Romantic Rhine

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Yesterday, Sun 2 Nov, we moved into the Romantic Rhine and we now have the German Federation flag flying. Today we visited Cologne and tonight we arrive in Amsterdam.

Many of the towns lining the Rhine started life as 'custom's stations' and built up a great deal of wealth, allowing their ruling families to build the most magnificent castles at every strategic point. With photos to take at every bend, the afternoon was a ping-pong one with the head swivelling left to right and back again right along the river until darkness fell. Magical.

If it wasn't a fort, castle, church or a vineyard, it was a half-wooden house. The photos will speak for themselves.

Nomadic tribes that finally settled down, Benedictine monks, Romans, French, Swedes, Catholic bishops; The Roam era, Middle-ages; floods, fire, battles, bloody murder; ruins from 900, forts from 1100, castles from 1200 ....the tour commentary often left us open-mouthed.

This morning we awoke in Cologne and of course the archaeological digs of recent years and indeed, today, were wonderful to see. The Romans built a small fortress here in 50BC and the first bridge over the Rhine was built by them in 310AD. The absolutely colossal Cologne Cathedral was started in 1248 and continues even today where stonemasons are duplicating each piece to replace the soft sandstone sections that are damaged by pollution. Fortunately not much of the Gothic-style Cathedral suffered war damage, but 90% of Cologne was in ashes when war ended in 1945.

We people-watched over coffee and yet more pastries and strudel - it's certainly a very cosmopolitan city of 1m people. The six-line rail bridge carries 10,000 trains a day...yes, that's right...10,000. We watched it while eating lunch and honestly, the longest time between trains would have been no more than 45 seconds.

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Comments

[Joyce McKenzie]

YOur travels
Enjoying your travel Blogs and photos Su. Looks great and plenty of sustenance to sample! Great photos. Enjoy the rest of your memory-creating journeys. Frosty evenings returning here but still good spring weather. Joyce