Day 5

We slept in! We had a free morning and we slept for most of it - we felt so refreshed though! I think we had been so tired with the late nights, restless sleeps and busy days. But we got up and enjoyed walking around the town of Rudesheim. I loved the shops and of course the bakery. We stopped for a pastry and coffee and admit we could get very used to that!!

And then it was time to meet up with our group at the hotel and walk to the river for our lunch cruise down the Rhine river. It was a cool misty day that lent an air of mystery to the castles and ruins we saw. Beautiful! It's hard to pick and choose among the pictures to post - there were so many castles along the way.
One thing we noticed was that the river is a very busy highway - a lot of barges with big loads were continually coming and going.

Our bus driver picked us up and then we went to tour the Marksberg castle. Not exactly luxury fit for kings and queens. Dark and damp with walls many feet thick. I could just imagine life in there with very few comforts - not exactly the romantic thing we think of. In fact, we were told that we could buy a castle for not a lot of money. The catch is that we'd be obligated to restore it which would be millions of Euros. One of our group was joking about buying one for his wife (who wasn't with us on our trip).

Here was the brightest room in the castle. And that's where the women would spend their time. Doesn't this look like the perfect place for Sleeping Beauty?

And here's the kitchen.

One of the interesting rooms was set up to showcase the armor worn by soldiers through the ages. The last one was this full knight's armor. And here's my 'knight' beside it?!!

We had a final supper at the hotel and met one of the highest executives of Claas and his wife. They were really kind and gracious and the whole evening was very nice. One of the last things we saw before we headed to bed was this tower. We were entranced with the chimes of the bells (you can see them at the top) and then the round part that turned with carved figures on it. I managed to catch the audio of the chimes on my camera and so it's a neat memory for us to play.

Tomorrow it was off to Frankfurt and our flight home. We had a wonderful time in Germany and would love to go back someday. Thank you Claas for showing us a great time and sharing your beautiful country with us!