Tim & Jo

Didn't get long to sleep in Heidelberg and we were up at the crack of dawn, we caught a bus back to the station, and yes this time we ended up in the place we had planned to After a short wait we were on our way to Mainz, and 45 minutes later we jumped off the train. After getting our bearings, well just getting a general idea which direction the Rhine was in, we took off in the direction of the cruise boat. We had 30 minutes to get there otherwise we'd have missed the only departure of the day...
With a last minute run we made it with only minutes to spare and climbed aboard.

To begin with the boat headed downstream past the industrial and cargo areas of the river, (there are more boats ferrying cargo along the Rhine than cruise boats) and after about an hour we reached the area of the river known as the Rhine Gorge. It is this area that has got UNESCO world heritage status.

As soon as you enter the gorge the castles on the hillsides begin, there seems to be one on every outcrop and in between there are little villages that have intricate churches that would seem to be able to house the whole population

Around 2pm we arrived in Koblenz which is the end of the Rhine gorge and the heritage area, though we had planned to stay on board all the way to Cologne (arriving at 8:20pm) we hopped off and walked around until we found the train station so we could catch a train to Cologne and beat the boat there by 4 hours. After a quick trip on the train we found the hostel really easily 'cause it was only a block from the station. We checked in, went and grabbed some supplies from the supermarket down the street, had a quick dinner and went to bed early