Odin's Muhle Farm, Rhine Valley

This week is half term at school, and we had been booked to go to a cottage on a Donkey farm in the Rhine Valley since Christmas.  The cottage was wonderful.  It only took us two and a half hours to get there, including a Rhine crossing via ferry, lots and lots of twisty mountain roads, and even a gigantic motorway bridge, probably more than a mile above the Rhine, with a spectacular view of the valley.

The cottage was tiny, and entirely heated by a log fire in the room downstairs.  It heated the cottage really fast, and made it smell deliciously of wood smoke.  It was super cosy!

Matt was of course (being extremely manly) in charge of the fire.  He only managed to burn himself twice, oh and once on the oven when he was cooking the roast!

Above was our cottage, and below was the main farm house which was at the end of our path, just to the right of the photo above.  We had lots of donkey fields around us, and were woken each morning by the sound of them talking to each other, or calling for breakfast.

We went on a couple of walks around the farm, and in the nearby forest and fields.  The walks were lovely, with not a single person in sight, and not a sound to be heard, apart from the lovely stream running through the centre of the farm.  It was pretty cold, and as you can see from the photos, overcast every day.  The colours on the photos really don't do justice to the beautiful scenery. 

 I found lots of interesting bits of tree, fungus, wood and stone to take pictures of...

One day, we drove down the scenic Rhine road to Marksburg Castle, in the town of Braubach.  We passed so many castles along the way - they are at every village, and on every hilly outcrop.  The valley is literally littered with them!

This one is Marksburg Castle, which is open all year round (not many are - most are just open for the tourist season, as are shops, hotels, restaurants, etc.  Some of the tiny villages are like ghost towns, with nothing open, and no people about during the day at all).

 You can only go inside the castle if you go on a tour, but they run every hour and it was only 6 euros each.  The tour was in German, but we were given an excellent guide book in English, that was a very detailed translation of the tour.

The castle was very interesting, and absolutely freezing cold!  Marksburg was the only castle in the region not to have been destroyed at any point in history.  So, the castle today looks exactly as it would have done when it was originally built, with only a few modern restorations in the same style.

One day we drove out in the afternoon, without a plan of where we were heading,  We just set off down the road that runs alongside the Rhine, and stopped at a few villages on the way.

The below picture is of a fountain in one of the villages.  There was a metal grill on the bottom and something to do with science had made it turn this wonderful red colour.

In one of the villages I discovered this gem of a post box.  The colour is so intense and the detail so ornate, I thought it was just wonderful!

We even spontaniously decided to cross the Rhine on a ferry to explore the villages on the opposite bank.  As we crossed, we went past this very cool castle on a tiny island in the middle of the river!

We came across a lovely town that had some interesting architecture, and of course its own castle.  We discovered the castle by accident, as we were looking at the church.  We noticed some stairs leading up the valley to the ruins of the church in the photo below.  Once we reached this plateau above the town, we saw that the stairs went further up to the castle too!

The castle wasn't open to the public, because it is a hotel, but it did have a coffee shop where we had a hot chocolate and cake with a lovely view over the Rhine.

On the opposite side of this valley, in the photo above were farmers fields.  These fields blow my mind!  They are so steep, they seem almost vertical, and I find it truley incredible that fields this steep can be farmed.  How do they do it!!!???

We had a fantastic time in the valley, and would love to come back here in the summer months when the weather is warmer, and more of the castles are open.  It truly is a beautiful place to visit.