We’ve always dreamed of doing a Viking Rhine River Cruise so we stopped in the town of Bacharach where we could hop aboard a river cruise down the UNESCO World Heritage part of the river.  It was such a quaint little town and in my opinion the most beautiful town on this section of the Rhine.

From Bacharach we would book our trip by boat down the Rhine between Koblenz and Rüdesheim.  Immediately on the port side of our boat we could see this lovely village and cathedral so I had to snap the picture.

But then on the starboard side we saw these castle ruins.

There must have been more than 20 castles along the river.

All along the river there were vineyards up and down the steep banks.

This monument overlooks the valley of the Rhine and was built in the 1870/80s to commemorate the Unification of Germany.

And this picture on our boat on the Rhine was to commemorate our first warm and sunny day since arriving in Europe 5 weeks ago.  Notice we are not wearing coats!

We continued our cruise down river toward Koblenz and continued to see Castles around every turn of the river.

And here at Lorelei Rock, a particular dangerous turn in the river, many boats would run aground.  Notice all the caravans camped along the River today.  Germans love camping along the River.

There is a legend here at Lorelei Rock of a beautiful maiden who threw herself into the Rhine in despair over a faithless lover and was transformed into a siren who lured fishermen to destruction.

Castles are everywhere along this stretch of the River so I have to post so many pics just to show you each one.  Here is a map of the Unesco World Heritage stretch of the Rhine.

It was a long,  beautiful, and sunny day on the Rhine and even though we had seen many castles during the last several weeks we loved every moment along the River.