Unplanned day turns into unexpected adventure!

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This morning I woke up without having anything planned for the day. I had to add an extra day to the trip before eschwege because of a mix-up of arrival days and I added it here. I threw some clothes on and went to breakfast (which was really impressive for being included in the price of hostel, all you can eat, meat, cheese, rolls, joghurt, cereal, and made-to order coffee). I went to sit down and noticed the only other person in the room. I had a split second decision to make: should I just say good morning and sit at my own table… or should I sit with him? I decided to sit down and talk and it changed my whole day! I found out his name was Hiro and he was a Japanese student on holiday. He was just finishing breakfast so we didn’t talk long before he left and went back to our room (I found out he was my roommate who showed up after I was in bed). As he was leaving, a Canadian named Gabriel walked in, and he sat at my table since the other was now taken by a german family. We got talking and he was traveling after having been at a business conference, I told him I had no plans for the day and he recommended hiking, mentioning that he had gone yesterday and seen some castle ruins. I decided that sounded like a good enough thing to do, so I asked for more specific directions and decided to go hiking.

I went back to the room and Hiro asked what I was doing, so I told him about the ruins Gabriel had mentioned and invited him along. I don’t think he had any plans either because we spent the rest of the day together! We set out from the hostel and began walking in the general direction Gabriel had advised. Walking through the town of Steeg (which is just the inland part of Bacharach) I decided to ask two locals for directions. They didn’t speak English, so I used my broken German to say “Hallo, endshuldigung sie, mein freund und ich suche ein alte, kaputte, burg. Wissen sie wo es ist? Which should mean: “Hello, excuse me, my friend and I are searching for an old, broken, castle. Do you know where it is?” I think I was saying burg funny, but after a repetition, and “Wo ist die alte Burg?” they said something like “Oh die ruinen” and I was like “Yes! Or Ja! Ruinen (ruins, I knew the word and should have used it before). Then they said “geht zu church (he knew the English word), dan rechts und 1km. So we said Danke schon and followed his directions, walking to the church and taking the road to the right and we soon saw the tower on the hill above the town.

We followed some signs up walking paths to the castle, and it was sooo cool! There was a rickety wooden bridge that led into the main gate. It had a large tower, which we found a hole in and were able to get inside (it looked like a cannonball had blown a hole in the side). Other parts of the castle including most of the wall were still intact, complete with a gateways and vectored arrow slits. I climbed up a bit of the wall to the taller ruined tower and we took a bunch of pictures and just sat and enjoyed the amazing view for a while. In another part I walked up on and along the wall, which had a really steep drop on one side, and took some more pictures.

I wish I could do it more justice, but I’m getting tired and I need to get to bed sooo…. We walked back along the top of the valley in the vineyards, and wound our way back into the main town in Bacharach. We found a supermarket and bought some picnic supplies (just meat and a beer for me because I already had bread and oranges). Beer is honestly cheaper than water here, I got a half liter local beer in a pop-top glass bottle for only .99! Then we sat down on the edge of the Rhine for a nice picnic. On the way back to the hostel after lunch Hiro mentioned that he plays American football in Japan! How cool is that?? He is actually a defensive lineman for his club team. It was pretty late in the afternoon at this point, so we rested up at the hostel for about two hours and then went back down into town for dinner. We tried to get into the Kranenturm restaurant (which was recommended by Rick Steves and is built into the tower of the old city wall), but it was closed until the summer. So instead we went to Jagersruhe (or something like that), which was recommended by the receptionist. The food was amazing! We sat down after asking for “ein tisch fur zwei” and noticing my terrible accent we got offered the English menu which I happily accepted. I asked for recommendations and took them, they were: Weinerschnitzel with mushrooms and gravy, served with French fries, and salad, then the local white wine (made right here in Bacharach!). Oh man it was soo good. All schnitzel is great, but this was really good, the fries were perfect, the salad was a full salad (a separate dish with dressing and veggies, not just the half a leaf and a tomato they call salad at some restaurants), and the wine (which I’m not really familiar with at all) actually tasted very good. And it was only 12 euros (including the wine), which (relative to a lot of other prices I’ve seen, especially in touristy towns like this) was really good value.

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