also known as the upper middle rhine valley. that would be the river rhine in germany. the upper middle rhine valley stretches from koblenz south to bingen and rüdesheim.
the rhein at the loreley.
over the weekend, i took a last minute trip to the area with rachel. yesterday, i went on a field trip with some other american students and two germans. the weather has been super warm since about friday, which means i managed to get sunburned on sunday (the weathermen predicted rain) and sweat a whole lot.
rachel and i started at the south of the valley in bingen. the town is small but really cute and typical german. within in the last few years, they have quite obviously redone the waterfront and have one of the best playgrounds i've ever seen. there was a skatepark, a small climbing wall area, a bunch of water features, mazes built through the shrubs, a giant chess board, soccer and sand soccer fields, and the normal playground stuff. they were also having a jazz festival. later on saturday, we took a ferry across to the river to rüdesheim, another small and cute town. we rode a chair lift up the top of the mountain (weinberg) where they grow lots of grapes for wine (wein trauben). there was a statue at the top that was far less memorable then wondering back down the mountain through the vineyards. we also made some friends on the ferry over. four old german men. then we kept seeing them around because the town was so small. in the evening we wondered around bingen because they were having a jazz festival. saturday night, we stayed in one of the nicest hostels i've seen.
playground in bingen.
sunday we headed up the river to koblenz on cruise boat. there are 30 castles or something ridiculous along the valley. the boat told us what we were passing with each one...in german, english, japanese, and chinese. and possibly something else, i forget now. then rachel and i explored koblenz and caught the trains home.
yesterday, i went along with 6 americans and one canadian who are taking a sustainability course here at the university. swaantje and michael also went along. swaantje works here at the lehrstuhl, and michael is currently working on his masters. we first had a meeting with some people from unesco. starting in 2002, the valley applied to be a unesco world heritage site. they finally were awarded it a few years ago i believe. the valley is working to bring more tourists into the area which means they are planning a lot of updates and renovations in the area. because while the landscape is beautiful, and the towns are charming, the towns look like they haven't been touched in about 50 years. we stopped at the loreley for lunch. this is a giant cliff exactly at the halfway point of the valley. there is a myth about a beautiful girl brushing her long hair, and the ships were watching her so closely that they crashed into cliff. there is (i believe) both a poem and a song about her. after that, we drove to koblenz, where we learned about bit more about the development in the rhein valley and its standing as a world heritage site. one major topic is that there are very few bridges across the river, and they wish to build a new one between st. goar and st. goarshausen. first, unesco has to give approval of the bridge. dresden (beautiful old city in east germany that was badly damaged in world war two) has apparently in the last week or two lost its world heritage status because of making the decision to build a bridge without having unesco approval. koblenz is also preparing for the BUGA 2011 (Bundesgartenschau - National Garden Show), so everything is currently under construction. there is a BUGA every year in a different city, which puts a lot of money and focus on that particular city.
for work, i'm still helping on project ACCESS, taking a lot of field trips (no complaints there), and i just went to class (sociology of the city more or less). we talked about housing today, and i understood fairly well; however, i couldn't really takes notes at the same time. i have to put all my focus on listening.
this weekend i'm going to a small town near heidelberg on sunday, and then to heidelberg on sunday.
here are the heidelberg street festival photos.
here are the ober mittelrheintal photos. (lots of them.)
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