Saturday, August 2 - Monday, August, 4, 2014

Saturday - After a pleasant buffet breakfast at our hotel in Bad Munster am Ebernberg, we headed out to Bingen for the first stage of Lynda's investigation of the life and times of Hildegard von Bingen.

The hotel is pictured below with both of our rooms on the third level with our windows over at the end, not visible in this picture.

Just beside us, and I mean just out of our window, was this church. A nice church with big bells that rang a couple of times a day. Sometimes the bells rang for about 10 minutes. Just a bit much.

About 30 minutes down the road to Bingen we found the museum. Almost everything was in German, but there was a section that described some Roman tombs of doctors that had been excavated over the years. What was interesting about these tombs was that they contained more surgical instruments than had ever been found before (30+ tools instead of 10 or less in previous unearthed tombs). And, these displays were accompanied with both German and English descriptions. So, we had something to read.

Lynda enjoying flowers in Bingen.

While we waited for Lynda to finish viewing all of the exhibits in the museum, Frank, Linda, and I had a coffee by the river and watched this procession of swans walk by. I had never seen a parade of swans walking before. In the background, is a tour boat on the Rhine. Bingen must have been an important strategic town. The river Nahe flows into the Rhine here.

Walking up the hill to the center of town, we found this saxophone. Very Linda.

At the top of the hill, we came upon a town square and a decent cafe. Linda had this carpaccio. Lynda and Frank shared a salad and tomato soup that was called gazpacho, not real. I had a too large serving of schnitzel, but finished it all. I really like schnitzel. 

We walked around town a little, but by this time, it was late afternoon on a Saturday and all of the stores were closed. We drove back to the hotel, the girls went for a walk down by the river and Frank and I sat outside in the back of the hotel and read.

Later, after drinks in the garden, we ate another excellent gourmet dinner prepared by the owner's wife. We made a really good decision by having all of our dinners at the hotel. 

Sunday - Today we needed to find the ruins of the first abbey that Hilldegard stayed in as an anchorite. An anchorite is a recluse.

But, first we drove up to the top of a hill behind the hotel to see what the large castle-looking complex was. As best we could tell, it was some type of church related place, but also contained a restaurant that looked like it was open to the public. 

We had a nice view of the village.




Then, it was on down the road to Disibodenberg - the substantial ruins of the monastery/convent where Hildegard spent 40 years. It is a large complex on a tree topped hill. 

It was very pleasant to walk around between and over the many pieces of buildings that still stand. We had seen a model of these ruins and also what it looked like in the 12th century in the Bingen museum yesterday, so we were somewhat oriented.

Frank and I started walking down the hill before the girls and took a wrong turn at a bend in the trail. We ended up on the road that led to the entrance to the complex but we had to walk 900 meters (close to a mile) to get back to the parking lot. We all arrived at the car within minutes of each other.

The clouds were gathering and we could hear thunder, so it was time to leave. As we drove over to Bingen, the rains came. But by the time we arrived at Bingen, the rain had almost stopped.

We were back in Bingen to see the only remains of Rupertsburg (a vault, underground and only opened from 1:00 to 3:00 on Sundays) where Hildegard established her own abby. Its on the edge of the river and much of it was demolished when the Swedes, during the 30 year war, built the railway along the river.

After this, it was time for lunch. After driving around town in circles, we ended up back at the cafe next to the museum along the river where we were yesterday. The only food available was different kinds of sausages. Linda and I had a curry one, Lynda had a Bratwurst and Frank had what looked like a plain, long hot dog. Not the greatest, but filling.

As we neared our hotel, we stopped to see some structures in a park that we had seen as we drove by earlier.

These things were about 40 feet high and maybe 100 meters long. Water was dripping down over twig looking material that contained salt. There were benches along the way for you to sit and breathe the salty air. 

We were told that it was good for helping with breathing problems. This photo to the right shows old and new material. They replace the stuff every 10 years. German tax dollars at work.

Back at the hotel, we had our pre-dinner drinks in our room and then went downstairs for our last gourmet dinner: gluten-free bread with a small amount of a yougurt-like spread, a carrot soup with shrimp, a beef main dish, and a chocolate cake with a berry sauce. All just as good as the previous dinners. We were served by the owner. I think they gave the regular server Sunday night off. He was very pleasant and stopped by to talk several times during the meal.

Monday - We packed for our return to Soest and after breakfast headed down the road. The ride was mostly uneventful. However, a curiosity: while we're listening to a CD, at the top of the hour and the 1/2 hour, the radio news breaks in without any invitation. Of course, it was in German, so it was not useful information. After it was over, it released us and we were back to the CD. We learned that you could hit a button to turn the radio off and get back to the CD without waiting. On a cultural level we found that very intrusive.

As we drove through the German country-side, we saw grape vineyards along with the hay fields and cattle grazing. Rhine wine you know.

Linda had been communicating with Liesbeth and Peter who were house sitting for the week at a "farm" owned by Liesbeth's sister's boyfriend about 1 1/2 hours from Soest. The place was sort of on the way and they invited us to stop by so, we stopped for an hour, had a coffee, and sat outside viewing the lovely landscape and watched Noor and Duco play in the pond. Nice place to spend some of their summer vacation.

Once we returned "home", it was time for vodka and wine in the rear garden. Then, a walk down to Fusions restaurant for fresh Belgian mussels and fries.

This was the first restaurant we ate at on the first night of our first visit to Soest and we go at least one time each year and usually take visitors with us. The guy who has always been there recognized us and expected us to order mussels. We even sat at our "regular" table. It was all good. What a good life, we are so lucky.

Back "home", I found the movie, Rocky on the TV and the rest stayed up to watch it. The bed called to me.