Boppard, Germany –
Sometimes, you don’t know why you do what you do. You just act on intuition.
Other times, you definitely know why you do something.
This was one of those times that fell somewhere in between.
Something had prompted us to pull off the highway, and go walking around town.
I just don’t remember what it was…
We had spent the night in Cologne. And luckily, our hotel had put out a very good breakfast spread for the guests.
But as we were leaving, we saw that they were putting out an even better spread for their employees, friends, and family. It was Christmas day, and they wanted to celebrate.
No problem, we had planned on spending the day driving down the Rhine valley, looking at the castles lining the hills on both sides of the river.
Not that we would be able to stop and visit any of them.
After all, they would all be closed for the holiday.
And we had reservations that night in Bingen, so it would be a comfortable driving day, not in too much of a hurry to get where we were going.
We had made several stops that day to take pictures and look around at the various sights to be seen.
Mostly castles up on the hillsides, with the occasional sightseeing cruise navigating the river.
But as we were driving along, passing through Boppard, something made us decide to pull off the highway and visit. The city center was surrounded by medieval walls, and we wanted to see what was behind them.
So, off the highway and into town we went.
We spent some time walking through the downtown area, inside the old town walls, along with a lot of other pedestrians, whom we assumed were mostly residents. Being Christmas, nothing was open, although there were a few stores with signs in the window advertising that they would be open on Boxing Day.
When we reached a small square, we found one restaurant open.
As far as we know, it was the only business open in town that day.
So we decided to go in and enjoy a mug of hot cocoa.
I don’t remember if we ate anything. We might have, I just don’t remember.
Inside, we found an interestingly-decorated place, with old doors mounted on the walls the way most places would display photos, and some Santa Clauses, small Christmas trees, and other Christmassy things scattered about.
After having warmed our insides, we ventured out into the town again, making our way past the downtown area and into a residential section.
This is where we began finding more individual expression coming out in the holiday decorations.
There was the red British phone booth with a white Christmas tree in it.
Maybe it was trying to phone home to the tree farm.
In another courtyard was a display of a variety of Santa Clauses mixed with Garden Gnomes.
They all wore matching red, pointy hats.
Dore was delighted by this display, and while taking pictures, got to speak briefly to the owner responsible.
Eventually we came to the town wall.
Above the gate, in a niche in the wall stood a small tree.
It looked like it might have been put there as a Christmas tree, although it didn’t have any decorations that I could see.
It was kinda like the trees you’ll see placed on top of construction cranes at building sites, just up there to be seen, but not decorated.
We couldn’t tell if it was up there for the holiday, or was there all the time.
Eventually, we decided we had wandered enough, and made our way back to our car to continue on our sojourn.
While our visit was brief, we felt the town was an inviting German town on the Rhine. If we ever find ourselves back in the neighborhood, we probably won’t hesitate to stop in again, and maybe visit a bit longer.
Assuming it’s not a holiday and places are open…
Sorry, I don’t have a gallery of photos to link to for this story. If you want to view a variety of my photos from around the world, click here.
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