Up the Rhine

To Rüdesheim

It is no night to drown in: 

A full moon, river lapsing 

Black beneath bland mirror-sheen, 

The blue water-mists dropping 

Having arrived in Köln (Cologne) in the dark, after a long day's travel, the quiet of the River Rhine at dawn is very soothing. I wake to shrouded trees and murky mists, to the gentle swishing of the Rhine, as pink clouds stain the horizon, the reflections of bare poplars bent by our bow wave. :

Scrim after scrim like fishnets 

Though fishermen are sleeping, 

The massive castle turrets 

Doubling themselves in a glass 

All stillness.....

Lorelei

Sylvia Plath

Then, as we enter the Middle Rhine Valley, the current tenses as the river narrows between rising hills, and great castles begin to loom out of the clouds. Here is Marksburg, the core of which dates from the year 1200.  This is the only one of all the castles we see that has not been destroyed or reconstructed.   

Marksburg

Marksburg

Further up river we pass the castles of the Hostile Brothers, one of which is Burg Liebenstein, perched above the village of Kamp-Bornhofen.....

Liebenstein Castle

And then, near the diminutive Burg Maus (Mouse), we see the imposing Burg Katz (Cat), which was originally built in the 14th century but which was bombarded by Napoleon's forces in 1806 and then entirely rebuilt at the end of the 19th century.

Burg Katz - St Goarshausen

Burg Katz

Burg Katz - St Goarshausen

On the opposite bank here there is the great medieval ruin of Rheinfels Castle:

The Fortress of Burg Rheinfels

And then we approach the dangerous charms of the Lorelei, associated with the narrowest, swiftest, deepest, most treacherous part of the Rhine Gorge, with a 430 metre cliff overhanging a tight bend in the river....

The Lorelei (herself)

The legend here is associated with the potential danger of this stretch of the river, and it has passed into literature and folklore, with a famous poem by Heinrich Heine (in 1824) becoming a popular song in German, but then many more appearances in different cultures, including poems by Apollinaire and Sylvia Plath, music by Schumann and Shostakovich, and songs by, among others, Townes van Zandt and The Pogues....

You told me tales of love and glory

Same old sad songs, same old story

The sirens sing no lullaby

And no one knows but Lorelei

The Lorelei (from downstream)

The Lorelei (from upstream)

We sail on, oblivious to the siren murmurs:

Pfalzgrafenstein Castle, Kaub

But then, not far away, in a Wagnerian twist that may not be totally unrelated, I am bewitched by the three Rhinemaidens, Woglinde, Wellgunde and Flosshilde:

Or am I mistook?  Could these be they?

Or might Flosshilde have leapt to her doom?

The Rhinemaidens are the first and the last characters seen in Richard Wagner's four-opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen  [Me neither: Ed]  These damsels of indeterminate origin (though possibly related to the poor Lorelei) have been described as morally innocent, yet with a range of sophisticated emotions, including some that are seductive and elusive.....

But let's move on:

We are now high above the vineyards of Rüdesheim, where the Rhine spreads and flows East to West, so the northern slopes catch the sun all day and also benefit from reflected light off the shining waters, while the wooded hill crests protect the vines from chilly winds from the north....  This area is known as the Rheingau and it is Germany's most prestigious wine-producing region, despite it only producing 2.5% of the country's output.  80% of the wine from here is Riesling.

Brömserburg Castle (which used to contain a wine museum)

At the top of the cable car, within gardens laid out in 1763 by Johann Friedrich Karl Maximilian Amor Maria Count of Ostein (1735 - 1809)  [Ah yes - Him!  Ed.] there is the Niederwald Monopteros, with idyllic Arcadian views across the Rhine to Bingen [Get on with it.... Ed.]

And then we meet the Prussian Madonna, aka Germania, a monument which commemorates the founding of the German Empire after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71, when 25 individual states were united into one empire (the Second Reich) embodied by Germania, and the Prussian King was proclaimed Emperor William I.  With her crown raised and her sword peacefully lowered, Germania looks towards the new state, keeping watch on the Rhine.....

Das Niederwalddenkmal (The Niederwald Monument at Rüdesheim)

The erection of monuments such as this (the Berlin Victory Column in 1873, and the Hermann Monument in the Teutoburg Forest in 1875) was intended to awaken German national feeling, something that nowadays has to be contextualised as it expresses a culture of remembrance.  As with other monuments I have seen in Germany there is an ambivalence, but also a recognition that not all history is to be lauded. 

Far more subtle and yet easily as worthy is this modest stone near the river in Rüdesheim which commemorates the great republican poet of freedom, Friedrich Schiller:

Freude, schöner Götterfunken.

Tochter aus Elysium,

Wir betreten, feuertrunken,

Himmlische, dein Heiligtum.

Deine Zauber binden wieder,

Was die Mode streng geteilt,

Alle Menschen werden Brüder,

Wo dein sanfter Flügel weilt.

Joy, immortal incandescence,

Daughter of Elysium!

Breathing fire from thy presence

To thy temple-ground we come.

Whom the world estranged from others

Thy enchantments reunite,

Making mankind into brothers

Where thy gentle wings alight.

Friedrich Schiller

Ode to Joy (1786)

And in the Christmas market in beautiful Rüdesheim with a hot glass of Weißer Winzerglühwein to keep out the cold, there is certainly an odour of joy, mingled with the Flammlachs and the Bratwurst....

And in the meantime, as the freight trains roll past, and the Rhine flows on, time, that imperturbable scourge of eternal youth, hastens us to dreamy sleep.....

River, river, have mercy

Take me down to the sea

For if I perish on these rocks

My love no more I'll see

But if my ship, which sails tomorrow

Should crash against these rocks

My sorrows I will drown before I die

It's you I'll see, not Lorelei

Philip Chevron

Lorelei

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Dedicated to the Rhinemaidens and to my Lorelei

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To be continued

Part 2

{wittily entitled Down the Rhine}

will follow shortly.....

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