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It was the first day of our trip in Germany and we had just left the small town of Bernkastel-kues. From there we continued our drive through the Mosel Valley for about an hour until we came to our next destination of our trip - Cochem.
Upon our arrival one of the first things that we noticed was the amount of people in town. The town was packed and people were everywhere. I'm guessing that it had something to do with the time of the year. Many places in Europe seem to be the most busy in the months of July and August and Cochem appeared to be one of those places. There were also a lot of river boat cruises in the Mosel valley at that time and perhaps we happened to be there when several of them were stopped there as well?
With all of the people in the streets and restaurants the town felt very touristy and not surprisingly it was a major struggle to find a parking spot. We did manage to find one though. It just happened to be on the opposite end of town from our hotel. On a positive note, someone had forgotten to grab their change from the parking meter we used so we were actually able to use the change left in the machine to pay for our parking. Such luck!
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The first thing that we did after getting situated in our hotel was hike up the hill to see Reichsburg castle, one of the main attraction in the city.
The castle has a pretty interesting history that dates back to the year 1000 when the castle was first built. For instance in 1689 the French King - Louis the XIV, set the castle on fire and nearly destroyed the entire town of Cochem. The castle sat in ruins until 1868 when a wealthy business man from Berlin bought the property and began restoring it back to its original glory. Once completed he used the castle as his Family's summer residence. Apparently, buying castle ruins and renovating them into summer homes was a major trend in the country for wealthy nobles of that time.
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The castle itself sits on top of a medium sized hill and the walk up is short and relatively easy. I would say that it took us about 15 minutes at most. We basically just walked up a few medium sized staircases and through the streets of a residential part of town. Signs posted along the way pointed us in the right direction and before we knew it we were there.
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There is also another more scenic path on the opposite side of the hill. It takes you through a woodsy area and then through the old city gate. I recommend taking that path as it has a much nicer view of the Mosel river. Or do both, like we did.
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As mentioned in my last post, the Mosel valley is known for its Reisling wine and to a slightly lesser degree its Pinot Noir. Vineyards not only dot the landscape around the town of Cochem but also completely surround the castle itself.
Here in Cochem we had our first taste of Mosel Riesling, and then we had a few more tastes after that.
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I never really liked Riesling back home. I always found it to be way too sweet - almost sickly so. But I didn't find that to be the case in the Mosel Valley. There they produce wines that are sweet, semi-sweet and also dry, so you have options to suit your individual taste buds.
In Cochem I learned that I prefer a semi-sweet wine because I generally find it to me more full bodied without being overly sugary.
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Lately, we haven't been going into any of the castles that we have been visiting. Maybe we are all castled out, if that's possible? We didn't go into this one either but it did look really cool from the outside and online pictures of the interior look pretty cool as well. I bet @wulff-media has some cool photos of the interior and the courtyard - maybe he is willing to share them in the comments?
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After walking through the main gate you come to a large terrace with an excellent view of the city. There is also a large restaurant directly attached to the castle and a small gift shop. My wife bought a nice canvas tote bag from the gift shop. She collects them in our travels. We have found that they are super handy to have for day trips and that they're great to re-use for groceries.
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Below is a view of the river and the town from Reichsburg terrace.
At first I thought that the statue was of a frog wearing a crown but now I think it might be a man wearing a knights helmet? Personally, I kind of prefer it being a frog.
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At night, or even during the day, it is worth walking across the bridge to view the city from the other side of the river bank. The castle is lit up at night and its pretty cool seeing it loom over the city and dominate the landscape. You really need a better camera then the smart phone that I'm using though if you want to get a good photo at that hour.
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I won't say that it was strange but one thing that was very different about Cochem was that none of the places in town accepted credit card. Every place that we ate at or bought something from (besides our hotel) only accepted cash. We found that slightly odd because no other town on our trip was like that. It wasn't a big deal or anything, just something to keep in mind if you travel there. We hate carrying around cash so it was a challenge for us.
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That’s it for Cochem. The next stop on our trip was Rudesheim am Rhein. Thanks for Reading
If you are interested in reading more about our trip I will be posting about it over the next few days. For the previous post click the link below.
Sorry, I would love to oblige with the photos, but this castle is too inaccessible to me :-( and I don't have old photos of it.
Nice report, as usual.
Oh sorry, I guess I always just assume that you've been everywhere because you usually have good tips or useful or interesting info related to most of the sites I've been. Thats the problem with assumptions though.
I have been to a few places, but I'm still quite far away from "everywhere" ;-) Cochem is a day trip for me, just not the castle. The last mile is a bitch. Did find a photo, though ;-)
Looks like you're on a boat, or maybe its the bridge? Cool spot. Looks like you had good weather that day.
