Chapter 3

Wednesday, Thursday, Friday

Nov 1, 2, 3

Bernkastel, Cochan, and Rudesheim

OK, before we get started on this chapter, let’s take another look at the map so we know where the AmaPrima will be for the next couple of days.  We started in Trier and we will first visit Bernkasel, then Cochem, Rudesheim, and will end this chapter in Mainz

Wednesday, Nov 1: Bernkastel, Germany

After a decent night’s sleep and a good first breakfast on the AmaPrima, we enjoyed the scenery passing by us for a while.  The steep vineyards on the hillsides along the river were somewhat amazing: I was just glad that I did not have to tend to those vines.

The vineyards were almost continuous along this part of the Mosell.

Every couple of miles there would be a small town, typically with one or two churches, along the riverbanks.  This was starting off as a good day, weatherwise, so we spent a little time up on the upper observation deck, watching the world go by.

A typical small riverside town

We soon arrived at our destination for the day, the small city of Bernkastle.  We tied up to a dock a short distance from town and a couple of busses were waiting to take us to our destinations.  Some people would be going back to Trier to tour what is considered the oldest town in Germany.   In our case, we were going to the town of Bernkastle, hiking up to an old castle/fortress, then coming back for a wine tasting.  The bus let us off close to the river and about in the middle of town where we met our guide for the morning and followed him toward the castle.

Walking along the main street of Bernkastle

The road to the Landshut Castle wound through some vineyards and went up at a pretty good angle.

This was about half-way up the hill.

The castle has been restored to something similar to the newer version of it built in 1276.  I say “newer” because the remains of an earlier version of it have been found, probably dating back to about 500 AD.  The construction of the towers of the castle are unusual for this region and suggest some involvement of Roman designers or builders.

Inside the walls of the castle/fortress

One of the best things about the castle was the view it offered of the Moselle valley in the vicinity.  Although this is called a castle, it occupied a strategic position along the river and could also be considered a fortress.

The view of the Moselle valley

After enjoying the view for a while, we headed back down to the town via a shorter, steeper walkway through some of those vineyards.  When we got back to the main part of the town, we took a short walk, including passing by the narrowest house in the town (according to our guide). 

The narrowest house in the town

Houses were sometimes built like this to minimize the taxes the owner had to pay.  Taxes were calculated based on the square footage of the ground floor, so the smaller the ground floor, the less taxes to be paid.  I’m not sure I’d be real comfortable sleeping on the top floor.

We soon got to the winery and tasting room where we would have our first comprehensive taste of the dominate German wines, primarily Riesling.  At this tasting and others that followed, the host made the point that not all, or even most, Rieslings were sweet and that most German wine drinkers preferred dry Rieslings.  My thought after this, and other, tastings was that they have a somewhat different definition of “dry” than I do because their “dry Rieslings” still seemed just a bit sweet to my taste.

The tasting room was rather unique in that it was in a cave that had been enlarged and lined with bricks.  It has been in use for storing and drinking wine for over 300 years.

Not your typical tasting room

After the tasting, we again walked through part of the town, heading back to where we were to meet our bus. 

Downtown Bernkastle

We had to wait a little while for everyone to show up at the bus, so I got a panoramic video of the area, including a view of the castle from river level at the end of the video.

By the time we got back to the boat, it was time for a slightly late lunch, then an afternoon of watching the scenery pass by us.  Dinner was in the main restaurant followed by some cognac in the lounge listening to the entertainment duo “Take-two”.

Thursday, Nov. 2: Cochan, Germany

Today we spent the morning drifting down the Mosell River, heading for the town of Cocham.  I say “drifting” because we were going down-stream and the river was flowing fast enough I think the boat’s motors were running only enough to ensure proper rudder control. There were vineyards everywhere, on both sides of the river, but mostly on the northern side.  This is the preferred side because at this latitude, the vines need all the sun they can get and the south-facing banks get more sun than the flatter fields.

Passing town of Bremm, with very steep vineyards

Along this section of the Moselle are some of the steepest vineyards in the world.  Mechanical tools cannot operate on this steep ground, so all tending, maintenance, and harvesting of the vines has to be done by hand.  This video of the vineyards around the town of Bremm might give you a better idea of just how steep they are.

Most of these vineyards are of Riesling, by far the dominate grape variety in Germany.  About 90% of the wine made in Germany is white wine, and Riesling makes up 80% of that.   

More of those steepest vineyards

They put vineyards in places that I would think only a mountain goat could get to.

While we were having lunch on the AmaPrima, the boat tied up to a dock in the town of Cochan, another seemingly typical river town, with vineyards in all directions.  We had signed up for a hike to Reichsburg Castle, overlooking the town.

