Vineyards and villages on the Rhine

Today (Tuesday) we visited two Rhine villages in an area famous for its vineyards. The first was Assmannshausen which is about forty minutes by train from Wiesbaden. We enjoyed a walk through the romantic old village uphill to the cemetery where we wandered amongst the tombs.They all seemed to date from no earlier than the 1970s, although many appeared to contain the remains of family members who were buried much earlier than that. They were also obviously lovingly maintained with flowers and flowering plants. We had a view from there back to the Rhine and across the very steep hills which were covered in vineyards.

We also visited the church of St Jacobus which, while quite plain, had some stunning modern stained glass windows.

From Assmannshausen we took the chairlift across the hills to the colossal 'Germania' monument which overlooks the Rhine and was built to celebrate the 1871 victory of the Germans over the French. It was beautifully restored a few years ago and is now a World Heritage site.

Lavender field at the foot of Germania

A cable car ride took us to Rudesheim, another village on the Rhine, where we had lunch in a beer garden and enjoyed some lovely crisp Rhine reisling.

We took a walking tour around the little lanes and visited the local church (more modern windows but not a patch on St Jacobus).

Crowded Drosselgasse

A gorgeous clock in Drosselgasse 

We also visited Seigfried's Mechanical Music Cabinet where we saw an amazing collection of antique self-playing musical instruments. Mum and Dad had told us that this was something special and we were not disappointed!

A giant animated music box

A volunteer from the audience playing the barrel organ, together with our guide

We finished our visit to Rudesheim with an icecream sundae each before catching the train back to Wiesbaden.

Back at the apartment we gathered up the laundry and ventured forth to the laundromat. Fortunately there were instructions in English and we ended up with a bag of clean, dry clothes. The only hiccup was due to the fact that Ian had gone off to buy some drinks, leaving me to wait for the clothes, and we missed each other when he came back to meet me for the walk home. Now, yes, I did miss a turn and deviated off course so that he walked almost all the way back to the laundromat without finding me, but that was no reason to say that women are not capable of navigation, was it?!

Colourful display outside a Wiesbaden shop