Currently staying with the exchange family my mum stayed with in Bingen in 2004 – the Klippels. It’s pretty to get to a smaller town than the major European cities, and even nicer to be able to stay with a family. The Klippels have kindly put me up for three nights, allowing me to explore Bingen, the sister town across the Rhine Rüdesheimer and today also up to Bacharach.
Bingen is nice small and cozy like most small towns, but the roofs are beautiful to look out across in the morning. I’ve only put one of the photos from here up, since it’s a little out of order from the rest. Caught the ferry across to Rüdesheimer for the second part of yesterday after walking around town and up to their castle. The other side I visited the statue Germania, made of the brass from French canons after their defeat in the Franco-Prussian war (see above).
Visited their son, Tim’s, appartment after dinner that night and shared a few beers with him and one of his mates. He’s off to India and Thailand for 6 weeks before returning to the Max Plank Institute to undertake a PhD in airborne particles.
When I awoke this morning I had a marvelous suprise waiting for me. Looking out the window the entire town was covered in a beautiful layer of white snow. The place looked so beautiful. For the day I decided to take the train a few stops down the Rhine to Bacharach where I visited their castle (now a Youth Hostel) and wander around the town. The whole region is pretty much shut down for the winter, but you can see how alive the place would be in the times that it’s open. Shops and restaurants all closed would be very much alive in the spring through to autumn. Walking up to the castle it was snowing quite heavily and the region was quite heavily fogged too so I’m hoping for some good pictures to have come out of it. I’ve still got a few specks of dust on my sensor which will make post processing the shots all the more important, but until I find a decent camera shop (München perhaps?) I’ll have to deal with it.
Tomorrow I’m off to Freiburg to meet up with Nicole from uni who’s been on exchange there for the past six months. Another friendly face to keep the journey interesting. Till next time enjoy!
Your pictures are making me drool Joel!! They’re so beautiful! I love the one of the Prague Castle hall with the light streaming in. Gorgeous.
Mum said you asked where I was going. This is the tour I’m going on (ignore the pictures, it’s wrong):
http://www.contiki.com/adventurer
Just in case you can’t see that, I’ll give you a country/place list.
It starts out of London (I’m spending a few days in London first), and goes to Paris, down through France and dips into Barcelona, then up into the bottom of the French Riviera again, then to Verona, Venice, Pisa, Florence, Rome, Pompeii, across the Adriatic Sea (night time ferry… yuck…) into Greece including Athens, and a 3 night stop at the Mykonos resort, then back through Athens, and up through the coastline of Albania, Montenegro, Croatia, Slovenia, into Vienna, into Munich, then back into Austria, down to the Swiss Alps, then up through Germany into Amsterdam, then through Belgium and back to London.
Yey Belgium!!! How long is that trip Hannah?
The whole Europe trip goes for 36 days. I’ll be in London for about 4 or 5 days before it starts though.
Sadly I don’t get to stop over in Belgium – just look at it rushing past the coach. But hopefully we’ll stop somewhere good for lunch.