First Full Day In Frankfurt, Germany

 After an extremely long flight here, we got a good nights sleep and enjoyed our first full day in Frankfurt. We spent it out on a riverboat tour that travels a section of the Rhine River that goes all the way through Germany. The section of the river we traveled has some of the most amazing scenery. We first took a chair lift (like at a ski resort) down a huge hill that over looked a little city and had an excellent view of the castle that was across the river from the restaurant that we ate at. Most of the banks of the river are very steep rock cliffs, but along the banks little towns pop up and are usually overlooked by historical castles. It was interesting to hear the stories behind them all, but in short, most of the castles were made for protection hundreds of years ago and today serve as very expensive hotels today.

Burg Katz Castle over looking the town of St. Goarshausen

Castle Surrounded by vineyards

Castle across the river from the restaurant we at lunch at

When we got off the boat we went back to the restaurant we ate lunch at for a wine tasting. Germany has hundreds of beautiful vineyards. They make many different kinds of wine, but my favorite was called an "Ice Wine". It can only be made in certain places that have cold enough temperatures. The grapes have to be harvested when it is exactly negative eight degrees outside. They are frozen solid and picked by hand. Because they are frozen, it takes over 100 kilograms of grapes to produce one bottle of the Ice Wine. 

Our bus/boat tour took almost the entire day so when we made it back to Frankfurt around 7:30pm we found a cool little Italian restaurant with home made pasta noodles which was amazing! Back at the hotel tonight we planned a trip around the city of Frankfurt on a double-decker bus to all the fun stops tomorrow!