some over 2km long). It was tough driving – in to the dark, into the light, overtake that truck, be overtaken by an idiot Italian and so on. It is without a doubt the most impressive engineering for a road in the world at least as far as the length of what has been done. Eventually late afternoon we finally pulled out of the constant series of gullies and ravines leading down into the Golf Of Genoa and brighter weather beckoned as we drove into La Spezia looking for a hotel. Nothing looked that attractive so we continued along smaller country roads southwards until we found a charming hotel with friendly management who welcomed us.

We needed a SIM card for our phone so after a short rest we went driving looking for one and after alot of wasted time in traffic jams and getting lost we found a shop in Aulle that sold what we wanted. It was staffed by a single girl and there were a few people in there. It was 7pm and we were tired. But it turned out she had spent three years in London studying English so she was pleased to see and help us. Unfortunately in order to get a SIM card in Italy you need a passport and we didn’t have ours on us. She tried to get around the rules with a driving license but the computer system wouldn’t accept it so we gave up and decided to return the next day. We had a lovely meal at the Pizzeria that the hotel had downstairs with pizzas cooked in a wood fired oven.

Next morning we woke up to a gorgeous view from our window.

This area of Italy was flooded with walled hilltop villages – two a penny. After getting our SIM card and getting the internet for a month for just 10 euros we continued our long drive south and after a long day stopped at a place about 70km north of Rome on the coast called Tarquinia. It was the site for an ancient Entruscan settlement and it has the best preserved necropolis ever discovered with thousands of burial mounds containing quite magnificent tombs. We wandered around the burial mounds going down flights of steps and peering into the tombs which dated from 500BC and had the most marvellous paintings on the walls and ceilings to guide the deceased in the after life.

We were almost alone there admiring the achievements of a civilization predating the Romans and about which little is known. After viewing the tombs we drove into the ancient town of Tarquinia and went to the museum based in a 15c palace and saw some of the fascinating finds found in the tombs.

On Saturday we continued south around Rome and arrived at Naples where we exited the motorway and headed along the Sorrentine Peninsular along narrow windy roads that are carved out of a solid 500m high cliff to the small town of Praiano where we had rented a villa for a week. The view from the villa is outstandingly  gorgeous. We unloaded our luggage on the narrow corniche road outside the villa attracting much hooting and waving and found a park for the car aways a way on the main road. We had been told that at 7pm there would be a procession and celebration as part of the Festival of Saint Gennaro and it would go right outside our balcony overlooking the main road and the bay below. We waited outside at 7 and just as we heard the procession gathering strength from the church, the heavens opened, thunder and lightning appeared from nowhere and the procession scattered into shelter. 15 minutes later it was all over and we saw the mortal remains of St Gennaro carried on a sedan proceeded by priests chanting some ancient verse. They went past us, turned around and went back to the church and when they arrived the skies were lit up with the most marvellous firework display. Maybe not the most spectacular in the world, but as they were just over the road they lit up the skies and assaulted our eardrums in a great display.

On Sunday after a stroll around the village we rested. In 7 days we had driven 3200km (with no locks!) from Amsterdam to Praiano. It had been tiring driving. This week we shall explore Capri, Herculaneum and Amalfi  before driving another 600km to Sicily. Pictures of this lovely villa next week. Ciao.

Wet Holland to Sunny Provence

On Monday morning we were invited over for coffee with Nelka and Jan who lived on a tugboat in another lake.  The tugboat was 19m long but for all its size it was all grunt and deck with very little living space.

After coffee we headed up the Maas which has changed character and was now gentle flowing with meadows on both sides. Cows and Sheep drank from the clear waters. Our guidebook had said it was a quiet river but it turned out to be very busy with a constant flow of barges and pleasure boats returning from France.

We moored over the next few days in quiet lakes just off the main river or in busy towns and eventually on Wednesday afternoon arrived at our winter port of Roermond. Petra left us here and we worked on the boat changing the oil and tidying up.  Next morning we were lifted out by a crane and put on to the hard ground.

We spent the afternoon trying to put on our plastic tarpaulins we had bought in Germany. But they proved very difficult to handle in the moderate wind. We also found out that we couldn’t leave any bottles of wine or water on board as the temperature can sink to –20C and cause them to explode. As we had quite a bit of both we called up Petra who very kindly came to fetch us and our wine/water/beer and we spent the night in Montfoort.

Next day we left to go to Schiphol to pick up our Renault car we had bought on a short term lease. It looks like a rental but you in fact own the car and they buy it back after you have finished but you don’t need to pay the capital value of it. With the help of our trusty Garmin GPS we headed back to Roermond to finish off the tarpaulin only to be told that the way we were doing it was no good as water could lie in a big puddle in the middle of the tarpaulin and cause the boat to fall off the boat stand.