Town of Cochem with Reichsburg Castle in distance

We saw the castle from the boat and assumed that is where we would be walking to this day.  Our guide met us just off the dock and the 12 of us followed after him.  I will mention here that for almost all the excursions, we used radio devices to hear the guide.  He had a microphone and we could hear him in our earpieces.  They did not always work perfectly, but were certainly better than trying to hear some of the soft-spoken guides. 

Our boat was docked on the opposite side of the river, so we crossed over a bridge, then walked through the middle of Cochen, along its main pedestrian street and into the town square.

Walking through Cochem’s town square

The square seemed about typical for towns like this: a fountain and statue in the middle, with shops and restaurants around the edges of the square.  Once through the square, we took a narrow walkway and started climbing stairs, passing through one of the original four gates in the city walls.

One of 4 gates in the old city walls

Once through the gate, we were in more of a old suburban or garden type area where we also had a good view of the castle.  There was also a small cemetery here, which provided an interesting view of the castle.

Reichsburg Castle, from the well-maintained cemetery

There was a small road winding up to the castle and it was a pleasant uphill walk with the only problem being the necessity to dodge a couple of cars passing by.  As we got close to the entrance to the castle, we had nice views of the town and river below us.

View of Cochem from castle entrance

We would have a different guide to show us around the castle itself and we had to wait a few minutes for that guide to become available.  While we were waiting, we did find the castle’s guard cat.  He appeared to be on duty though, and did not really seem to want our attention as he went about his duties.

The castle guard cat was on duty.

Unlike our trip to Greece and Turkey early this year, we saw very few (only 2 or 3) cats on this trip, although one of our guides said that many of the residents in Germany have dogs and/or cats.  I guess they must be mostly indoor cats, which is probably a good idea considering the winter weather around here.

A rather ornate exterior: more castle than fortress

With our castle guide available we started the tour, first going around some of the exterior.  Although this building is called a castle and it did have plenty of facilities for the owners to live there, it also occurred to me that, in times of danger, it would also make a very effective fortress to protect the owners and many of the people who lived in the town.

One of the first interior stops was the main dining room.  Although it is large and ornate, I kept wondering just how they would have been able to keep it warm in winter.

Main dining room

This castle was a residence, but it was also a place for doing business so it had an “office” with a conference table and other comfortable seats for meetings.

The office, for doing business

There were, of course, many other interesting rooms and “mementoes”, such as the carved front end of a chicken with a large pair of elk antlers making up the rear end.  I never did figure that one out.  It now reminds me of the up-side down horse in…. wait, I’m getting ahead of myself: that comes later.

On the outside of the buildings was a well where water could be drawn from about 50 meters below ground level.  What is interesting about this is that the castle is on a hill that is almost 300 meters above the water level of the river.  We did have more good views of the town of Cochem and the river valley.  In the photo below, the AmaPrima is docked just beyond the bridge, on the other side of the river.

Leaving the castle, another view of the town

As we walked back through the town, our guide led us through the largest church.  It was a good size church for the size of the town, but the feature that was the most interesting was the stained glass windows.  It was not done in the normal “pieces of broken glass” manner, but looked like the color had somehow been flowed through the glass.  I had never seen anything quite like this.

Unusual stained glass windows in church

After the church, our guide had one more interesting feature of the town to show us: the town history.

Our guide and a pictorial history of the town

Some artists and historians had gotten together to create a pictorial history of the town on the wall of an old watch tower.  The events were not exactly in a time-linear format, but somewhat skipped around; if you knew how to read it, you could see the whole 1500 year history of the town.  The earliest date I could find on the wall was for the year 866, apparently when the town was officially founded.  After this, our guide pointed out the way back to the AmaPrima and we thanked him for an interesting tour of his town.

By the time we got back to the boat, it was time to get cleaned up and ready for the afternoon “Sip and Sail”, the complimentary “cocktail hour”, and then Marcia’s information session to tell us what will be happening the next day.  This evening we had reservations at the “special” restaurant, the Chef’s Table.  The food and service was a notch above the main restaurant, but this is where I decided that the presentation/plating of the food seemed to be more important than the taste.  The food was good, just nothing unusual or notable.

