Last night's saga did not of course not finish at 12pm! No, the band played on for a cheering crowd, pandering to the demands of the inebriated masses with no regard for our beauty sleep. At 12.22 am Gary angrily hunts for the phone and I have to help him out by pressing the right buttons.
Somebody with no English knowledge responds and I end up with the receiver – the man has limited German knowledge too but conveys that it might be the last round of music but has no words left to my 'Not good enough'. I get passed on to the Chef (that is not the cook but the manager in Germany – reminds me of that hilarious moment from my hospitality days when in a London hotel I watched an irate, obnoxious German guest demand the 'Chef '. The staff tried to suggest that the duty manager might be able to help better but he was not having any of that, so they finally dragged one of the poor cooks out of the kitchen) anyway.....................
I did not exactly get a sympathetic response from the duty manager either and she got an exasperated 'Not good enough' from me too. They finally stopped playing around 12.30am and the crowd left singing and dancing. We probably fell asleep after 1 pm when Gary uttered the words: They are not getting a penny for tonight.
Considering that we have been falling asleep around 10pm, this was a really late night for us and it showed in the morning when we were awoken by the birds and an overcast morning (oh and somebody pushing a laundry bin over cobble stones)
When we checked out Gary made his displeasure known and was offered a bottle of wine for the inconvenience. He refused that and after checking with the Chefin (thats a female manager) the receptionist waived the charges for the night. We would have left quite happy at that point and recommended the hotel to others, just warning them of their room choice during high season.
But then the Chefin turned up alluding to the fact that we were the first ones this year who could not sleep (it is very early in the season) telling us that EVERYBODY knows that there is live music in the Drosselgasse and that it says so in the brochure. She was obviously more concerned with being right than having us leave with a good experience. She squeezed in a very unkind comment just before we were out of the door. Pity, it spoiled her start to the day more than ours.
The day before I had come up with a cunning plan to make our walking day as easy as possible. We went on the train back up the Rhein where we had stopped the day before and sneakily stayed on the train for another 6 kilometers getting off at Kaub. We had decided that we would follow the Rhein cycle route rather than E8 or the Rheinsteige (both very hilly choices). We had a pleasant and, at stages, very windy day walking on a pancake flat route along the Rhein. We stopped at a very pleasant hotel in Bad Salzig where we just had a lovely dinner and some delicious local Riesling. Tomorrow we are on our way to Koblenz which somehow in my head represents a major milestone on our journey.
Today also marks 1/4th of our journey completed in distance and time. We are chuffed to say the least.
Because we walked past it today, today's song has to be:
The Lorelei by Heinrich Heine
I cannot explain the sadness
That's fallen on my breast.
An old, old fable haunts me,
And will not let me rest.
The air grows cool in the twilight,
And softly the Rhine flows on;
The peak of a mountain sparkles
Beneath the setting sun.
More lovely than a vision,
A girl sits high up there;
Her golden jewelry glistens,
She combs her golden hair.
With a comb of gold she combs it,
And sings an evensong;
The wonderful melody reaches
A boat, as it sails along.
The boatman hears, with an anguish
More wild than was ever known;
He's blind to the rocks around him;
His eyes are for her alone.
--At last the waves devoured
The boat, and the boatman's cry;
And this did with her singing,
The golden Lorelei.
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