The Rheintal, or how to polish floors on the cheap

The weather turned out to be remarkably good this weekend, so I decided to take a last minute trip to the Rhein valley just to get out of town and get someplace more vertical.

The scenery was quite nice and the drive along the river past all the castles was pretty fun and scenic.

But quite disappointing was that all the towns were deserted. Windows were shuttered, restaurants closed, leaving it looking pretty much like everyone had just decided en masse to take vacation.

In fact, this may have been true. This weekend is a long weekend in Germany, and it is the end of karneval, so lots of people may have been gone. But, this meant that I got very hungry on this trip because nothing was open. I barely managed to find dinner, but I did manage to get a Rüdesheimer kaffee, so not everything was lost.

Today was spent finishing up the things I couldn't see Saturday. At one castle I visited, everyone was given a giant pair of felt slippers to put over their shoes when they walked inside. Instead of walking normally, you just shuffled along. It was a little unusual, and I couldn't help but think that maybe the real point of it all was to get the tourists to clean the floors for them.

The pics from this trip can be found here.