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.