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.
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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 see your point. That is really shitty. And with that much property and that many trees I'm sure they could easily put in a few spots without disturbing the natural beauty of the property, in the slightest. Something could be done for sure
Exactly.
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.
Yeah I see your point on all those things. There is always a work around that could be done to make a place more accessible, but often those things are not done. That would be very frustrating. Especially the bathrooms of all things. You're right, they are often in basements or on a 2nd or 3rd floor even. I never thought of that but its a good point. It shouldn't be too hard to put a bathroom on a main floor, especially considering how small bathrooms tend to be in Europe hahaha.