The Chef’s Table restaurant

Friday,  Nov. 3: Rudesheim, Germany

When we got up and had breakfast this morning, we were now on a different river.  During the night and early morning we had continued down the Moselle to the city of Koblenz where the Moselle joins into the Rhine.  At the joining of the rivers, we had made a right (starboard) turn and headed upstream, against the current now, on the Rhine.  This section of the Rhine is supposed to have the best castles and fortresses of the entire Rhine, or at least that is what Marcia told us.  Today we would spend the morning working our way upstream looking at the castles on both sides of the river.  Shortly after noon, we would stop at Rudesheim where most of the passengers would get off and head out on our excursions.  The AmaPrima would then continue upstream to the city of Mainz, where it would wait for us to arrive via bus.

For much of the morning, Marcia narrated our journey through the land of castles, giving us the names and a little history of many of them.  I will not even attempt to include all that information, instead I am just going to include a lot of photos and perhaps throw in a few comments. 

Two castles on a ridge: I hope the owners were friends.

As we were watching the landscape slide by, we noticed a small flock of white sheep on an hillside.  This was a bit unusual as we had not seen many sheep at all.  Then I noticed a train coming from the left and thought that might make a good photo.  About that time, I realized that there was also a different train coming from the right.  The trains were moving pretty fast and I doubted that they would time it right to get everything in the photo, but, well, take a look below.

Two trains and a flock of sheep

Looks like a very large castle and fortress combined

A very pretty castle above a picturesque town

The next photo deserves some information.  This is the Lorelei Rock.  There is a legend about the Lorelei and a siren who sang and lured rivermen to destruction along the riverbanks.  As with many legends, there is some truth to this one.  This is a very dangerous part of the Rhine River, with steep banks, a narrow river causing a fast current, and several sharp bends in the river over a short distance. 

Passing the Lorelei Rock and entering the sharp curves

Because of the limited sight distance, boatmen in the river sometimes cannot see oncoming boat traffic in time to maneuver through the strong currents and get out of each other’s way.  Germany has installed electronic aids with RADAR, motion detectors, signal lights and other aids, so that the boat captains now know if there is any oncoming traffic and where it is.  For better or worse, no one hears the Lorelei siren any longer.

Continuing with the Castles of the Rhine:

Brightly painted church with castle in the distance

We’ll take a brief break from the photos for a short video of interest.  Things to look for in this video include two castles (one on the hill, one next to the river), more steep vineyards, and, again, two trains passing in opposite directions.

Those two castles and the vineyards

Churches and castles seem to go together.

Castles and vineyards also seem to go together.

More castles and vineyards

OK, enough of the castles (for now); time to taste some wine.

After lunch on board AmaPrima, we piled out of the boat and loaded onto another little “train”, similar to the one that we rode in Paris to Montartre.  It took us through the old part of town (like many European towns, there is an “old town” and a “new town”) and saved us probably a mile of walking and 100 feet of vertical climbing.  The train could not take us all the way, so we walked another half mile or so through the narrow pedestrian streets to meet our guide and winemaker.

Typical pedestrian highway in Rudesheim

The plan was for us to alternate walking through the vineyards and drinking (tasting) wine.  (We have a friend who says “I don’t taste wine, I drink wine.”)  The winemaker led us through the vineyards until we got to the first stop in the vineyards and tasted a wine while enjoying the surroundings.

The start of our “drink and walk” tour and tasting

We went through several cycles of this “walk a while and drink a little” process, each time getting a little higher (elevation wise) in the vineyard.

From this tasting area we had a nice view of the vineyard, town, and river.

At the last tasting stop, the winemaker and his assistant offered the wines we had tasted (and others) for purchase.  They could not ship them to the US so we would have to carry any purchases the rest of the way on our trip and then back home: they were not that great.

The wines available for purchase

After the end of the vineyard hike and tasting, we all ambled back to meet the other people from the boat who had taken other excursions.  The meeting point was actually one of the major attractions in Rudesheim, “Siegfried’s Mechanical Music Museum”.  Think of a player piano and imagine other mechanical musical instruments many times more complex and you would have an idea of some of the machines in the museum.  We were not on the tour that visited the inside of the museum, but we did hear comments from several people who were.

Outside the Siegfried’s Mechanical Music Museum

Marcia said we would be walking to the bus parking area in a little while and we had seen where the busses were parked, so we got a head start and headed in that direction.  We also got a comfortable bus seat to sit in, rather than standing around in the museum’s cool courtyard.

On the bus, we had about an hour’s ride to get to the AmaPrima which was waiting for us in Mainz.  As soon as everyone was aboard and accounted for, we left Mainz and quickly also left the Rhine River, entering the Main River.  We had been on the Rhine for less than 24 hours but had seen quite a few castles.  The rest of the day was the usual sequence of the “Sip and Sail” happy hour, informational meeting, dinner in the main restaurant, and listening to the “Take Two” duo in the lounge with a glass of cognac.

End of Chapter 3: 

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