The Rhein in Flames

Bacharach to Koblenz

Day 62 - Saturday - August 13
Cloudy but not raining this morning as we continue our journey through the Middle Rhein.

This might look like a castle but it isn't on top of the hill. It is really a toll booth for river traffic used when dukes ruled the area.

Following the "Law of Castles"

This, however, is a watchtower.

The river canyon does not leave much room to separate the different types of transportation through this area. The railroad is on the other side of the road. With the occasional jet flying overhead and barges chugging by in the river, we had every type of transportation represented at one time.

Lunch time in Boppard. There is a sandwich on this plate just waiting to be folded.

The proud owner of the cafe took this picture. He also showed us pictures of the cafe during the 1993 and 1995 floods. The water was up to the windowsills.

The building is 300 years old.

Those are terraced vineyards.

In Brey, we met Geert who is from Mechelen, Belgium. He just started bike touring this summer and hasn't quite convinced his wife to go too. He is headed the same way we are and we ran into him several more times on our way to Koblenz. This is also where we started noticing that all the lights had been draped with a red cover.

BUGA is a summer long horticultural show held in Koblenz. It attracts thousands of people. 

We teamed up with Geert to find our way through this part of Koblenz. We reached a part along the waterfront that had security people that asked us to walk our bikes. So we asked them what was happening. It was Rhein in Flames celebration and there would be a big fireworks displays tonight up and down the river....thus the red covers on the street lamps.

The biggest display would of course be over the river right next to the campground that we had picked for the night.

And there is going to be a concert too!

Plenty of time to clean clothes....if you can understand the German instructions which don't seem to be in our electronic translator.

And might as well clean the bikes too since it looks to be a long evening.

Our fellow bike tourers are in for a long evening too.

The concert in this park across the river was classical music but we could hear the bass beat from a rock concert that must have been playing in another park in the area. 

When the fireworks started they switched to 1960's American rock and roll music.

Even though this is the 3rd time we've seen fireworks in one month, this display was still impressive. They lasted for an hour and a half..........our sound of the day AND night.