We took a ferry from Nuckargemund to Hiedleburg. It took 1 hour and we had to go through 2 locks to get there The total distance is only about 8km. Cost 9 Euro each one way.
We got off the ferry and walked up to the main street which was very busy - Saturday afternoon.
I had a weird beer - it is called a BananaWeizen. It is a Hefeweizen with a banana essence. Weird - tasted like Banana as you would expect.
They also have KirchWeizen which is cherry flavored and ColaWeizen which is cola and beer.
Other weird drinks we have seen is a White Wine and then they add Water to it. 50/50 mix - I was not keen on trying that,
Pam had a chocolate drink with ice cream.
Good Cheap beer - Large Paulaner Hefeweizen - 3 euro 10 cents, Pam had a Paulaner Export - 2 Euro 60 cents.
A simple coffee - but not very good. The building was better than the coffee.
Very nice glass tiled windows in the cafe
We are staying in a town called Neckargemund which is about 8 km from Heidelberg.
Our house is called SchilderHauschen or (Schilder cottage) and was built in 1569 - making it 447 years old.
We even found a little miniature version of it in the house. A house in the house?
It looks very odd and tiny from the street but it is quite spacious. We have the top two floors with the bottom floor used by the owner to run his business.
We did the museum tour on the morning that we were leaving Burg Reichenstein. It costs 5 euro 50 cents each and it was an interesting tour (self guided)
We decided to stay in and just have a simple dinner of bread and cheese and salad and wine.
The salad I had was pretty good - it came in a plastic container and had lots of different salad greens in it and it had croutons and cheese. It also came with a balsamic vinegar dressing all for 1 euro and 60 cents. I added some extras like blue cheese and smoked salmon and it was a nice light dinner.
We drank the bubbly Riesling that we purchased in Cochem.
I read a little about Bacharach this morning and we decided to go back (8km) and see if there was any shops open or not today.
Well there was more shops open but not that many again. Pam had looked at a little beanie in the window yesterday of a shop that was shut and said it would open tomorrow and it was open when we returned.
So for 2 Euro she got a little white woolen beanie which was a pretty good price and pretty nice.
I had read up on something called the Postenturm - this is a strange building that has been around as a Sentry tower for hundreds of years and now is just a good place to get a view over Bacharach from within the vineyards.
We walked along the streets and worked our way to the Postenturm
The view from here is so much better than down in the city of Bacharach as it includes the Rhine river as well.
But the view in the town is also very nice
After coming down from the hills we found a little restaurant which sell their own wine ( Weingut Fritz Bastian ) as we arranged to taste some wines. It took a bit to say we just wanted to try some wines and they tried to offer us some deal of 29 Euro to taste 12 wines. I would loved to have tried 12 wines but 29 euro? and driving? no.
But we just wanted to try something for free and maybe buy something.
http://www.weingut-bastian-bacharach.de/?lang=en
In the end the lady understood us as we asked to try a Riesling Splatlasisse - a sweeter wine.
The lady then bought out 3 glasses and we tried 3 wines.
They were all very nice (the Bastia Scheurebe being the least favorite). The lady then offered a dry Riseling and I was happy to say Yes. The 2011 was stunning - 22 euro and the 2012 was quite different and not what I wanted compared to the 2011. We bought neither although the 2011 was great and if I had more money I would have bought a bottle.
We bought a BACHARACHER POSTEN 2011 Spatlese, and also the BACHARACHER POSTEN 2011 Auslese
The vines were like 50m if that from the place we were trying them - talk about a local product.
The last photo is where the grapes are grown - 50m maybe less.