Am Frankfurt

The Chinese girls arrive home at the Boppard hotel from Frankfurt at midday Saturday; an all-nighter. Karaoke, shots, Chinese songs, R&B, Rihanna, Jay-Z. I tell them about "Online" and the sounds of the 1080s. Sounds horrible, they say. Exhausted now, they need sleep. What else did you do...? Can't really remember. Time for Homework.

At the Romer Burg restaurant, nicely ancient and, the Chocolate Cafe People tell me, the best place to write, I don't write, seems gratuitous, and instead read some more Goethe, eat well, but am surprised the staff are insistent I don't drink German red wine; Chilean, that's the stuff. The soundtrack is samba heavy and the guests wear jackets and whisper. A first-holiday together couple, American-English, laugh too loudly at each other's jokes and think about a cocktail. I wander the high street, mid-afternoon. Tom is setting up his Dobro guitar. He's from Koblenz, plays in a jazz cum blues band up there. I'll be in Koblenz soon enough; just have a couple of detours, to Frankfurt and Brussels. Tom plays beautifully, sparse and with feeling.

Way down upon the Swanee River,
Far, far away
That's where my heart is turning ever
That's where the old folks stay
All up and down the whole creation,
Sadly I roam
Still longing for the old plantation
And for the old folks at home
Chorus:
All the world is sad and dreary everywhere I roam
Oh darkiness, how my heart grows weary
Far from the old folks at home


I start weeping gently. Which must be telling me something. Back in Bingen for the night before Frankfurt I am in Swiss luxury and photograph sublimity and the mouse tower and end up in a bar full of Two Pint Glasses, Accordion Bands and Take Me Home Country Roads. Natch.

I am in bed early. Clouds over the Rhine in the morning and via Mainz I'm in Frankfurt by mid-Afternoon. Tom took a barque, so feel utterly justified in taking the train, even if some of the factories, especially Opel's, look worthy of a wander-weg. Frankfurt is a shock. Skyscrapers; Ayn Rand -esque Euro signs the size of Louise Bourgois sculptures. Starbucks and "Dolly Busters" porn everywhere, on Kaiserstrasse at least. And Hotel is slap bang in the Red Light Slapper-weg; a Tourist Office Recommendation, of course. I wander down to mid-town, then the old town, but it feels utterly rebuilt. Try to write in a few cafes but in the morning the elegant prose looks like Egyptian hieroglyphics. Of course the Germans were good at deciphering that stuff in the nineteenth century; not me. At mid- morning after a wifi cheesecake and double espresso somewhere that could be in New York or London, I brace myself for Frankfurt's double-dose of modernity, the money towers and the strong sense of rebuilt-ness, and head, as all must, to the Goethe Haus. Calm at last.

There is something so nice about reading Goethe in his own garden. Is that a wanky thing to say? Who cares, really? It is fantastic. Frankfurt begins.

Bopping to AOR

So, a short walk along and next to the Rhine on the second attempt to make Boppard with all the speeding car, toy train, barge and cruise-liner semiotics. That's ok, sometimes the vineyard wanderings make me a little too sublime-centric.

Phil Collins was being interviewed last night on German TV; I watched in a type of suspended animation that never occurs wandering a Roman ruin or Reformation church. I've just been asked to go and speak in a week or so at the European Parliament in Brussels about digital piracy: I want to say that the money in music these days is in touring, getting played on Spotify, or better still soundtracking a Will Farrell movie: the CD or the I-Tunes download is really just a promotional device.

But that's subversive. Unlike Phil Collins, who seems to think he is Goethe. Faust vs. A Trick of the Tail?

I re-water at a biker's motel right on the river, filled for some reason with lots of salty dog, shiver-my-timbers, Billy Budd imagery. At least the water is only 1 Euro. Then Bad Salzig for a bun. It's not that the castles have become boring, but they are repetitive. It is hard to make judgements about which to hop to, and which to merely shoot from afar. I walk past a cyclist, older, my age, but he looks really fit and tanned. He's doing "Heidelburg-Cologne" in two days. In many ways I even him, but I so like my slowness these days. I realise belatedly that I have never yet been on the Rhine; everything else but not on. I wonder what that experience is like?

