+ This trip was one of 3 wonderful trips during 2019 as we celebrated our 50th year of marriage. The other 2 are HAWAII and NEVADA.
+ We flew from Pittsburgh where we had been with the extended Wilde Family (and one Knight) for a few days celebrating both our 50th and the 50th of my sister Jeanette and her husband Stewart. They got married 2 weeks before we did, June 28, 1969. Our wedding was on July 12, 1969.
Our flight to Frankfurt was delayed so we remained in Pittsburgh for a night and had to cancel our reservation for a hotel in Bingen on the Rhine. But it all worked out. When we got to Germany we found our way to our rental car at the Frankfort Airport and after a struggle trying to figure out how to use a fancy car (a manual in German was not at all helpful), we drove to Bingen on the Rhine. The hotel we had booked for the previous night was not available but we easily found a hotel right on the river, Hotel NH Bingen, and right next to the museum I wanted to visit there, the Museum am Strom which features a fascinating exhibit on the life and work of Saint Hildegard of Bingen, a nun who was a great spiritual teacher, leader, artist, gardener, mystic and scientist of the 12th century.
Our trip began in Germany and ended in Germany. In
between we went over the border to Alsace.
After our one night stay in Bingen we went on a delightful roundtrip boat trip on Der Mittelrhein from Bacharach to St. Goar before driving to Alsace. It was Sharon's birthday and it was memorable for all of us with a great breakfast at the hotel in a dining area overlooking the Rhine, that boat trip, and a great dinner in Eguisheim, our Alsace base for a few days. Dining there was a first for Derrick who has enjoyed learning French in High School but had never been in France or anywhere else outside the USA.
We spent several days in Alsace, a part of France which has a history of being German much of the time for many centuries. We stayed in Eguisheim which is surrounded by vineyards and has many of the storybook village features of the region. Once again Rick Steves guided us to a wonderful place, Eguisheim where we stayed at a wonderful hotel which now has a different name. We drove to storybook villages and towns, vineyards, wineries and a partially restored castle with a view from a high point in the Vosges Mountains. Before we left we stopped for lunch in one of the most popular storybook villages of Europe: Kaysersberg.
When we returned from Alsace we visited friends in Brühl. We had a wonderful time and we enjoyed going to a park on the Rhine in Mannheim and visiting the Maulbronn Monastery and a short stop in Heidelberg.
Here are links to photos from that trip:
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