Maus (Mouse) Castle above the German village of Wellmich in the Rhine Gorge. Katz (Cat) Castle is slightly to the south. Photo / Joanna Wane
On a river cruise through the heart of Germany, Joanna Wane plays “castle pong” along the Rhine.
Europe’s broad rivers might look benign on the surface, but the currents can be treacherous. The most dangerous stretch of the Rhine winds through Germany’s world heritage-listed Rhine Gorge, at a point where the fast-flowing water is at its deepest.
Over the centuries, countless ships have come to grief on a towering slate rock that rises steeply from the river’s right bank. Apparently, there’s a woman to blame. Well, isn’t there always?
Folklore has it that a young woman called Lorelei, who’d been betrayed by her sweetheart, was accused of bewitching men and causing their death. Banished to a nunnery, she perished by leaping (or falling) from the rock that now bears her name – but lived on as a beautiful siren whose song distracted unwary sailors and led them to a watery grave.
A small bronze statue of Lorelei now sits on the tip of a breakwater in the town of Sankt Goarshausen, looking out over the busy waterway. “There she is, sitting in the sun and getting her vitamin D,” says the Scenic Crystal’s cruise director Cathy Lasouski, who’s joined us all on the upper deck.
This section remains the most challenging for riverboats to navigate on the Rhine. Not that you’d know it today, when the sky is so blue and we’re up top for the first time on this late-autumn Amsterdam to Budapest trip, keeping the chill at bay with mugs of Baileys coffee and cream.
This morning, Cathy had told us, we’d be playing “castle pong” in the gorge, a stunning 65km section of the Upper Middle Rhine Valley that winds between Koblenz and Rudesheim. Truly the stuff of legends, it’s like being transported through the pages of a fairytale book.
In his 1842 travel guide Le Rhin, the French writer Victor Hugo described the Rhine “as historic as the Tiber, as royal as the Danube, as mysterious as the Nile, and as covered with fables and phantoms as a river of Asia”.
In the gorge alone, some 40 castles (or “burgs”) dating as far back as the 10th century sprinkle the hilltops – and there’s a colourful and often gruesome story behind almost every one of them.
A mobile app, QVtoGO, I’ve downloaded onto my phone bursts into life with commentary on various points of interest as we glide past, complete with dramatic sound effects that remind me of the Horrible Histories audio books our son used to love as a kid.
In the 13th century (or so the legend goes), Reichenstein Castle was captured by Germany’s King Rudolph I. When the lord of the castle begged for his sons to be spared, the king cut him a grisly deal. The father would be beheaded, with his sons standing in a line in front of him. Any sons that the headless body managed to run past would be spared.
“Dad got to the end of the line,” the app reports cheerily. “They say his ghost can still be seen at Reichenstein, which is now a museum and luxury medieval-themed hotel.”
Originally built to collect tolls and control the Rhine as a strategic trade route, the castles had heavy chains that would be raised across the river when boats came, and lowered only when the merchants had paid their due. Some corrupt medieval lords (known as raubritter) charged illegal or exorbitant tolls, even resorting to kidnapping for ransom.
At Sooneck Castle, one such “rapacious robber baron” by the name of Siebold imprisoned Hans Veit, the best archer on the Rhine, in the castle’s dungeon and burned out his eyes. Many months later, Siebold had the bowman brought to a party being held in the knight’s hall and mockingly offered to free him if Veit could hit a goblet in midair with an arrow.
“The blind archer was given a crossbow. Siebold tossed a silver goblet into the air and ordered the archer to shoot, which he did. Only this time, he aimed right at Siebold’s throat. Revenge is sweet.”
You can still see the remains of the stone “quarrel wall” that separates two mighty castles, Sterrenberg and Liebenstein, where two feuding brothers once lived.
After cheating their sister out of her inheritance, they became increasingly suspicious of each other, spending their ill-got gains on building the wall between them higher and higher. The younger eventually came to a sticky end when he was “accidentally” killed by his big brother. Yeah, right.
Perched above a cluster of sharp rocks known as the Seven Virgins is Schoenberg Castle, the medieval home of seven vivacious and charming sisters. Refusing to relinquish a life of independence, the maidens are said to have escaped their persistent suitors by boat, but a violent storm tipped them into the water, where they were transformed into rock. “I bet a man wrote that story,” a fellow cruise guest says.
It’s not actually a castle, but my favourite story is about Mouse Tower, which stands on a tiny island in the middle of the river. According to folklore, the cruel Archbishop of Mainz, Hatto, allowed the peasants to starve when the Rhine burst its banks and an entire season’s crops were destroyed.
Getting wind of plans to stage a rebellion against him, Hatto lured the peasants to his barn with the promise of grain. He then set the building on fire, ignoring their terrified shrieks. “Hear the mice squeak,” he said, as he turned to walk away.
“It’s a remark he would sorely regret,” the travel app reports, “as the next morning his home was descended upon by 10,000 angry mice who pursued him to the Mouse Tower and devoured him alive.”
Some of the castles are now little more than crumbling ruins. Others have passed into private ownership and been restored, reopening as museums or boutique accommodation.
At the top of Lorelei Rock, the Nazis carved a clifftop amphitheatre into the slate for use as a propaganda venue in the 1930s. It’s since been converted into a rock venue, hosting arena acts such as U2, David Bowie, Metallica and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Who knows whether Lorelei cares for their music, but at least the Rhine’s most famous siren has been given a riverside seat.
New Zealand Herald travelled courtesy of Scenic on a 15-day Jewels of Europe river cruise from Amsterdam to Budapest.