The Rhineland: (Hastings House Classics Series) [Paperback]

Walter Marsden (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 15, 2007

The Rhine is Western Europe's greatest highway. It is also a natural frontier, a source of legend, and its banks are covered with some of the world's finest vineyards. Neanderthal man was found in the Rhineland; the Romans colonized it, Charlemagne ruled it, the French conquered it. All have left their mark, but none more so than the medieval robber barons, whose grim fortresses dominate the river for much of its length. As befits its importance, the Rhine with its tributaries has sustained a string of great cities - Speyer, Heidelberg, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, Cologne, Bonn - and countless smaller towns and villages. The Rhine is above all romantic; it is Siegfried's river and the home of the Loreley, and the whole of the Rhineland is as riddled with Gothic fantasy as with Gothic legend. Walter Marsden works his way south, from Aachen down the Mosel valley, always returning to the Rhine itself, but leading off wherever there is a town, a castle, a village, monument, church, cathedral, mountain, valley or vineyard which adds something to an understanding of the rich variety of the river and all it has influenced. Detailed enough to serve as an on-the-spot guide, this book is sufficiently wide in scope to make good armchair travelling, equally useful as a reminder or as a foretaste of the Rhineland.

Product Details

• Paperback: 242 pages
• Publisher: Hastings House / Daytrips Publishers (February 15, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0803820704
• ISBN-13: 978-0803820708
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,510,790 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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