It was a good drive down from The Netherlands to a lovely place called Osterspai on the Rhine river. On the way we went through Eindhoven and called into a special beer shop to get a smoked beer BK had been looking forward to trying. We came across a car accident on the autobahn and as we sat in traffic we found that very disciplined German drivers would make two lanes on the motorway by pulling to the side of the road which left a wide lane down the middle for emergency services. Once one emergency vehicle had gone past, nobody moved, they knew there would be more emergency vehicles coming, and of course there was! Nobody decided to be disrespectful and use the wide lane themselves either which I was surprised at.

I had put a week of rest by the Rhine in my itinerary at the very beginning of planning and was so glad I did.

The first day we were there our Airbnb hosts gave us their train pass to use for the day so we went into Koblenz, which is about 15-20 minutes north of where we were staying. We went up a gondola to visit a fortress overlooking the city. There was a Family Day on which was celebrating areas of the world. So I had a German say to me “G’day Sheila, we’re learning our colours in English” it was quite funny! I replied I knew English very well thank you. Probably should have said I lived a 3 hour flight south of Australia.

The rest of the week was rest. A bit of school, a few walks, a bit of laundry, and a visit to a castle called Marksburg. BK found a co-working place in Koblenz and did some good work hours. One day I did drive the kids 30 mins south to a town called Bacharach. My parents had loved it when they were here 11 years ago. We had a walk around but it was a sleepy little village. A lot of the shops were closed 12.30pm till 2pm, possibly siesta time?

On our last full day by the Rhine we took the ferry across the river, it was only going across every 30 minutes not on demand as it had been earlier in the week, so that made us miss our train south. Fortunately I had a back up plan, to catch the next train, which we did, but we got off at the wrong station so missed the boat trip we were aiming to do by 5 minutes. However I had another back up plan to do the next boat trip an hour later. Unfortunately it turns out that one wasn’t running at that particular time that day, so it was back to the train station but as I was buying train tickets to go back to the ferry to go home the train came and we missed that by about 30 seconds! By this time I was exhausted! So we collapsed in a heap at a playground and waited for the next train an hour later. Some days you just can’t quite get it right, it was not helped by the fact we’d run out of data on our phones so couldn’t adjust the plans after things started going wrong.

Despite not doing much we loved the week, the Airbnb house and hosts were amazing. The rest was much needed, and watching the boats go up and down the river from the window or on our walks was fascinating.

On a side note about our accommodation. I heard that someone thinks we’re bunking down in people’s houses, with the hosts. This isn’t the case. Each house/apartment/cottage we rent is exclusively ours for the time we’re there. Sometimes the host lives in the same building (e.g. Berlin and Zagreb) but most of the time they live somewhere else. This was the same in Asia also. So no we don’t come back from exploring and have to make small talk. We’re just a normal family in a normal house.

 

Till next time,

 

Claire

 

Budget : $576 under