We are getting into the hang of these early starts - just 5.30 am alarm today and cases out in the corridor by 6am. The coach leaves at 7.30 and it is soon apparent that this is the only way for the coach to beat the rush hour in and around Amsterdam. We are now travelling south towards the Rhine Valley and leave The Netherlands for Germany.
We are given a lesson in the German language en route by Debra and she also takes the opportunity to explain and offer us the optional tours for the remainder of the holiday. We decide to take 5 of these.
By lunchtime we arrive in a quaint village alongside the Rhine River for a quick lunch before boarding a River Cruise boat. We travel upstream an hour and a half. The sight seeing is fantastic one after another cute little German villages are dotted along the shoreline on both sides. Each with its own little church steeple. The railway runs alongside the Rhine here and as the trains travel along the lines it feels like we are in a model railway. The occasional castle dots the hilltops - some of these are very old fortresses. Our tour guide tells us the owners of these castles collected taxes from ships moving up and down the river hence the elaborate nature of these fortresses.
We sample the local Rhine Riesling on board and it is very good too. We'd drain our glass and disembark after a tour that really whets the appetite for a lot more of Germany. Most of our forty fellow passengers join us in blowing out a few zzzs as we make our way to the Leonardo Hotel in Karlsruhe. Dinner tonight in the hotel was cry good and it's a early night in preparation for another big day.
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