Finally something fun

After the castle tour we headed to Cochem on the Mosel River, because we knew there was camping and a swimming pool with water slides. We had to pass by dozens of castles and medieval villages, all of them tempting us to stop and explore, but Noelle kept us focused on the mission at hand. She got to spend a few therapeutic hours on the water slides and get a break from history lectures!

After breakfast the next morning we headed to town to tour yet another castle.


This valley is also famous for its white wine and vineyards line the steep canyon walls. There are a number of tourists here, but this time of year it's mostly older Dutch and German couples. The towns are storybook, half-timbered with narrow cobbled streets and every one of them has a church and castle ruin on the hill. If you want to save a few grand and the love of your children then just head to Fantasyland over in Anaheim for the same effect.


The Mosel and Rhine rivers have been important commerce routes since ancient times, and even today there is constant train traffic and ships and barges hauling cargo along the rivers. This was the land of the "robber barons" who built castles along the river and would extort a toll for passage to all the ships trying to make their way. Some castles were actually built in the river with large chains they would string across it to stop traffic until the toll was paid and the chains would then be lowered to allow passage.

We left Cochem and blindly followed the iPad GPS over the narrowest roads it could find to the town of Bacharach on the Rhine river and another Euro campground. The camping in Europe is uber-camping. Trailers packed in tightly, showers, bathrooms, laundry, bar, restaurant, playgrounds. Did I mention the bar?