Germany -- Day 10, Bacharach

On 2 August 2009, Carlos, Danielle, and I had an early breakfast at the St. Goar hostel before checking out and walking down to the riverfront to catch the first Koln-Düsseldorfer cruise ship to Bacharach. Our boat arrived at 10:20 am and we were off, floating leisurely down the Rhine -- it was really sweet. Our cruise was short (only 1.5 hours), but we passed lots of interesting scenery: Burg Katz, the Lorely rock, the 7 Maidens (reefs), Oberwesel, Burg Gutenfels, and Burg Pfalz. The cruise was a nice, scenic way to travel to Bacharach!

After landing at the dock, we walked to our hotel (Pension Lettie) and left our luggage there while we took a quick walk around Bacharach. We found some Riesling gelato and a free town map before we returned to the hotel, checked in, then made our way to Bastian’s Weingut Zum Grüner Baum for lunch -- wine tasting! The three of us shared the wine carousel, cheese platter, and basket of bread. The wine carousel included 15 different wines (mostly white Rieslings from the region) that were all very good; I preferred the less dry, sweet wines. From the cheese platter, I liked the spundekäse (a local soft cheese) the most. This was my first wine tasting and it was really relaxing and fun.

After lunch we hiked up to Werner Kapelle (a gothic cathedral shell) and Burg Stahleck (a castle overlooking Bacharach). The hike took us past tons of vineyards and provided more excellent views of the Rhine and town.

After hiking back down to Bacharach, we stopped by the gelateria (again!) and I had 2 scoops of Riesling gelato, which I ate in the park next to the Rhine. Next, we walked back to town and did a little souvenir shopping before heading back to the hotel for a pre-dinner break.

For dinner, we ate at a nearby pizzeria where I had a great fresh vegetable salad and shrimp scampi pizza (of course I also had a radler to drink!). We walked around Bacharach after dinner, then went to bed -- tomorrow Carlos and I head to Bavaria and Rothenburg ob der Tauber!

Germany -- Day 9, St. Goar

After a quick breakfast in the hostel, Carlos and I met up with Danielle and we all walked up the vineyard-lined nature trail to Burg Reinfels. We had outstanding views of St. Goar, castles, and the Rhine from this trail and we took lots of pictures as we slowly made our way up this steep trail.

Eventually, we found the entrance to Burg Reinfels and started our self-guided tour of the ruins. This once majestic castle was the largest on the Rhine before it fell into disuse and was plundered for building stones -- I think the ruins are still very interesting. We looked around the museum and also bought a candle and matches to use in the underground tunnels throughout the property.

One of my favorite locations here was the medieval castle courtyard where the apothecary, herb garden, and brewery were located. We climbed many lookouts and ramparts that afforded extensive scenic views.

During our walk, we visited some of the castle’s underground tunnels. The tunnels were dark, but slightly explorable thanks to our candle (and Danielle’s flashlight!). We spent most of the morning taking a slow walking tour of Burg Reinfels and I really liked it. After visiting everything, we hiked back down the nature trail to our hostel before setting out for another picnic lunch in the park.

We bought more sandwiches and ate them next to the scenic Rhine -- we were lucky to have great weather during this trip! While in town, we also bought a bottle of Riesling wine (a white wine grown and bottled in this region). After lunch, we all drank our wine and relaxed in the sunny table area on the pretty hostel porch overlooking the Rhine and St. Goar.

We ate dinner in town at Akkada’s restaurant (vegetarian pita and radler) and had dessert at a nearby gelateria (I had 2 scoops: pistachio and strawberry) before turning in for the night. Tomorrow we set out for Bacharach!

Germany -- Day 8, St. Goar

On one of our most train-full days (31 July 2009), Carlos and I, along with our friend Danielle from La Selva, traveled from Marburg to St. Goar -- a small town on the Rhine River. We checked out of our hotel in Marburg around 10 am and walked to the train station where we bought our train tickets. We traveled from Marburg → Frankfurt → Oberwesel → St. Goar. The trains worked well and were all on time -- I really love the German train system!

Upon arrival in St. Goar, we hiked up quite a distance to our hostel (Carlos and I had a private room) then wandered downtown for a while. St. Goar was small and touristy, but very cute. The view of the Rhine River and valley from our hostel was amazing. We purchased sandwiches and ate them in a lovely park on the river where we watched boats float by. This was really relaxing! The small town of St. Goarshausen was located directly across the river from St. Goar and we were also able to see the Katz and Maus castles from the park.

After our scenic lunch, we relaxed in the hostel until dinnertime. We had a relaxing meal at an Italian restaurant in a small street off the main drag called La Fontana. After eating, we all returned to the hostel and went to bed looking forward to tomorrow when we planned to explore Burg Reinfels -- the huge stone castle ruins that overlook the hostel and the town.

Germany -- Days 4-7, ATBC in Marburg

Carlos and I spent 27 - 30 July in Marburg attending the 2009 ATBC (Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation) conference. Since most of our days were spent at the conference attending talks, presenting, and viewing posters, I thought I would point out some of the highlights of our time in Marburg rather than going into detail about each day separately.

The streets of Marburg were often steep and packed with staircases leading up various hills, but I loved the cuteness and charm of this small city. The houses lining the streets of the downtown area and the main square looked like I expect a well preserved, old-fashioned German town would look like.

Marburg was very walkable with many things to see and do, but we spent the majority of our time at the Audimax convention center. Every day, Carlos and I walked through the city’s Old Botanical Garden to attend the conference. The garden contained many nice temperate tree specimens and even a duck pond. I really liked seeing all the bright flowers in bloom and the Bombus and butterflies pollinating everything -- it reminded me of Washington!

As for conference stuff, Carlos presented his talk on the first day and I presented my poster on the second day. My poster was on display for the duration of the conference, but I had to stand in front of it for an hour and a half on my designated presentation day to field questions from other researchers and basically talk about my experiments. My hard work paid off and I actually won an award announced on the final night of the conference (first place Merian Poster Award)! It was really exciting to know that people are interested in my research and seem to like what I am doing!

While not at the conference, Carlos and I ventured out into town and visited some fun places -- like a gummy store where I found lots of cool and interesting flavors of gummies (e.g. vanilla, pear, green leaf...). I also had my first radler in Marburg during dinner one night. A radler consists of a light ale beer mixed with lemonade (half and half). It sounds really weird, but is actually quite refreshing -- that’s why you should drink it while on bicycle trips (this is the official drink of cyclists according to radler lore). The radler became my drink of choice for almost all of my meals out and about in Germany!

Overall, the conference was exciting and productive, it was fantastic to see all of my friends from La Selva again, and Marburg was really cute and fun to visit. Next we set out for the romantic Rhine!