Traffic and more construction.

Friday, September 14, 2012

After a quick breakfast this morning, we packed our bags and headed down to our car in the parking garage.
Our destination today, Bacharach, Germany (DE) along the Rhine River. Gertie the GPS said it would be a 4 hour trip, WELL ... after 8 hours we finally arrived at our apartment Gasthaus Fuerstenberg. The German government must be handing out infrastructure money - roads everywhere were under construction and traffic was stop and go much of the time. We were on the Autobahn so when there was a construction free zone, it seemed everyone was hurrying to be first to the next one. These drivers in their fast cars just seem to blur past us in the left lane - and I thought we were going fast at 130 km./hr.
The apartment here for the next 5 nights is right along the Rhine with the train tracks between us and the river. It is very quaintly decorated with antiques so we felt right at home. Rosli met us at the big old iron gate/door after we buzzed and helped us carry our bags up to the "second floor" which really is the 3rd floor since the Europeans call the ground floor 0. The place reminds me of the old log farm house where I grew up - heavy wooden doors and large windows. We have a private balcony over looking the Rhine and Bahnhof (train station) and street below.

At 5:30 pm here it was getting dark so we grabbed a quite bite and headed downtown. Narrow cobble-stoned streets and dimly lit shops lined the streets. Many restaurants were still open. At one point as we were walking I over heard a woman talking in English - obviously a tourist so we stopped and chatted with her and her husband for nearly half an hour. They were from Minnesota - their first trip to Europe - so they wanted to pick our brains a little on what to see. We had much in common. They just wanted to see the countryside - said they were still too young to do the tour thingy. Maybe our paths will cross again - they are headed to Switzerland and then on to Austria in the next 4 weeks as well. A light rain began to fall just as we arrived back at our "castle" .
By the way kids, we saw the sign to LEGOLAND - not sure if it is the factory or a display of Legos or what but the "sign " was an eye catcher.
Time to blog.