Our vacation was in the home stretch, and today was the day of our biggest regret of the whole trip. It was still a great day but it could have been even better...
We took the train to St. Goar to look around a little, before going up to check out Rheinfels. We liked what little we saw of the town, but our plan all along was Rheinfels. And it did not let us down. It was magnificent. We had an absolute riot, crawling and climbing and photographing everything. There weren't that many people around, so it felt like we had the whole thing to ourselves.
We could have spent the entire day there, but we planned on seeing the 4:00 English tour of the Marksburg in Braubach. So that meant leaving around 2-ish, to catch the ferry to St. Goarshausen, then the train to Braubach. We made it with time to spare. Our tour was interesting and I was happy to be able to take pictures inside. Other tours wouldn't allow it. The suits of armor were intriguing and the kitchen with the fake meat hanging up was hilarious. We loved the views and the photo ops were plentiful.
Then it was back down, and we made our way to the train. We took the train to Filsen, intending to walk to the ferry to go back to Boppard for dinner. But instead we stopped in at Hotel Rheinblick to use the toilet. I felt sort of guilty just using them for their bathroom, so we decided to stay and eat before catching the ferry. There was nobody there at all except for a few guys drinking at the bar. Nobody spoke English, but we finally got them to understand that we would like a menu please, and we would like to be seated outside, thank you very much. So, the old guy brings us a menu but of course it was all in German and we started asking questions. He had no English, but wait! He disappears for a second, and comes back dragging this random guy from the bar. "Little English", he tells us. So now we have this half drunk guy, cigarette hanging out of his mouth, trying to translate for us. He starts in: "Uh... this is meat." He points to the next item on the menu. "This is meat" We were half in hysterics trying to figure him out. I asked him, what kind of meat? Well, he has no idea how to say it in English. So, I said, just act like the animal! He thinks for a second, and then starts flapping his arms and clucking like a chicken. We were totally howling laughing at the sight of him... greasy slicked back ponytail, beer in hand, cigarette hanging out of his mouth, prancing around on the deck, acting like a chicken. So I said, "Oh! Chicken!" He says, no!! Big! Big!! My husband says, Turkey?? YES!!! Turkey! Lol. How could I not order the turkey. It ended up being turkey schnitzel with bernaise sauce and it was DELICIOUS. I loved it. The show we got made it even better. We're hanging out with them after dinner, and the mama comes shuffling out of the kitchen and we're telling her how good her cooking is and of course she doesn't understand a thing we're saying. When we were saying our good byes and leaving to catch the ferry, they asked us to stay and do some shots with them. And here is the regret: We declined. We thanked them so very much, but we needed to get to the ferry and get back across before we were stuck for the night on the opposite side of the river. To this DAY we both regret not knocking back a few with them. We probably would have had enough time to catch the ferry. We both agree: That was THE single biggest regret of our whole vacation. How I wish I could go back and do it over.... I will be beating myself up over this for a long time to come. :(