Rhine and Mosel Valley, Germany

Whoever might think of Germans as cold and calculating has never spent time in the beautiful Rhine and Mosel Valleys. Here the Germans wrest from their cold climate the wonderful fruit of the Reisling grape, and the many wineries and castles are the biggest highlights.

In the summer, several of the larger towns (Koblenz, Bingen) have the Rhine in Flammen Festival, with food, wine, fireworks and lighted boats on the beautiful river. River cruises are a great highlight also.

Quick Tips:

For bargain hunters, the KD steamships give reasonably priced day trips and they are covered by the German rail passes, if you have one. One of the most unique loging options is the Jugendherberge Stahlek, in a castle on the bend of the Rhine in Bacharach, a beautiful walled city.

Best Way To Get Around:

Boat is the best way to get around, but can be slow. Travel to some of the castles can require some kind of car, Burg Eltz is a prime example.

We climbied up to the hostel. I had neglected to inform the children that they would be climbing for a mile to get to this hostel, only telling them that it was considered one of the best in the world. The girls had no interest in coming down after we got up there that night.

Our big family room was in a tower, up a steep and narrow stone staircase. The windows along the wall were angled, as castle windows often are. The room was long and thin withan alcove and had 10 beds. There were also small tables and chairs and cupboards all over. This was a very nice hostel, one of the nicest we experienced, and only cost us about $12 per night per person.

Breakfast in the morning was great, and when we needed to stay out late one night (to see the Rhine in Flammen Festival) they were good about giving us an external key to get in. The girls, who stayed for dinner one night, were unimpressed, but the menu was fish, which they do not like.

We were in Koblenz with time to spare, and headed for the Köln-Dusseldorf ships. Of the five of us, three were holders of German Rail Passes, which include Rhine trips on KD. The other two cost 44 DM each, about $20 dollars or so at the time.

We boarded the boat in a great crush of people. Our experience was that the German citizens do not queue in quite the same orderly fashion as the British. Indeed they approach lines as a great opportunity to just crush in, each trying to be first in line. We did our best to hold our own, but clearly these people were much better than us at being pushy. Ah well, another myth about Americans exposed! ;-)

We started at a table for lunch, since we'd had breakfast a long time ago. We enjoyed lunch for the next couple of hours, including a wonderful bottle of local wine. Then we went up on deck to take some pictures and videotapes of the castles going by.

We passed a lot of castles, the Lorelei statue, and many vineyards. It was a beautiful day. The scenery cannot be described, it is beautiful. Check out the PHOTOS!

Bacharach is a walled medieval town on the Rhine in Germany. It is a stop on the KD Steamship line. The town has wonderful Fachwerk (Half Timbered) Houses, a wonderful wine industry and a castle where you can spend the night overlooking it.

We arrived in Bacharach around 3:00 PM and disembarked, packing all our stuff on our backs. Proceeding through and archway in the city wall we passed under the street and into a lovely medieval town with half-timbered houses and winestübe everywhere. Cobble-stoned street under our feet, we passed by the church and began ascending the stone steps.

About 200 steps up we passed the ruins of a chapel. Made of red sandstone and roofless, it stands above the town like a ghost. We were told or read at least three different stories about why the chapel was that way, one that it was unfinished, one that it was destroyed in a battle, and one perosn told us that the roof blew off the castle in a storm and destroyed the church below. Whatever the reason, Michael's Kapelle is very interesting and beautiful.

We climbed up to the hostel which is in an old castle, Burg Stahlek. After dumping our stuff, Katie and Sarah decided to remain behind at the hostel, where they enjoyed a fried fish dinner, while George, Mark and I headed into town for dinner, wine and exploration. The highlights of the evening were the apple strudel and sipping several different local Reislings at a local Weinstübe. Then we headed back up to our hostel.

The road along the Mosel hugs the river. We passed several small castles and some beautiful churches. We stopped at the "Panorama Cafe" for coffee and pastries and to look at the beautiful castle across the river. Then we headed on to Burg Eltz.

We were visiting Burg Eltz because a German friend had highly recommended it. We were not at all sorry to have done so, as the castle was one of the highlights of our trip.

Burg Eltz has never been destroyed, despite having endured long sieges. It has been in the same family for 850 years. Fairly early in the castle's history the Eltz family broke into three branches which each took over a part of the burg and continued to build. There is only one owner now and that current owner lives in the castle.

Burg Eltz has some beautiful rooms. One had a large green ceramic oven and a dining nook that I just loved. There was a great hall that was in the oldest part of the castle with two fools heads painted on the ceiling. This was a signal to people in the room that they could speak freely. The door frame conatined a rose, the rose of silence, meaning that things spoken of in that room should not be spoken of outside the room. We also saw two bedrooms, which had attached bathrooms which flushed using water dropped from above, emptying into the stream below.

Burg Eltz is built on a rock, so that when expansion occurred the only way to go was up. There was little room on the rock. This is why the castle is so tall. A little chapel off the bedroom juts out from the wall and has its own little roof. That way no one could walk over it and be above God.

The Burg also has a treasury with a great display of treasures that have belonged to the castle over the years. They also have a family tree of the Eltz family, armor and other stuff. We had a quick lunch then moved on and drove back on the south side of the Mosel River.

You can visit Burg Rhinefels from the KD steamship line. It is (barely) walkable, or more easily a very short cab ride from the dock.

It began to rain on and off as we followed the Mosel, then the Rhine back to St. Goar and Rhinefels castle. With limited time we took a quick tour of Rhinefels castle, which is in ruins. It was interesting walking through the ruin and trying to imagine what it would have been like (coming direct from Burg Eltz helped with that). Rhinefels is huge and impressive. It is much more spread out than Burg Eltz (which grew up). It was raining when we were there, we would have stayed a LONG time if it had been sunny.

The pictures say it much better than my words do.

Once in Bingen, we walked through the festival, checking out the various merchants. There was a little bit of a wine festival, and we tried (and bought) a number of bottles, including a Bingen Ehrenfelsen Auslese and an Ehrenfelser Eiswein, some for Mike and some for us. We also got some Beerenauslese. Then we settled at what looked like a good spot and waited for the illuminated boat parade.

We waited, and waited. Then got some dinner at the stands at the festival, and some more wine. We continued waiting, and watching the dusk fall. Dusk falls very late in Germany in July. By 10:00 dusk had settled pretty well, but nothing had happened. Normally staying at a hostel we would need to be back by midnight or so, but the folks at Stahlek had told us they were not watching time because of the festival. While we waited Mark chatted with a German gentleman, exercising his language skills (since the gentleman did not speak English).

By about 10:20 we began seeing lights around the turn of the Rhine, just downstream from where we were, and within 10 minutes the illuminated ships came into view and the fireworks started, which illuminated both the two castles we could see as well as Burg Klopp, which we could not see well. It was lots of fun. We left our seats as the grand finale began and as we walked to the car we managed to see the end of the grand finale over Burg Klopp and to get out of Bingen ahead of the crush of traffic.

We visited the town of Bingen in Germany for the Rhine in Flammen Festival (see separate entry). We drove to Bingen, parked and then walked and hung out along the Rhine river, where the festival is.

Bingen has at least three castles, including Casle Klopp. It is the south end of the Rhine Gorge area, and is a very active wine town.