  So in the end we had to settle for covering just 2/3 of the boat but doing that took the rest of the day so we slept on board that night and left the next morning.

In the space of a few hours we had gone from Holland to Belgium to Luxembourg and then France as we headed down the motorways at 130km/h.

Eventually we stopped in Burgundy at a lovely village of Meursault which makes one of the top Burgundy white wines. The Hotel Les Arts offered a small room for 48 Euros and an excellent fixed price menu for around 20 euros. We had breakfast in the vineyards with a baguette we got from the baker and jam we bought from Holland.

Today we arrived in Vaison La Romain in the heart of Provence. After trying a few hotels we eventually found one on the edges of town. We had driven a lot of km to get here but now we can relax in the sun.

This week we cruise through Provence and then into Italy and down to the Sorrento peninsular where we have a villa for a week in a seaside town called Praiano. Ciao.

Wet and Windy in Holland

We left the lovely mooring in the Biesbosch, which means forest of reeds and stopped at a local chandlers to get a new fender and some bits and pieces we had difficulty getting in Germany. Then it was on over busy rivers to Briellesemeer a lovely small lake near the fortified town of Brielle. We anchored wild in the lake on what would turn out to be the last fine day this week.

Next day we motored through the heart of the Port of Rotterdam looking at all the big ships, passenger liners before turning off into a smaller canal and heading for Delft where we were going to stay the night. It was drizzling and a lot colder then the weather we had enjoyed before. When we got to Delft it was all full as three passenger hotel boats had commandeered most of the small available quay. We got a mooring further up the canal and next day arrived at Leiden. Leiden is a lovely small town and as we tied up we spotted a NZ flag flying on a boat nearby. A small world as we had only seen 2 other NZ boats all summer. The picture below is the view of our boat and a wedding on the shore taken from the other NZ boat.

We were invited over for drinks by Don and Inja and we had a great yarn about boating around Europe as Don and Inja had been doing it on their boat for 7 years or so.  Don runs a Palm Tree business in Brookby and is a property developer as well, and is hosting the next NZers Afloat in France lunch next February which will be something to look forward to.

Then it was on to Gouda where we had moored last year. Last year it was rainy and this year it was too. There was a brief pause in the rain which enabled us to walk to the main square and admire the lovely town hall that dominates it.

Then next day onto Montfoort about 4 hours away to pick up Petra who was joining us for a weeks cruise to Roermond where we are leaving the boat.  After an early start we headed off back to Gouda, then through very busy waterways past Dordrecht and spend the night in the Biesbosch again. The weather at last lifted in the evening.

The Biesbosch is certainly a favourite of ours -  a wilderness in the heart of Holland. So close to big cities yet a haven of peace and with lots of wild birds.

We are slowly heading up the Maas River to near Maastricht where Roermond is. This is our last week on the boat and on Friday we pick up a brand new Renault Megane Coupe and head to Provence and the Cote d’Azur.

Bad Ems to Holland

On Monday we left our idyliic mooring and headed down the River Lahn to BEd Ems, an old Spa town from the 19th Century. There were lots of moorings and we chose a quiet one on the edge of town. We walked back into the town with its beautiful buildings - Georgian I guess we would call them though what they would be called in Germany I am unsure. As we wandered arouund we saw a sign saying 'Kurwaldbahn'. We weren't sure what Kur was (later discovered to be mean cure' but waldbahn seemed to suggest a forest railway so we went down a small alley and arrived at a funicular railway that took us up the very steep sides of the Lahn valley to the top where a vast plateau stretched before us with lots of forest walks and the Kur part, a hospital. I guess the spa nature of the town has evolved into a place for long term recovery of some illnesses

. After a walk through the woods we stopped at a cafe and Wendy ordered an eisschokolade drink which was delicious. The view was stunning from the top.

Next day we left the Lahn and entered the Rhine again, and were quickly hurling down river and past Koblenz where the River Moselle (Mosel) joins. After that the force of the river seemed to ease and the the turbulence was gone and the current cut back to a gentle 5 km/h. We stopped at Oberwinter for the night and yet once again we commented on how the Germans have spoilt all their lovely river valleys by putting railways on both banks and having them cart freight wagons 24 hours a day. Many of the towns on the River Main, Lahn, Neckar and the Rhine have busy railway lines going through them creating a racket night and day.

The next day we arrived at midday at Cologne (Koln). We walked the 3km into town and admired the beautiful cathedral, the tallest in Europe. It is certainly massive.

