We left Schonenecken and drove down the mountains to Bernkastel-Kues – a pretty German town on the Moselle River. Despite there being large carparks along the river we couldn’t get in anywhere and continued our drive along the Moselle with all the vineyards on the sides of the hills.

We found a quiet shady parking spot where we could have lunch and do a bit of tidying up. It was good to have a bit of downtime.

We then continued towards Bingen on the Rhine with lovely views along the way.

At Bingen it was extremely hot when we got out of the car. We walked – in the shade thank goodness – up through the shops to the castle at the top – now council offices.

There were a few Roman artefacts outside the castle – the Roman milestone markers were found relatively recently in 1977.

The views over the Rhine were the best thing with the long cruise boats and container boats , the 14th century tiny Mouse Tower and the vineyards on the steep banks.

This is the renovated castle and well.

We walked back down the steps into the town.

We then moved on 29 minutes up the road to Heidesheim where we stopped for dinner at a very reasonable German restaurant for schnitzel. We were well satisfied as it took up the whole plate! I couldn’t finish mine – and Glenn was so full after his he couldn’t help me out either.

After our German feast we drove the last 10 minutes to Angela and Oliver’s place in Mainz and had a lovely catch up with rhubarb gin cocktails in the garden – still around 25 degrees at 10pm. The last time we saw each other was at the bienniale in Venice in September last year.