Castles on the Rhein

The second full day of our Germany/Switzerland holiday, we took a boat tour on the Rhein River. This meant boarding a tour bus with 31 other people and trundling up the mountains to a spot where we boarded a big vessel that took us all—kids, old folks, middle aged folks, everybody—up the River together.

I have never been a tour bus traveler, but it was lovely to just sit back and let our German driver, George, navigate the highway along the Rhein and listen to him tell our American guide about fishing the river, which has recently improved enough to support salmon. (Really? I think of salmon in Alaska and Washington, big roaring rivers, not wide, docile ones like this section of the Rhein. I’ll have to look it up).

Anyway, before we boarded our river boat, a.k.a. floating restaurant with phenomenal river views, we toured Castle Rheinstein. Our hostess: the owner of the castle. No, she did not wear a princess gown—she was a middle aged, pleasant, sharply dressed German woman who spoke accented English and told us the history of the castle, which she and her family acquired in 1975.

How does one acquire a castle? It must have been one big estate sale. Turns out the former opera singer, Hermann Hecher, bought the place from the Duchess of Mecklenburg, and our lovely hostess married into the Hecher family, who has worked hard to restore the property. It is now open for tours, events and romantic outings.

The place looks as though it was carved out of the rock on which it perches over the river. It has a couple of lovely courtyard gardens, a knight’s hall with a suit of armor, and a princess floor with a music room and a bedroom including a short bed we were told accommodated a lady who slept sitting up, to preserve her hair do (Clara, aren’t you glad your hair is so short you actually CAN’T do a ‘do like that?!?!). Above her quarters are the prince’s rooms. No kings and queens here, apparently –the prince and princess had a son though, another prince. Both prince papa and princess mama had a tiny room in the tower (one stacked above the other) for writing. Cozy. Though, I imagine, cold. I wonder if they had some sort of portable fireplace/radiator arrangement? Coals in a bucket, maybe? Something more to research.

My favorite part of this castle is what our guide called the “time out bucket.” This looks like a gigantic planter basket made of iron in a woven pattern, and hung from an outer tower over the steep embankment – i.e. over nothing but air. If someone misbehaved, they were put in the basket, and left there indefinitely. Worse than Tiger Mom, I would say.

This castle, built in 900 (imagine, a year so long ago it has only three digits!) is just one of many along the Rhein. One around every bend, it seems—we saw them once we got on the boat cruise, unbelievably—and I meant that literally. It was hard to believe the scenery was real: actual castles, neat lines of brightly colored houses with window boxes overflowing with flowers, and vineyards everywhere, striping the steep hillsides like corduroy and sprouting out of backyards so frequently that I realized the true meaning "house wine"--wine from grapes one grows outside one's house. It all seemed as if it were all right out of a picture book.

We imagined what it would have been like to live here back in the day—would castle kids have play dates with the kids from the castle across the hill? How did they cross the river? Did they paddle or row? Was there a ferry? Did they just hang out in the castle smelling roses and growing grapes and making wine (there were even vines dripping from an arbor over our heads, while our hostess described the castle’s history—the tiny, bead-sized grapes on them would be ripe in September, she said).

I think if I returned in September, I might bike along the river, rather than take the bus. But for a whirlwind tour, this was a great option.