To continue (I was interrupted for a reason that I shall shortly relate in a separate post): after Bingen we took the boat to Koblenz, stopping off at Boppard on the way. What I found particularly striking about Boppard was that all the shops and bakeries were open and doing a brisk trade, which you may expect in a small and popular tourist town, and yet it was Sunday. I had to double check.

I was disappointed to subsequently find that many such places have Sunday opening hours; my town does not. Somehow, despite being but 60km from Frankfurt and 80km from Stuttgart, this is the sticks.

Another memorable feature of Boppard was the chairlift, a concept in which I have not indulged since the onset of my fear of heights, though more through lack of opportunity than cowardice.

The chairlift rode to the top of a great hill, from which was promised the remarkable “Vierseenblick”, where the Rhein curves in such a way as to create the illusion of four individual lakes.

I was a little tense on the journey to the top but fortunately the path of the chairlift, which was really nothing more that a couple of metal bars and a plank of wood, which did little towards easing the nerves, followed the curvature of the hill itself so for most of the ride we were only about 20 feet from the ground.

I couldn't help but think of the spikey death below should the lift break.

Holding on tight - like that'd help.

At the top, the Rhein was indeed remarkable in its meandering, actually doubling back on itself more than once. This was also a popular spot for hang gliders to launch themselves into the air and waft about over the river.

The Vierseenblick is supposed to look something like this:

Not what we saw

You have to be standing in precisely the right spot to see it correctly but the view was spectacular nontheless. We saw something more like this:

Two images (almost) seamlessly spliced together. Boppard is the town on the far right.

Next stop: Koblenz, where I bought a leather bag, Adam had a fit of temper in a shop, and we ate the most delicious dinner in a restaurant occupied entirely by drunk Glaswegians (is there any other type?).