BAHKH-ah-rahkh

We are now in BAHKH-ah-rahkh. Go ahead, say it. Bacharach. I feel weird pronouncing it like that, but people don't know what you're talking about if you say Bak-a-rak. Same with KOHKH-ehm, Cochem.

We didn't write a full blog post dedicated to our Burg Eltz experience, because it was more frustrating than enjoyable. The walk to Burg Eltz from Moselkern was very pretty. It reminded us of walking through Whatcom Falls Park. On the outside the castle is enchanting.

However, the inside of the castle was a very different story. This is the mob, I mean "line", for the castle tour. This is once we had already pushed, and shoved--literally--our way to the door where the tour starts.

This situation really soured the castle experience for us.

The restaurant/hotel that we stayed at in Cochem had Mexican food on their menu. We decided that we needed to try it, being as how we love Mexican food. It was...different. It tasted fine, it just didn't taste anything like the Mexican that we'd had before. They added things like mushrooms and pineapple in burritos, and raisins in enchiladas. Tommy's enchiladas had raisins in them. I picked a burrito that didn't have anything odd in it. It took me a while to be able to place the vaguely familiar flavor of the ground meat in my burrito. But I figured it out! It reminded me of church lady "mexican" casserole. There wasn't any familiar Mexican flavors like cumin, chili powder or oregano. It tasted like some kind of tomato sauce on the meat. So there you have it. A German take on Mexican food!

Today we made the hour and a half train ride to Bacharach. The town itself is pretty small but very quaint. This is our hotel, Pension im Malerwinkle. It's right on the medieval town wall.

The walk into town is short and follows a little stream. We hoofed it up to one of the towers along the wall for this view:

Picture of the local Protestant church, a ruined Abbey, and the Rhine river

Closer look at the abbey ruins. I think it's beautiful.

We walked along some vineyards

For dinner we had schnitzel at an odd little beer garden that was in the shell of a carousel. Our waitress was a young-ish gal who was super sweet and asked us several times if we really did like our dinner. It was good!

For dessert we went to this other tiny, tiny restaurant that we found on Trip Advisor. All the reviews talked about the to-die-for apple strudel. It was pretty good, I don't know about to-die-for though.

I think tomorrow we are going to take a river cruise to St. Goar. We hope you all have a wonderful weekend!