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Pre-Tour

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Beautiful Bacharach.  You can see the Protestant Church and ruins of the Werner Kappelle.

After a restful first night in Germany, and a wonderful breakfast at the hotel, we were ready to meet the family!  We were fortunate in that a cousin, Peter, had arranged a full tour of the area for Saturday.  We saw Dorrebach, Ellern, Seibersbach and Simmern.  This was followed by dinner with Peter's family, and then a gathering of many more cousins for brunch on Sunday at a family bakery/cafe in Simmern (owned by a cousin), where we promptly took over half of the restaurant.  It was wonderful!  We saw so many beautiful village churches and cemeteries, and met more people than we ever would have been able to on our own.  Such a welcoming and friendly group.

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We spent a few minutes paying our respects at this grave.  Dennis had met Willi Dhein in 2013, and he was Peter's father.  We also saw many other tombstones with family names.

A group photo of the family we met - all different ages and from all over the area.  Interesting note - the younger folks spoke English and provided lots of assistance as translators for conversations with the older family members who mostly spoke only German.

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We had a wonderful weekend, thanks in large part to gracious hosts who expended lots of time and energy to make it possible.  

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The time we spent in Bacharach was also memorable.  It's a beautiful town and it was great fun to wander among all the half-timbered buildings.  We tried out a few of the restaurants, took in an organ concert at the Protestant church, walked along the walls, watched the trains rush by on the tracks and the marine traffic on the river.  They even celebrated a wine festival while we were there!

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