Our Holiday to Germany - Taking It Up The Rhine - Part 4

Continued from Part 3

Friday

So we have arrived at Friday and today was another included excursion, this time to Heidelberg. Now it was getting seriously warm out there, so the drive from Assmanhausen to Heidelberg on the air-conditioned coach was most welcome. The main attraction in Heidelberg is the castle; Heidelberger Schloss and so we headed there. As the castle is perched high on the valley side, it can be reached via a modern funicular railway, which then runs on to the original station of the 125 year old funicular that runs to the top of the valley and the Königstuhl station, with it's breathtaking views. More of that in a moment, we stopped first at the castle.

Luckily the castle ruins offered a fair bit of shade, which was required to escape the ravages of the baking sun! Not all of the castle is in ruins and we spent a good couple of hours wandering around the exterior and interior, stopping obviously for the requisite packed lunch and to top up on drinks.

The castle itself offers some lovely views across the Rhine valley and the town of Heidelberg and we spent a cool few minutes admiring the views and people watching as they all took their various photographs, mostly from the end of a selfie-stick.


After the castle we purchased tickets for the upper railway to take us to the top of valley. As time was getting on, I wasn't really sure if we would make it up and down again before Jason fired up the coach!Luckily we bumped into the intellectual family who were just coming off the train, so I asked the father; dressed in his usual attire of baggy shorts, black socks and shoes, loose shirt and a battered straw hat, coupled with a rather annoying looking bum-bag affair, strapped around his waist that seemed to carry all manner of kit to aid the family through the day, including drinks bottles etc. and as he was rather thin and this horizontal rucksack was rather large, made him even more awkward looking, but he insisted on wearing literally everywhere, I'm sure he even wore it to bed!


Anyway, I asked him roughly how long the journey was and how often did the trains run. He replied the journey was about 8 minutes and the trains arrived every ten. I thanked him and we boarded the train. On the way up I did some quick calculations and came to the conclusion that this was going to be a whistle stop tour of the top! So whistle stop in fact that we disembarked our train ran out of the little station took 4 or 5 pictures of the view, ran back into the station, joined the queue to go down and boarded the same train we had come up on!

We made it back to the coach with 10 minutes to spare, which is just about adequate, you do not want to be last back or late on a coach tour, people can be so cruel if you're late. Swines!


Saturday

Last day in Germany! Awww. Today we had to have the suitcases outside of our rooms by 7:30am!

So an early start for us. After the obligatory queue for the toaster, it was a sad farewell to the hotel as we boarded the coach to take us the 10 minutes along the Rhine to Rüdesheim where we were to catch a boat which would take a leisurely 4 hour cruise up the Rhine to Koblenz, where we were to meet up with the coach and those passengers who chose not to take the cruise. We believe they missed out by not taking the cruise, although the boat got very busy, there were various stops en route where passengers got on and off. Watching the stunning Rhineland scenery gently rolling passed, with magical castles every 5 minutes, set into the luscious green valley sides was just sublime. Alongside this we were sat with our holiday companions so chatter was always around us. Such a beautiful time.

The trip was topped off by Mrs Dave insisting that we eat on board, in the luxury restaurant, instead of that awful packed lunch (I still bought it just in case)! And what a choice, the meal was just perfect, the restaurant was quiet and we had magnificent views from our dining table, which was right up the pointy end. See? We know our nautical stuff.

We docked at Koblenz and joined the coach and made our somewhat sad way out of Germany to our over night hotel in Belgium.

Although our time in Belgium was short, the hotel was superb, great room, Jacuzzi bath, well organised restaurant. The only downside was that we wanted to change for supper, but our cases hadn't made it to the room and as I had just taken a shower, I had to put back on the shorts and t-shirt I had been wearing all day. As a result, we missed an opportunity to sit with our friends, because Opinionated Steve and his wife had plonked themselves in the seats our friends were trying to keep for us. He was Opinionated Steve, because he had an opinion on everything and it wasn't always a good one! Also, anything you had, he had one better, bigger, faster, stronger, you name it, he'd done it. Big-headed swine!

Anyway, we sat on the next table with what seemed to be half of the Addams family, including some moaning old git and his bickering missus. As the soup was taking awhile to come out, I suggested that I run up to the room to see if the cases had been dropped off, which they had, so a very quick change and I came running back down and back to the still soup-less table. So Mrs Dave did the same thing and ran up to get changed. In her absence the soup arrived, so I politely handed it to the others to help themselves. It was at this point that Mr Moaning Old Git of Doncaster discovered he was minus a soup spoon, so instead of doing what any other polite person would do and go and get one, or call a waiter, he instead took Mrs Dave's spoon!!

"Hold on a minute", I said, "what is she going to eat her soup with, a bloody fork?"

The table thought this was very funny, but I was fuming and he never gave it back. Mrs Dave turns up and I dish up her soup and she enquires as to where her spoon has gone, the man opposite says that; "he took it" acknowledging the said moaning old git now elbow deep in soup and bread, "the spoon" splashing in and out of the savoury soup in quick succession! Mrs Dave checked with me as to who took the spoon and I retorted; "that selfish old git!" loud enough for the surrounding tables to hear, but it was to no avail and old bastard Steptoe was wanting seconds of soup! I should have drowned the old git in it!


Anyhow, enough of this negativity, we finished our meal and met up with the guys on the next table and wandered off into the cooling Belgian evening to find a bar to drown our sorrows and celebrate a wonderful holiday!

And there we have it, save for a few more hours travelling the next day, back to Blighty, that was the holiday.
I know we moan about coach holidays, but we truly love them and the Germany trip was no exception. There's generally nothing for you to do, but sit back and let someone else do the driving for you. They look after your luggage, everything is laid on, they take you to the nicest places, show you all the tourist attractions, provide you with history, book you into some decent hotels and generally look after you really well. There's no need for any anxieties or what do we do now? Or where do we go today? It's all done for you. And I for one like that, I don't want to think about too much when I am holiday I want to relax and enjoy myself. Obviously to do so. you need to be stuck on a coach with other people doing the same kind of thing, so you will have to put up with the odd, old moaners, who will complain and utter a load of old drivel sometimes and came out with the odd casual racist comment or even suggest several ways of how to deal with the immigrants issue at Calais. However, as most of the suggestions involved some mild form of genocide, I'm sure the French authorities would not be interested.
However, the plus points, for us anyway, far out weigh the negativity bought about some narrow mined individuals. As Mrs Dave suggests, you never know the old buggers might even book their next tour to Switzerland, one way ticket anybody?

If you have got this far, well many thanks for sticking with it and reading these musings. I do it for information, prosperity, but mainly fun. Thanks again and here's to another holiday!

This blog is dedicated to Rick, Joan, Vince and Anne, proof that coach travel is also for the lovely, caring and very friendly people of this earth. Keep in touch.

Dave and Denise.