Loreley Rock

St. Goar and St. Goarhausen sit on opposite sides of the Rhine and are the two towns closest to the Loreley Rock. St. Goarhausen has the castles Katz and Maus nearby while St. Goar has the Castle Rheinfels looming above it.
Goar was a monk who came to the area back in the 6th C AD and his good works and kindly ways led to people coming to be healed and learn from the good monk.
About six hundred years later, some less kindly and nice gentlemen - sometimes accurately referred to as robber-barons - had other ideas. They had seen the huge traffic along the river and decided a toll on this traffic hold be a nice earner. To assist maintain their strangle hold, they began work on the Berg Rheinfels. About 20 local townships got together to object to the tariff and eventually took their objection to its ultimate conclusion by getting 8000 foot and 1000 cavalry to lay siege to Rheinfels. 14 months later, the besiegers gave up and Rheinfels had earned its reputation for as being impregnable. Over the years it served well even into the days of canon and musket. It was only in the late 1700's when Napoleon's troops took possession and then decided to blow it up that things began to go awry.
All this time later, the castle is in two distinct parts. A reclaimed piece which is now a hotel and the old, blown up ruin which survives as a museum.
I love a good ruined castle so one blown up in 1798 and not really repaired since is about as good and ruined as you can get.
Having arrived on a drizzly day in St. Goar at just before 9:30 I had a delightfully long day to check out as many castles and high points along the river as I could. At some stage I would like to take the cruise along the Rhine as the terrain here is breathtakingly beautiful; the river cuts its way through cliffs that seem to come almost down to the river. The cliffs leave barely enough room for the villages to cling on to. But cling on they do and have, creating mini aldstadts that might be just one or two streets wide.
But since I'm not on a boat today but on 'shanks pony' the challenge will be to get out and up in the 7-8 hours I have before the train takes me back to Bonn.
The first thing I did was walk upstream and check out the Loreley Rock itself. Looming 125 metres above the level of the river, this massive rock wall causes the river to deviate in a narrow S-shape. The narrows cause the currents to run a little quicker and, with the reduction in width, the river just seems to work a little different with the result being that ships have crashed and been wrecked many times over the years. Chatting with some folks over the weekend, even as few as five or so years ago, a collision here caused the river to be closed as wrecked ships were blocking safe passage. The river still is the main route to deliver oil, gas and coal in this region and while the river s blocked there was real concern that they may run out of those essential fuels.
But having seen the castle near St. Goar it was time to head up and check it out. Unbelievable! The best 4Euro I've spent so far.

There is a self guided walking tour which just helps to keep you oriented and make sure you don't miss anything. In spite of the French's best efforts with gunpowder, there remain a lot of walls standing. The embrasures for firing crossbows and then muskets are still in place and provide a real feeling of reality. The top most tower survives and walking to the top to survey the view across the river is magnificent.
The museum has a replica of the apothecary as it may have looked; then the actual ruined space where the apothecary actually existed can be found and it's so easy to imagine the contents laid in to this space.
There are underground mines below the castle walls that we open but portable lighting is recommended. I ducked in to have a look and it was as black as sin and twice as frightening in that cramped (less than a meter in height and width). Too small for this little black duck!
In all I spend two hours just wandering and imagining castle life from the 1200's to the end of the 1700's. The different forms of clothes, weapons, people, languages; the whole spectrum of life and death. I paid the 2Euro for the English brochure for this castle; how could I not?

Lunch was a coffee and two bratwurst in brotchen which I scoffed on the ferry across the river to St. Goarshausen. Now was the time for the serious climb; pounding the steps from river level to the top roof the Loreley Rock. Tough going but well worth the effort in arrival at the top. Of course, when you get to the top, there's car parks, restaurants, play grounds but that's ok. I know I walked and suffered for my view; and what a view! Looking up stream to the narrows of the Rhine or back to the the twin St. Goar villages with their castles, you're simply spoilt for choice. It's times like these when you think maybe it was a good idea to come all this way.

At the top, I found some Rheinsteig signs and decided to follow the trial back to St. Goarshausen. This means I've now trailed thru two of the 23 stages of this massive walking trail. At this rate, I'll be done by 2045.
But the trail brought me to the top of Berg Katz.
This is the second of the castles built and was made simply to capture the tolls being missed by Rheinfels on the other side of the river. Both castles were massive money making machines.
These days Katz is a privately owned hotel so you can't actually get in to have a look around. But I hope the pictures do it justice.

So now its back to the river and the ferry to St. Goar. The last climb was to get to the top of the cliffs behind St. Goar and then have a look at the Loreley Rock from the opposite cliff. How lucky to see these two ships pass one another to show just how tight the fit beneath the rock is.

I look forward to coming back and seeing the castles from a boat but right now, I am keen to get off this train and get back to the apartment and put my feet up. A long day of walking up and down hill but so worthwhile.