Friday 11^th May 2018

Loreley, Lorelei, it seem that either spelling is correct. The locals use the former so that’s what I am going to stick with.

Apologies first, for the delay in posting my updates on our progress it seems that in the Rhine Gorge and in the Black Forest they can only manage a 2G signal so even my powerful little MiFi cannot convert it into an adequate internet signal. Never mind, as soon as we reach civilisation they will all come through in a rush.

The Loreley Rock with the Goethe bravely risking its chances.

The Loreley rock is a promontory that juts out into the Rhine and chokes it so that this is the narrowest, deepest and strongest flowing part of the navigable river. There is an old legend about a mermaid type creature (the Lorelei) who used to sit on top of the cliff enticing sailors to their doom on the rocks either side of the gorge. Now there is a statue to her further down the river on the end of the mole that protects a harbour on the far side of the river from our campsite.

The Loreley Statue

This morning we walked into Sankt Goar and caught the ferry across to Sankt Goarhausen. This is such a pretty part of the world, I spent the crossing snapping away, first one shore, then the other and back again. We found the path just past the Rathaus and immediately started clinbing the hill. It was very steep, but the DL training came in useful as we passed a couple of groups who had stopped ‘to admire the view’. Soon we were looking down on Castle Katz (there is a Castle Maus the other side of the village) and only pausing for a few photos (honest) it was onwards and upwards in true Semper Deinceps fashion. At the top of the hill we burst out of the woods on to fields above the Loreley tourist centre and it was only a matter of time before we were enjoying a well-deserved 500ml (it doesn’t have the same ring as a pint does it?) overlooking the Gorge and our campsite. From there it was on to the closest point we were allowed to the point of the cliff and then it was down to the river and a stroll back to the ferry.

Wendy still had a spring in her step as she was headed for an ice cream shop that made their own ice cream that she had spotted yesterday nestled amongst the cuckoo clock shops that were all proclaiming they had the largest clock (you have to be careful how you type that!).

The twin villages don’t get a lot of mention in guidebooks of the Rhine, but they are well worth a visit and we were a bit sad that we didn’t have time to visit the castle and find out more about the Counts of Katzenelnbogen (cue Max Bygraves?) and their successors. Tomorrow we are heading south.