We saw the mortal remains of the magi (the three kings) in a golden casket, unfortunately well away from tourist hands, and wandered around the town which was heavily bombed and lost most of its old character. Lucklily the cathedral remains intact, as so the story goes it was used by the bomber piots as a landmark on their sorties into Germany.

Then another long day on the Rhine down to Wesel (132km) where we had stopped the same day a year earlier. The last day in Germany started a bit moist but it cleared by mid morning and we headed down the Rhine to Holland where it became the Neder Rijn and then changed names a bit further on to the Waal. We stopped at the town of Nijmegen which was an key part of the Operation Market Garden in WWII and celebrated in the film "A Bridge too FAr".  The bridge is still there. The small harbour was full and the water levels very low but we sandwiched into a spot somehow, and enjoyed a nice Portugese kebab meal on a floating restaurant on the quay. We were back in Holland after some 3 months in Germany.

We continued down the Waal the next day before it became the Merwede and stopped in Sleeuwijk Yacht Harbour we met Linda and Leon from London. Leon kindly took Wendy to the supermarket and after tea we enjoyed a couple of hours conversation with them on their 12.5m boat.

Today we have moored in an idyllic spot in a remote area called the Biesbosch which is only accessible by water. The glorious summer we have enjoyed so far is fast deserting us as we experience a more maritime climate again.

This week we are heading for Delft, Leiden and Gouda before calling into Montfoort to pick up Petra and Nico for a 5 day cruise to Roermond where we will be leaving the boat.

A Tale of Two Rivers

It has been an idyllic summer’s day on the River Lahn. We are tied up in the middle of nowhere in a wooded valley by a sharp turn of the River. Everywhere we look we see wooded slopes. A few swans sidle by to have a look. Bees are buzzing and there is a general feeling of indolence in the air. Its not too hot (like last week) but hot enough to search out a bit of shade in the middle of the day. It is quiet with only an occasional canoe passing by.

The Lahn is a quiet slow moving river, a tributary of the mighty Rhine that is navigable for 65 km from the Rhine to the gorgeous town of Limburg. But first we had to get to the Rhine from Frankfurt.

We left Frankfurt on Monday morning and by lunchtime we had joined the Rhine at Mainz. The current was very feeble, just 2 km/h and we made steady progress down river for a couple of hours until we arrived at Rudesheim. Within the space of 400m the current surged from 2 km/h to 9 km/h and we were hurled into the start of the Rhine Gorge. There were castles to the left of us, castles to the right of us, and a boiling, swirling torrent beneath us. We couldn’t take on the vista to start with us as there were many boats to steer past, some on the right of us and some on the left. Some going up and some going down.

We passed by vineyards perched on the steep slopes and always castles and more castles and lots of trip boats weaving their way along the river. The gorge got steeper and steeper and soon we rushed past the famous Pfalz, a castle on an island in the middle of the River.

Then suddenly ahead loomed a huge rock – the Loreley rock. Here the river carves an S bend around this huge rock and the river became a maelstrom with whirlpools, overfalls and a very narrow channel to steer to. The depth plummeted to 15m.

There are signal stations along this part of the river to tell upstream traffic what huge barges are swinging down stream.

The suddenly it seemed to quiet down and the town of St Goar came into view. We swung across the river and headed very slowly back upstream and through the narrow entrance of the harbour and found a place at boat harbour there. Above us was the huge fortress of Rhinefels and the town was a mere 300m away.

The next day we climbed up to the fortress and admired the great view from the top.

Then we wandered down through the woods to the lovely old town and caught a ferry across to St Goarhausen on the other side.

But things went downhill from then as the harbour master and some of the visiting boats held an all night party right next to our boat and none of us could sleep. We  were not impressed!

So we left rather tired the next day on our way to the River Lahn which enters the Rhine just above Koblenz, where the Mosel River also enters.

What a contrast the River Lahn was, as there is no commercial traffic and the locks are only 4om long. It is very popular with canoeists who travel downstream all day an are then picked up and taken back to their cars upstream. There are a few rather unusual hire boats as well.

We stopped for the night at a lovely old walled town called Dasenau and had a drink at the Old Wirthaus or inn that was hundreds of years old. Next day we headed upstream and arrived at Limburg. This incredible ancient town was where Tracy had to leave us. It has a most beautiful cathedral which was right next to our moorings. These are two views of the cathedral in the evening and the next morning.

We walked Tracy to the railway station the next morning and then started our trip back downstream and stopped at the most beautiful halt on the whole river at Hollerich. We had planned to stay for just one night but we have extended that to two nights.

Tomorrow we carry on down the Lahn before entering the Rhine again and then continue for another 300km on the Rhine until we reach Holland later this week.