We left the Rhine for the Moselle about 6:30 this morning; we were asleep and missed the excitement.

Once we were awake, we spent a good part of the day on the Sun Deck enjoying the gorgeous Moselle scenery. Here we are passing Hatzenport and its ferry tower.

A few minutes later, we sailed past the winemaking town of Pommern and its sundial vineyard.

After lunch, we passed through Klotten; it was probably the prettiest town we saw today. People were out on waterskis enjoying the view!

There’s a ruined castle above Klotten, Burgruine Coraidelstein; naturally, it has a vineyard.

The town itself is anchored by the church of St. Maximinus.

We docked in Cochem a few minutes after passing Klotten. As is typical on European rivers, we were tied up to another ship, the AmaCerto.

We heard a short lecture on the evolution of cities on the Rhine from medieval times until today, then walked into Cochem for a brief exploration. Shops in Germany are closed on Sunday, but there are exceptions for food, drink, and souvenirs – I wouldn’t think that dresses and belts would count as souvenirs, but there were plenty of them available today all through the town.

The high point of the walk (literally and figuratively) was Martinstour, one of the old city gates of Cochem.

We also enjoyed the views from the bridge over the Moselle. St. Martin’s church and Cochem Castle both look interesting, and we’ll be visiting the castle tomorrow on our official Cochem tour.

Our travel agent and tour arranger, Dave Natale, spent more than a decade living in Frankfurt when he first moved to Europe. This morning, he took us through a typical Frankfurt Saturday morning, starting with coffee at Wacker’s Kaffee, followed by a stroll through the Kleinmarket and then a visit to the Konstablerwache Market for some apfelwein and Grüen Sosse on potato pancakes.

We went back to the hotel to pick up our luggage and took a taxi down to the waterfront and boarded the River Queen. We didn’t sail away until 9:30pm, so we had plenty of time to explore the ship (it’s small), unpack, and enjoy a couple of meals. We even crossed the river to make another attempt to find the volksmarch control point from yesterday – it’s still missing. Maybe we’ll find it when we return to Frankfurt next week!