I take a couple of photographs for my cyclist and he stops for a sandwich, half an hour later he passes with a wave and a happy-walk. Soon enough I am noodling into Boppard. It is early afternoon, feels so like a market town. Humming - in its own way - with end of the week-ness. A brass band walks out from the Boppard Tourist Office in outfits that would shock Yes or Supertramp at their most pompous. Half Pearly-Queen, half Gutenberg Bible. It is five minutes to three.

Later I wander towards the railway station, looking for an off Rhine hotel; there are about a zillion on the water front, each waiting for the cruise ships to arrive. I've wander-weg'd the front and feel like a change. Lolling at the station two Chinese girls, students perhaps, but dressed to kill, Last Emperoresses both. Sisters. Where are you going, I ask.

The younger pouts; the older - Frankfurt. Their parents came here thirty years ago; originally their from a city south of Shanghai, but the girls are born here. They like New York, relatives, in business, not really sure what. And Atlantic City, relatives, in business, not really sure what. Not interested in Las Vegas, but Disneyland - oh yeah. They work in the hotel in the summers, study economics - and, clearly fashion. They've met a lot of English students, "you know, getting Kulture." I tell them about walking in the Vineyards. The pouty faces again. "But how can you do that in stilettos?" They phone and text and are off for the night to Frankfurt.

I book into their parent's hotel, complete with Chinese restaurant. Back in the marketplace the Brass Band has made-over into red frock coat based outfits. It seems the mid-Rhine is cigar friendly, there are a lot being smoked out here in the crisp chilling sun over beers and ice creams and the occasional coffee. Dali-style moustaches are also not unknown. The band kicks in, I polish another espresso and watch as from an apartment window above the Restaurant Alte Schmede a sweet-faced granny bops away like crazy to the music. Perhaps this is where Boppard gets its name?

The band is called The Blue Mops, they have come from Nigmegan in Holland, because - oh yes, I had forgotten, there is a wine festival tonight. Here is their first set in full. Everyone of the songs rocking with a rather fine rhythm quite unlike those oom-pah Brass Bands of old. And one member just dances, like the man who stood next to Suggs in Madness. I think of a scene in The Ipcress File with Michael Caine and his stiff-upper-lip boss in Hyde Park listening to the old-school brass band for a while.

The Set.

The Lion Sleeps Tonight
Boogie-Oogie
We Will Rock You
We Are the Champions
River Deep, Mountain High
I'm So Excited!
Something German that everyone claps along with
Take Me Home, Country Roads (obligatory in the mid-Rhine, it appears)
Top of the World

By the time the Blue Mops exit, everyone is happy. I celebrate by ordering a Dunkle Trinkschokolade Mit Chilli. I think of that movie set in France, Leslie Caron, Juliet Binoche, all that whimsey and Chocolate. If I am really unlucky the next visitor to Boppard's marketsquare will be Johnny Depp carrying a ridiculous Irish accent.

In my book, Goethe's Frankfurt house has been garrisoned by the French. I think back to Mainz and Napoleon's brothel for his officers. From one of the waiters in the chocolate cafe I learn that small change is Kleingeld, sounds Wagnerian - if a little too minimal for his usual grand tastes.

I meet an architect on the pull at the wine tastings, in a second marketplace centred on the town's main church. Vineyard stalls have set up around its periphery, and at the far end a stage for tonight's "live" concert. A band named "Online". I speculate on their playlist, only time will tell. My pulling architect is slick, though showing a photograph of your young son does seem a little...crap. "I design houses like women,," he says. The wine seller mentions her boyfriend in Berlin for the eighth time.

She's Stephanie, though everyone calls her "murky". Her brother, who's has died, started calling her that twenty years ago, when murky was 10. She's down from Berlin to help out her father, who runs a hotel here - everyone's father seems to run a hotel here. Murky went out with the same boy for 13 years, lived and worked and played here. They split up around her 29th birthday: it was time for a change. "My cousins kept saying come to Berlin, but, you know, it's so cool, different from here. I went there last autumn, loved it, and now I have a new life."

