After our morning in Bernkastel, we boarded the River Queen on a beautiful afternoon. It was a perfect day to enjoy the scenery as our ship cruised through the Rhine gorge. Our program sheet called it scenic sailing and it certainly was. This stretch of the Rhine is fairly narrow and castles dot both sides of the river. To make viewing easier, the cooks grilled hamburgers and German sausage on the Sun Deck. This was washed down with German beer, naturally, and sides included sauerkraut and German potato salad. If you haven’t cruised through this stretch of the Rhine, I heartily recommend it. Even if you are not on a river cruise, you can board a local ship that follows the same route. A cruise through the Rhine gorge was one of the week-end trips the Ramblers took on my Study Abroad experience in Alsace-Lorraine many years ago.

Because the River Queen traversed the gorge at an even slower speed than usual, we did not arrive at our next stop until the following day. I woke up early that morning and got up to look out our cabin window. I was just in time to take a photo of a beautiful sunrise. No doubt we missed many others, but when one is on a vacation, sleeping just a little later is not a bad thing. On the River Queen, as on most river cruise ships, they offer a morning exercise class at 7 AM, on the sundeck . I am not ashamed to admit that of all the cruises we have taken, I have never attended one of these classes and haven’t missed it. Of course the Senior Rambler has never met an exercise class he liked as long as I have known him. LOL

Boppard is a small town still inside the Rhine gorge, in fact it is directly north of Boppard that the Rhine makes its greatest bend. Because it is small and has relatively few attractions, few cruise ships stop there. This is a good thing, as there were absolutely no crowds as no other ships were docked while we were there.. Yet Boppard has been part of an UNESCO World Heritage site since 2002. The Rhine gorge area that encompasses the big bend in the river was then designated a Heritage site. The designation included towns along the its banks and Boppard is probably the closest. In addition, Boppard has been designated an official tourist village by the German government.

Like many cities and towns along the Rhine, Boppard has a long history dating back to Roman times. It was the Romans who would bring grapevines to the area and their vinous descendants still flourish today. Boppard began as a border outpost staffed by Roman troops whose duty was to keep out the marauding Germanic tribes and protect the farmers in their vineyards. However due to the gradually decline of the Western Roman Empire, the Germans had driven out the Romans by the end of the 5th century.
in the 5th century. In the middle ages, Boppard prospered and became a free city, often visited by German kings. However, during the next 500 years, it would change hands many times and often suffer the ravages of war. Boppard would be ruled first by the Bishop of Trier, then by the the Holy Roman Empire, next by Napoleon Bonaparte and finally by the Prussians. Today Boppard has town rights under the German state and is situated in the province of Rhineland-Palatinate.

Because it is quaint, pretty and well preserved, Boppard is popular with tourists. However its main attraction, especially for people who live in the surrounding area is the many vineyards and wineries found in the area. Thus Boppard has a large complement of hotels for a town of its size as well as many restaurants. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to try any of them, even for a coffee and cake, as our guided walk was scheduled only for an hour, from 9 to 10 AM, and then it would be all aboard for our next stop at Rudesheim. The Ramblers love these stops in the smaller towns along the rivers of Europe, be they in Germany, France , Austria or Hungary. They have a slow pace that is appealing to us, used to the faster pace of suburban life in America.

This particular small town has two medieval churches worth visiting. The oldest is St. Severus, very impressive inside and out. The second is the Carmelite Church, very plain on the outside without even a tall bell tower as was common at the time. The interior, however, is very elaborate and a total surprise. Although the Carmelite Church was once attached to a Carmelite monastery established in the 14th century ,but long since dissolved. One of the monastery buildings is now the town hall of Boppard. Although St. Severus was the parish church of Boppard, it seems that the wealthy people of the town preferred to attend the Carmelite Church and used their money to pay for elaborate altar pieces and other adornments of the interior.

St. Severus has its own charm however. Its construction started in the 12th century and finished in the 13th. Like many other medieval churches, it was built on the site of an earlier one that dated to the 6th century. St. Severus has a tall plain interior with a high overarching ceiling and relatively few statues. It does have some early medieval frescoes that were lovingly restored a few years ago. I was struck by the beauty of a small medieval statue of mother and child ant stopped to light a candle and say a prayer or two.

Back in the sunlight again, we continued our leisurely walk along the river walk, admiring the variety of well kept medieval and more recently built homes that looked out on the Rhine. Not all the houses were kept to a high standard. We spotted a few that would easily fall into the category of fixer upper in the US.

The people who live in Boppard obviously love flowers as most houses sported both boxes and pots of brightly colored blooms. It was early enough that the town gardener was still at work watering the plants in boxes that lined the promenade.

Unfortunately soon the hour of our village stroll was almost up and we headed back to the River Queen, as the sailors were ready to cast off for our next stop. We would be in Rudesheim that afternoon for a very different kind of adventure.