I took one of those river cruises out of Cochem. Less walking. Went to Beilstein, a village with yet another castle you can only reach on foot. Germany thinks that most of her attractions should only be accessible to healthy people who in turn don't want to be inconvenienced by the noisy conveyances us lesser people rely on.
Unfortunately inaccessibility is a major problem at a lot of places. Definitly in France as well and I'm sure any historical old town. Even just the cobble stone streets can be challenging to walk on for anyone, I've rolled my ankle a few times now and wheel chairs are probably out of the question entirely in a lot of cases. That is one thing that Canada is good for. All builings have to be accessible by mandate. But thats a much easier thing to do in a country where everything is new and the oldest buildings are like 50-60 years old if that.
Two examples. The first one is a minor castle in France (Château de Malbrouck). See how close the ample parking is to the castle? A bit steep, but doable in a wheelchair. Naturally, a wheelchair-boud person can't roam the ramparts, but at least they can enjoy the ambience inside the castle:
This one is a major historic site in Germany, the Trifels Imperial Castle. You can't even see the parking lot in this drone shot - it's below the forest / below the photo, and people have to hike up the damn rock, a challenge even for young, healthy individuals. And yes, I assure you, there is a service road all the way up the rock, and there would be room enough at least for handicap parking:
I'm not complaining about that, since the historic architecture is what it is. I don't expect historic building substance to be ruined so I can gawk. What gets to me is, I can't even get close in many instances, and I'm not in a wheelchair yet.
There are perfectly good service roads almost everywhere, but they're barred and one gets ticketed if one uses them anyway. Or your vehicle is in danger of towing if you park close. They really expect everyone to hike from parking lots that are unneccessarily far away, sometimes as much as 1/2 hour. You've seen this countless times and you know what I'm talking about.
In the case of Cochem they could at least have an occasional bus go up there, or a taxi stand nearby (taxis are or can be part of public transportation in Germany). Even the tiniest castle has enough room for one or two handicap parking spots in front of the main entrance. They just don't want to do it.
BTW, to this day there are restaurants with the bathrooms in the f.cking basement (stairs only)! My mom, whom we take along on our short trips, is wheelchair bound. Always an unneccessary problem. Apparently, I should just unload her in a retirement home, where she can stare into a TV screen until she dies. Can you tell I'm angry about this? You know why? Because I used to pay A LOT of taxes to finance all kinds of politicians' "social" pet peeves. C'mon, at least gimme a little something back!
Yes, I know this from my years in the States where they have similar policies. Europe is slowly waking up to this, but Germany should be leading, not trailing, in these efforts. For a major automobile nation, they sure take a lot of effort to make driving as inconvenient as possible.
I like how the beautiful architecture is sprawled out like that, working so well with the landscape and the vineyards. And when you mentioned Mosel Riesling, I'm up for that. I wonder how many castles have you visited prior in order to get "castled out?" 😊
Yes, the towns seem to follow the river banks which is neat. We have seen quite a few castles now. Including the castle ruins, we have probably see close to 20 or more now, that we've gone into. A lot of the insides tend to be very similar with a few exceptions that really stand out.
Wow, 20! I personally adore visiting castles but yes I think after 20, the exterior would sometimes suffice. Congrats on the mentions by the way. Have a lovely weekend!
Thanks, you as well.
Nice work @tipu curate
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Thanks. I appreciate it!
There’s just something about the European atmosphere that fascinates me! You can experience it in their architecture, people and surroundings. And Cochem has that magic in the air. The Reichsburg castle caught my eye! Is it still a private summer residence until now?
I agree that European countries have their own atmosphere and many countries have their own unique feeling about them. For instance, Germany feels quite different than France to me, same with the Netherlands and Switzerland. Thats what makes traveling in Europe so interesting.
No, the castle is no longer a summer residence. It was bought by the city of Cochem in the 70s.
Yes I agree. Each European city or place has their own interesting allure. Beauty is indeed in the eyes of the beholder...😁
Thanks a lot for showing us around Cochem. I’ll definitely take note of that castle in future travels! 👍
If you like castles, the Mosel valley is full of them. One day while driving between locations I swear we passed something like 8-12 castles of various sizes. Burg Eltz is in that area as well. We didn't go but the photos online look pretty awesome.
Wow, so many castles! Isn’t that amazing? The last time I was in Europe, we only drove by the castles without really taking the time to explore them individually. Given the chance to go back, I’ll include these remarkable buildings on my bucket list and prioritize them. Cheers! 😁
Yeah, there are so many in Europe. Its crazy. We don't have castles in Canada so I think they are really cool when we see them. But You really can't see them all, theres too many and some are much better than others so you really have to pick and choose which you spend time at.
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