July 2, 2022
Sankt Goar castles!
why are they always a hike up?
The entire reason to come to St Goar was for the castles that are here. There is the Rheinfels, the Katz and the Maus (I kid you not). This is the gorge area of the middle Rhine, and each side rises dramatically above the river.
The Katz and Maus ("Cat" and "Mouse") castles were built in the late 1300's to enforce tolls on the Rhine river. The Katz is actually privately owned today and is occupied - visitors not welcome. The Rheinfels was built starting in 1245 and was the largest castle on the Rhine. Today it is open to visitors, and a large adjoining hotel and restaurant is available, but we did not partake.
We began by taking a ferry to the other side of the river, with the intention of hiking to the Maus castle. The path begins through a cemetery.
And fairly quickly the views of St Goar (we had taken the ferry across to this side) were pretty spectacular. When we biked here, we were on the other side coming towards this direction. Lots of boats plying the water here.
Looking the other way you see the path tomorrow towards Koblenz.
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Looking across, we could see the Rheinfels castle above the town. We were much higher at this point.
The views were great, but shortly after this point the path ran out, and we could not see our way around. It was already 28 degrees, we were getting hungry, and didn't wish to back track and try a different route. So....lunch won out and we turned to go back down.
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On the ferry back to the St Goar side (this side with the Katz and Maus castles is called St Goarshausen), there were wonderful views of the Katz castle. Hard to imagine what it would cost to buy, maintain, clean etc this huge castle. Who even would you buy it from? What title company would give you clear title?
Walking back in St Goar, we came across several gelato places, but this one had a flavour I had never seen before - Riesling!
So now its time to climb to the Rheinfels castle.
At least this path is a bit more obvious that the Maus climb. Steep, but we knew where to go - mostly.
Huge castle once we got up there. And it was 5x the size of the current castle in its prime.
When I see these old buildings, I can't help but wonder how long our house will last. Certainly not 1,000 years!
After a fairly short visit, time to go down. That is our day with the castles above St Goar.
Tomorrow we have a fairly short ride (37 km) to Koblenz for one night. Then its on the train to Metz, to ride down the Mosel river! No more sauerkraut and brat for us!
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