Today, Sunday March 28th my tour group went on a Rhine River cruise!! The landscape was very beautiful as we were floating down the Rhine.
The Rhine River is very important all throughout Holland, Germany, Switzerland, and France. It’s their only connection to the North Sea so there is quite a bit of industry surrounding the area. It was very peaceful, and there were 7 old castles down the river and Earl described them all to us. I can’t get over how much stuff Earl knows! It’s very impressive! As we were floating down the river he pointed out a cross to us that was at the very top of the hill. You could barely even see it, because it blended in so well with the trees surrounding it, but after he pointed it out you could see it. 
Anyways, many many years ago this old German town was being attacked by a cannon, and the cannon was causing significant damage to the city. Well overnight lightning struck the cannon and disabled it which saved the city. The towns folk declared it an act of God and placed the cross there to commemorate the event. Later on we were going down the river and we passed a pair of castles with a big wall inbetween them. Two brothers owned these castles, and the one brother was engaged to a woman and he went off to fight in the crusades. When he was away he fell in love with a foreign woman and brought her home as his bride therefore shaming his family. His brother was so upset with him that he didn’t even want to look at him anymore so they had the wall constructed. The wall is named “The Wall of Conflict”
. But it’s just these little stories that he knows about every single place that we go that just amazes me! I guess he’s been doing these tours for a long time, but still… how in the world could you remember all of the stories about all of these obscure places and individual castles.
There is one more story that is very well known in Germany. I guess it’s kind of like humpty dumpty or ring around the rosie everyone knows it. It’s called the legend of Lorelei. As you are coming down the Rhine there is a GIANTIC rock…
I don’t even think you can call it a rock it’s more like a cliff… but anyways it’s at the narrowest part of the Rhine River and it’s apparently very treacherous waters… 
and in the old days the men on the boats used oars and paddles to power their ships. When they would come by this rock they would be very focused and paying attention only to getting around this dangerous rock, and then as they came upon it they would noticed a beautiful beautiful beautiful woman with long blond hair, rosie red cheeks, and blue eyes singing on top of the rock, and they would lose their focus and crash into the rocks to their demise. 
One day the kings son was coming down the river and he passed Lorelei’s rock, and his crew was taken in by her beauty and her song and they all perished in the river as well when their boat hit the rock. Well the king was stricken with grief over losing his son and he told all of his soldiers to go the rock and kill this Lorelei. Well Lorelei was on top of the rock and she saw the thousands of troops coming after her and she knew the end was in sight so she prayed to God, and the water rose up from the Rhine River and carried her away to safety never to be seen again… and so is the legend of Lorelei. 
My tour guide might have told it a bit better, but it was a cute story.
This is the statue of the girl!Ahh and I almost forgot!!! My coach bus has been driving on the Autoban for the past couple of days!! I’m sure everyone’s heard of the autoban the strip of highway in Germany without any speed limits on it. To be honest it’s not that huge of a deal. I’ve always thought about what it would be like to go onto the autoban and really it’s just like any other highway that I’ve ever been on… except that cars whip around us sometimes! It’s cool to say that I’ve been on it though haha. I can check that one off the “To Do List” There is one thing that is really funny about the autoban though… in German exit signs are Ausfahrt. Hehe. Sound it out! It was pretty funny when we drove by it.
Also on Sundays trucks are not allowed to drive on the roads in Germany, and actually in most of Europe I believe. Sunday is a day of rest and it is a day of travel for a lot of families. If there would happen to be an accident between a family car and a truck of course the truck is going to win… so they ban them on the streets from midnight Saturday until midnight Sunday. I guess during summer vacation when a lot of families go on vacation or as they like to call it “holiday” trucks are banned from the roads on Saturdays as well as Sundays. As we drove along you could see trucks pulled over in rest areas everywhere we went! Another little tidbit about Germany is that it has a female Chancellor or which is the equivalent to our President… which I thought was pretty cool.Today we got to stop in Heidelberg which made me excited because it reminded me of my “Yes I can” basketball camps in Heidelberg College in Ohio.
It’s a really pretty German town and it was very friendly. We were there for a couple of hours and then we had to move on. I took pictures of the original Heidelberg college that is in the city along with some other really cool photos…. 
Here is the actual Heidelburg college!Which leads me to where I am staying tonight! Switzerland! We are currently near the Alps and we can see them off into the distance. Tomorrow I’ll be going on a cruise around them, and then I’ll be going to the top later on in the day! Yippee!! How could is that?? I’m pretty excited about it. The Alps are beautiful from the distance and I took several pictures of them already, but I’m sure I’m going to get some great ones tomorrow!!! The water is Switzerland is so clear and pure… and Switzerland feels like a very nice safe friendly place. Our hotel is pretty nice, and we had a delicious dinner tonight at the hotel. But I have a pretty early morning tomorrow too 7:15am wake up call ugh! Haha so I have to get some sleep! Hopefully I’ll be able to post this post while I’m still in Switzerland, because we are staying in this city for two nights… so we’ll be here for a little while… and I am able to access internet here pretty easily.
*** Edit I wrote this blog obviously about two weeks ago before I had even been in Switzerland! Obviously I wasn't able to post it until just now!! :) But I still hope that you enjoyed it even if it is a bit out of sequence. Get ready for the Switzerland pictures next!
