lorch is a little town near the rhine gorge world heritage site - a beautiful area with lots of vineyards and wonderful views onto the rhine and the valley it flows through. the town itself is very old, it was first mentioned in 1085, but was already populated before that by the romans. cute little alleys and timber-framed houses are literally everywhere you look and it all spreads a very medieval charm... even today! i love visiting the upper middle rhine valley exactly because of that: the towns and villages are so lovely and enchanting.
in the tiny alleyways of lorch. that's st. martin's parish church in the back, which basically overlooks the whole city.
part of the church's plateau.
looking down onto the river.
the steles are depicting jesus' ordeal. those steles are very common in the rheingau region and they always surround the church.
the sky was rather gloomy when i arrived there but it brightened up later on. i don't mind, though, as dramatic skies are truly after my taste :)
path leading up into the vineyard hills.
and then you have this wonderful view.
the rhine river is a natural border between the states of rhineland-palatinate and hesse. it's always a little strange to me, that in just one kilometer beeline there is a different state.
the little villages over there are niederheimbach and oberdiebach.
just before the sun returned a rain shower came pouring down.
as soon as the sun made its way back it got so warm again that i shed the cape i was wearing ( it was early september - when the days are still not too cold and everything feels like summer ). it was the first day that felt like autum, though, but that was maybe only because of the rain, haha.
making my way back down to lorch.
there was an informational nature path about the several types of regional rocks. i'm a huge rock sucker, so i thought it was quite interesting :P i cannot remember the names for the distinctive rock types anymore, but the main rock you can find in the rheingau region is shale bed rock. additionally you can find several quartz rocks and of course sandstone. i really loved how they displayed the rocks and colour-coordinated them.
two rock types meeting each other. ( i guess ) sandstone and shale.
concrete jesus.
more interesting rock formations. i really love shale rocks because they have this memorable folding structure.
layer on layer on layer. i thought the little plant growing on the rocks was quite a cute motive.
neon roses against yellow wall.
no matter what, timber-framed architecture is still one of my absolute favourite architecture styles. it just feels so cozy to me.
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