I start sampling white wines, very unusual. I hate white wines. "It's better tomorrow," Murky says, "there are fireworks." I sip a Goldene Kammerpreismunze. Not bad. In the background Architect is on his third pull, and Online are warming up by circumcising the melody to some horror by Bon Jovi. I sip a something else and then another. "Boppard used to be very big for bowling clubs, but the numbers are falling off now," says Murcky. "Now the older people think: hey, what about Majorca?" When she left college she went with a friend to London for the excitement of it all; she stayed a few weeks and bought a cheap ticket to Thailand. "I understand why the old people want the sun, it's just hard for business here." The Top Mops come into the square but they are initially drowned by "Online" and their soundcheck. When it is quiet enough they play, for some strange reason, the very oom-pah style brass band that NOBODY wants to hear. They last two songs and slink off for a kebab. "My ex cycled the same journey you've walked," Murcky says. "Except they started in March. So stupid. They got close to the Italian border and in some village a guy said to them, 'how are you going to fit the skis on your bikes?'"

Boppard is having fun, but it's older. I understand why the Chinese girls have gone to Frankfurt; how Murky is only here to help her father. "Online" kick off with We Built This City. Oh Gott. Easy Lover follows. When the singer announces in a key further from the melody than I am from Bejing that she "made it through the wilderness" I begin to weep for live music. Let's Dance. Something Got Me Started. Billy Jean (oh, ouch). Hot Stuff.

It is the pop syllabus of the 40s generation; me too, at a stretch. This is a set honed on cruise liners and Rhine holidays. Online move into the 1990s with Relight My Fire. I go and buy a hot dog, burn my palette, and smoother my Moleskine with mustard. Good Wine Tasting, I guess.

At the RhineLust hotel it is worse still. A disco featuring only 1970s German Pop. I buy an overpriced espresso and hack their wi-fi. Murcky's mother, she's divorced now, came form England. She arrived in Boppard thirty years ago at the start of her world tour.

And fell in love.

Tomorrow: the Chinese return, the Romer Burg, sublimity, Tom the Busker and Tears...And then Frankfurt, the Book Fair.

Am Rhein.

Circular St. Goar

An early Biedermann heavy frustuk. A glamourous blonde German woman of the later years says: "I hope you jogged," when I explain where I have walked from.

In the wi-fi annex I meet Antonio, an Australian travelling with his wife. He's running the Cologne half-marathon soon. More pertinently to my needs he has an IPad and we talk SIMs and roaming and pros and cons.

Rheinfels is already moodily higher than the town of St. Goar, it looks imperiously down - but frankly all the castles do that. Down there is a pretty motley collection of cafes and cuckoo clock shops, and it holds little allure. I head up, away from the river, climb through the hinterlands to avoid the two valleys which add two more climbs and descents. Lets be efficient about this.

I'm moving upriver, through a flurry of larger bungalows and then into open land, rectangles of colour, like 60s wallpaper. Like yesterday, except that the light is very different; and this is starting to matter. It's not that I am becoming an artist; it is just that I am looking more closely at everything, and more slowly. It is a dark wet morning, the clouds are pale gray, or darker, hinting at coal. Burrowing down on the abbreviated horizons, ploughing the painters' facades I'm seeing every moment. The uneven geometries of grazing land, fields, forests and pathways, primeval information highways; from dark pastels yesterday to full rich oils today. These scenes are all around, emergent from the light morning darkness. Once again I whirl, a wet dervish this time, wiping the camera lens often, yet frequently finding on "playback" that a spot of moisture has ruined the shot.

Cows and bulls lumber; the isolated trees stand proudly morose, thoughtful. And then, past the bird-watchers' raised hut and into the woods. Properly now, light fades, is glimpsed through the tips of trees. 25 kilometres to go.

It's been raining all morning, lightly. Now outside the forest the deluge begins. I put on my wooly hat for the first time since crossing the French Alps from La Chambre, three years ago. June 2007. New hat.

A new kind of silence descends, far from absolute quiet, but far also form the bustling cacophony of the riverside. Which in turn is church peaceful in comparison with even a small town, with Oberwesel or Bacharach. Bird songs and falling leaves lead the chorus; the Steve Reich monotony of the rain droning above.

Enclosed now, the footpath is narrow, at the right hand edge the ground falls away steeply down deep ravines, below fallen trees, upended, assume new positions, different ecological roles to play. I feel closer to Tom than for ages, certain that he was around here. A turn; a choice, left or right. Soon, naturally enough, the diurnal connection with Tom is bust and I am vaulting streams, walking across upended trees, temporary bridges, and scrabbling hillsides. Another choice, left, right. Open land again, progress. I look across to a pair of trees, like a Kiefer. They are the same trees I've obsessively photographed an hour ago, from another perspective. The light and the rain are different now, so I obsess
some more. Then turn around. Back into the forest. Hours pass. I see pizza sized and coloured - like a pepperoni - mushrooms. Every kind of mushroom; apple trees; hear bird songs I cannot place. It is cosy in the forest, hermetic - signalless.

