An outing to Zons, a little mediaeval town.

Zons is a little town near Dormagen, between Neuss and Cologne. It was first mentioned in the 7th century, so it is really rather antique....It used to be one of the places which grew rich on the customs and excise they got from the ships taking their wares along the Rhine....tax is evidently no recent invention!! We drove to Benrath, past the castle there, and then found the leafy lane leading down to the Rhine ferry. We only had to wait a few minutes till the ferry came, and then we drove on. The ferry man came and collected our fares, and by the time we had paid we were already over on the other side. The Rhine is very full at the moment, if the water gets much higher, then the ferry can't cross over. We walked from the car-park past some sheep, which were grazing on the meadows, and then discovered a statue of a Bishop standing there, so we went and greeted him. Then we strolled around the walls, admired the old houses & Inge tried to climb the walls. One of the pictures shows some little silvery plaques, they show how high the floods were in some years. The next pic shows one marker right up at the top of the arch, that was in 1798 and must have been a very frightening flood. We saw some strange *creatures* outside a shop selling lots of fantastic things that nobody really needs but a lot of people like to have....And we met a very friendly white dog, keeping watch in front of his house, and enjoying *talking* to all who went by. We had a nice lunch in an old pub, and then drove home via another route, along the Rhine, through Neuss, a town with a lot of Roman and mediaeval ruins, and then over the bridge in Düsseldorf before driving back to Inge's place. There we enjoyed our coffee and a few games of skipbo before I drove home. I found a nice video of Zons on You Tube, here is the link if anyone is interested: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znj1R5YQuts.
All in all, a nice day, in nice company.