We took a day trip to Cochem. When we left and trained towards the Rhine, we left our heavy packs at the train station and snuck up the long back way into Berg Eltz. The same family has owned the place for over 900 years, and it's escaped the destruction all the others have suffered through careful political alignments and marraiges. They escaped OUR invasion by leaving us in the hands of a German tour guide. We do know enough of the language that, aided by the English room guide translation, we could actually follow most of his discourse, and even get some of his jokes. He spoke excellent English, and offered to answer (and did!) any questions we had as we changed rooms.

We stopped for lunch in Koblenz (went to the really neat Ehrenbreitstein fortress across the river in '94), and e-mailed home from a cyber cafe.

We trained on down to Bacharach where Rick Steves approaches semi-diety status... One restaurant had the sign 'recommended by r. steves' in the window. By the time we got a zimmer for the night, we had heard his praises caroled by one inn-keeper, and our new hostess, Frau Ursula Orth. Frau Orth is, hands down, our favorite among all of the wonderful people we met. For all the time we stayed, however, she would throw up her hands, and exclaim with wonder at all the Rick Steves' guests, and how she was full every night ("thanks to Rick Steves"), and seated us each morning at the American table, introducing us to the others as "Rick Steves sent you all, ja?" Her rooms are very clean, and she'll get very indignant about any of the other guest homes that'll charge one price for Rick Steves, and hike it up for others. The building may not have character, but she MORE than makes up for it!

Above is a sidewalk view of the "recommended" place. We ate there because they took plastic...Was ok, but the 2nd time it was instant mashed potatoes! Oh, well, it was a change from frits!

The hostess here speaks several languages, and is working on more...she tried to explain to some teenage girls with a strong Southern drawl that a):No one was making her learn them; and b): Engish is easy for Germans "because it is like German only with bad pronounciation and poor grammar". Since that is the exact reverse of how we've always described German, we, (and the Dutch couple next to us), about snorted up 1/2 a glass of rather good wine through our noses!

Everywhere we looked in Bacharach, each traveler or pair of tourists had their noses buried in Rick Steves' "Germany, Austria & Switzerland"...hence this cartoon!. What's hard to make out here is all the "Rick Steves says...". Most ONLY glanced UP when 'the book' said to. There is a skeletal cathedral ruin, and a couple of really crooked old buildings that are neat, but the tourists out-numbered the natives...OK by them, but rather overwhelming for us. One young man the first night at Frau Orth's took it too far and found the late night beer bar...and proceeded to let us all know it, by lunging up the stairs, and bouncing accross the handrail and walls at 2:30AM. He wasn't immmensely popular at breakfast, later. We were also bombarded with RS 'sightings', as he was evidently traveling around Europe the same time as us. We're glad he wrote the book, it was a great help, but we could have passed on meeting his cultists!!!.

The last Rhine day: to Bingen and a boat cruise up by 7 castles and the Lorley (Lorelie) to make sure we hadn't missed anything...

The Moselle area was better, but if you must go to the Rhine, Oberwesel is a nicer town (the train tracks don't have stops right onto every one's back porch; I think that's what "Bacharach" means). IF after all this, you MUST stay there, Frau Orth (Spurgasse 3, an easy to miss alleyway) is the best part of the place. For three days we used her place for sleeping and explored all the nooks and crannies of Bacharach, Oberwesel, and St. Goar. Right sketch is across the street from our lunch place. Half way through drawing the bench, and too late to add them (no eraser), two local women came allong and had one of the most animated gossip sessions I've ever seen! Berg Rheinfels, just outside the latter, gave us the chance to climb and crawl all over and through one of the old Robber Barons' castle ruins.

Luxembourg City. Went in '97 with Explorer Scouts, stopped back for a look at the casements and lunch on way to Wiltz. MAJOR rebuilding going on both new EU high-rises and re-furbishing of fortifications... Grund also getting a face lift. Many places we visited with the Scouts were closed or scaffolded over for construction this time.

Wiltz, we had hoped to stay with Scouts and see their museum, but they were closed, so a guardian angel gave us seniors (26+ years old!) a ride up the hill to the youth hostel with our packs in her trunk. Youth hostels always seem to be at the highest points in town, but for once, this was NOT in an old castle...it was a brewery in it's past life.

By the way, the pastry, local beer, and wine were great EVERYWHERE! Europeans must export the bad stuff to the US. Clervaux, Ardennes, Luxembourg. An afternoon trip from Wiltz. Do it. The 'castle'(?)had large models of all the other Ardennes castles on several floors, and their history...a plane's eye view. Much more impressive through-out Luxembourg, Belgium, and seen in this small museum here, are the monuments and thanks to Americans for saving and restoring their countries after WWI and WWII. The Battle of the Bulge gets very real, here among the uniforms and other relics, especially after riding the train through the jagged, forested terrain. It was cool and refreshing to visit the countryside.

Saturday, railroad travel day of hell...unexpectedly long trip, compounded by accident outside Amsterdam causing massive rerouting of schedules.

Haarlem...never on Sunday. When the couple ahead of you is told they received the last 'good room', believe them. Hotel Joops, Ould Groenmarkt 12 is composed of many of the upper story rooms and apartments around the markt. I told our landlord we'd be happy just to have clean beds, and that's about all we got. Renovation had not yet hit this place. The walls were of wallpaper with several structural coats of paint. Some spots you could push in 8" before you reached a solid surface! The toiletten across the hall started life as a closet, so they cut a vent hole in the horse-hair plaster over head and shoved PVC pipe up it...I kept expecting to leave it with a bad case of plaster dandruff.

The shower ceiling, curtain, and grout needed a good bleaching. And worst of all, no breakfast. Haarlem is the ONLY place that had NOTHING open on Sunday morning. We were in too late for the patisserie the night before. Dave with no breakfast is an ugly sight by 11:00.

For festivities our last day, the locals had gone all out to give us a good send-off and set up all the high school bands in the markt. They played all the same stuff US school bands do, but I've never seen the "YMCA" played with no one joining in with the arm motions before...

We used up the last of our Holland cash at Schiphol Airport which has the only worthwhile duty free area we've ever seen. If you don't save coins for souvenirs, toss them in the Red Cross bin on your way to the gate.