Before the 367km or 228 mile length of the Neckar River becomes lost in the Rhine at Mannheim, it more than does justice to its name.
Neckar, in Germany, translates roughly as “a wild fellow.” The Neckar River plunges from its source 706m or 2100 feet above sea level near the Black Forest town of Villingen-Schwenningen, through the Odenwald hills.
Beginning at the town of Heilbronn, the Neckar carves a valley (the Neckartal) through the Odenwald. Here, in the Middle Ages, something very much like a protection racket went on. Royalty would build their castles on crags above the valley floor, for the alleged purpose of protecting the merchants who shipped their goods on the river from pirates.
The merchants were required to pay tolls for the use of the river, with the assurance that they would indeed be protected. Whether or not pirates actually existed is a question left to history!