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Mainz, Germany

Part of the benefit of the Eurorail pass is free passage on the K-D Shipping Line. The Koln-Dusseldorfer Line provides travel up and down the Rhine River. It’s slow and relaxing and passes some of the most beautiful views in Germany. Castles galore. We rolled into Mainz in the early evening and grabbed a hotel room close to the hauptbahnhof so we wouldn’t need to drag our heavy rucks across town looking for a place to sleep. The place was quite nice. After dumping our **** out and sorting the dirty from the clean, not much of the latter, we went around the corner to wash our duds and once that was done we strolled through the city to the river to find the boarding spot for the boat trip the next morning. On the way back we stopped for more food and a pint and relaxed while watching the dark clouds roll in. The next day we packed up and hopped in a cab to the river side to catch the boat. The weather looked kinda ****** but once onboard and moving the sky cleared up and it became sunny and pleasant. The route took us from Mainz to Koblenz. For a few hours relaxing on a boat we would see 24 castles and sites. We’d seen a few of the highlights during our train trips so we had a good idea of what to expect and the LP has a nice map with details of what we would see. The river is a pretty busy place too. Pleasure craft, tour boats, and lots of barge traffic going both ways. Trains run on both sides of the river as well as roads on both sides and bike paths as well. Busy busy. It’s also one of the chosen holiday locations for the camper crowd, there are lots of little caravans camped out on the slivers of land along the river. We hopped off at Koblenz to catch a train to Frankfurt as our railpass was done. We were headed to spend a couple of days with Elke’s aunt and uncle just outside of the city but not before we did a stopover in Frankfurt to buy some odds and ends to bring home.

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