11 June ’04, Friday. The head was doing just great this morning and we decided to pull up stakes and head up the Mosel to finish a wonderful leg of our journey. The weather was still slightly overcast but overall, things looked good for continuing. About 15 km up the road we had one more stop that we wanted to make. The Burg Eltz castle is one of Rick Steves favorites, so that in it’s self made it one of our “most see” sites. After we parked the van we knew that we would have at least a 45 minute walk ahead of us through the woods above the village of Moselkern. It was just like walking through the woods back in Washington State. It even smelled like it. Almost, allllmmmoosst made us a little home sick. It was, as described by Rick, just as it appeared when we got there. As you come to the end of the trail, the Burg Eltz is just sitting right there in front of you. Prior to that you only knew that it was supposed to be out there somewhere. It is pretty spectacular, but I will have do disagree with Rick on this one. In my opinion, the Reichsburg Castle in Cochem is “the” castle on the Mosel to see. I’m sure Rick Steves really cares about my opinion don’t you think?…. A little history on the family Eltz…. They started building the castle over a thousand years ago. The surrounding forest provided a wealth of food and natural resources, and from their high vantage point the Eltz family controlled traffic between the fertile Maifield plateau and the Mosel River, a major trade route. Otherwise, income from taxes on goods going by or out of the area. There is much more, but you will have to read the book. Now that we are back to the van we head East by North East to the meeting place of the Mosel and Rhine Rivers….Koblenz. As we were just arriving in Koblenz, the sky opened up and it rained as hard as I have ever seen it rain. Right there and then, we decided to continue on across Germany heading toward Prague. We made it to Frankfurt and left the rain a little ways behind for now. Tomorrow….let’s see Frankfurt and hope the rain hasn’t caught up with us.