Eventually I emerge to a stunning almost horizonless vista of fields and plots and horses. In the dark distance pretty much Constable's Haywain - minus the haywain. I plunge the camera to lower and lower angles, emphasising either the vast gray-white clouds or the moist green fields broken apart by long straight farming paths and lanes. Finally a village. I must be close. A football field. A church spire in the distance, peeling. It is three in the afternoon. I ask a local man how far now to Boppard.

It's about 20 kilometres, perhaps you should go to St. Goar and take the bus? It's only 2 kilometres away.

I have inadvertently walked a giant five hour circle. Brilliant me. St Goar may be 2 kilometres away but I am down the wrong valley. I climb through vineyards wet with ripe and readiness, and then in the cloudy distance my castle home emerges, with the Rhine next door, still rolling along. The castle, like Greta Garbo, gives good face in all kinds of weather. She's moody today. Perhaps she is still angry with the Plastics' boys singing last night.

Down, down, to the river and outskirts of St Goar. My wonderful Merrells are soaked through. For my unexpected new afternoon back at Rheinfels castle - I will have to stay another night now - I could do with some trainers, something. I walk into a wet half-empty town, the forlorn cafes of storm-time in mid-week. In Tourist Information I ask about shoe shops in St Goar. "Ah, yes we have Birkenstock, just down the road."...

We Mexicanly stand-off for a few seconds; she breaks first. Into laughter. "I guess sandals aren't exactly what you want? Sorry." I laugh too - it's funny.

In the Birkenstock shop window Heidi Klum's silver "designer" sandals get pride of place. With no brick to throw, I wanderweg back up the final climb to Rheinfels. I take a muddy right half-way up the hill walk and find a small outhouse, known as a "Tusculum" . A place of retreat and creative solitude. It was the idea of Landgravine Anna-Elizabeth, born in 1549. Otto Dix, the artist, came here a lot in the 1920s. I make a note to 1) learn some proper German history 2) Find out about Otto Dix.

Back in Biedermann-Spa territory I change rooms, download the new John Le Carre, Our Kind of Traitor, because some of it is set in Switzerland, and polish off a bad though strangely compelling book before dinner. Dinner experiences no acapella singng and in the late night house bar the cattle owner's wife has some trouble fighting off an 80 year old German with a pepperoni pizza red nose, who spends most of the evening in pursuit of her upper thighs. I guess you have to kiss a lot of Biedermann ass if you run a castle-hotel five minutes from Loreley.

Later I get to meet a Lion - which is like the Rotarians, I learn, only they have an unlikely seat at the UN. He explains the Rhine wines is great detail, loving detail. The bullet point is that the roots of the Riesling grape can be incredibly long. I wrote down 15 metres, but perhaps I had drunk one too many Rieslings. So it needs very particular kinds of soil, and earth. AKA around here.

Chardonay is a slapper, by comparison. She'll do it anywhere.

Fritz wasn't always a sommelier, he used to run an electric organ factory nearby, employing 80 people. Then the banks got involved. "You know that everyday those guys play with eight times the world's GDP?" he says.

I don't. "They really do run the world."
Handy: I'll be in financial Frankfurt soon, I can see for myself. On the curious time-machine digital jukebox that Gustel the High German Scribe cum barmaid plays Gilbert O'Sullivan is singing "Nothing Rhymed." I'm so tired from my circular day it sounds positively Irving, if not Isaiah, Berlin. Upstairs walking to my room in the old castle I stumble across one of the staff in full medieval costume. The team are having a locked door party downstairs somewhere. It is 11.30.In the morning I'll walk to Boppard the river route, zoning out the cars and trains and cruisers. I'd like to - like - get there.

I chat to Antonio about IPads some more in the post frustuck wifi annex meet up zone. Mouthful. He tells me there's a wine tasting weekend kicking off in Boppard tonight. With live music.

I wonder if it will creep beyond the 1970s?