Anyone else have a bad time at Burg Eltz?

You may have been there on a bad day. I haven't heard of anyone else having a similar experience, and everything went well the one time I visited. It sounds like either something broke down in the usual management of the site, or it was particularly crowded when you visited or a combination of both.

One caveat to always keep in mind- if a certain travel author with an almost religious following recommends a site above all other similar examples, I would go with the full expectation of heavy crowds. Allow for a pleasent surprise if it isn't packed, but don't rely on it.

"My wife and I had a horrible time at Burg Eltz. We were not given an option for an English tour but were instructed to pick up an English pamphlet for the tour.... You might want to expect to not get an English tour at Burg Eltz, and if that matters to you to skip it. There isn't any indication that English tours are available or who to ask to be in an English group."

The Burg Eltz website is also very non-specific about whether/when English tours might be available. It says this: "Foreign visitors who cannot attend a tour in their own language receive a free translation in Chinese, English, French, Italian, Japanese, Dutch, Portuguese, Russian or Spanish." This implies that, if such non-German tours are offered at all, speakers of other languages should NOT expect tours in their language at whatever time and on whatever day they choose to visit. It sounds to me like with the pamphlet you were given, Burg Eltz made good on its website promise on the day of your visit.

The website also says, "For further information (about tours in other languages) please enquire at the Ticket Sales Desk or in the castellan’s office (upper courtyard)." This statement doesn't promise an English tour - it just tells you to ask about that possibility. I suspect that if enough English-speaking folks show up at the same time and actually DO ask for a tour in English, they might get one. It sounds like at some point during your visit, you did indicate that you didn't understand German. So my guess is that as Anglophones, you were either alone, or there were only 1 or 2 others (your report doesn't mention any others,) and they needed more Anglophones to offer an English tour. It's also possible that no additional English-speaking guide was on hand that day anyway; in the off-season or on weekdays, there may be very little demand for English tours, and they may just rely on pamphlets to accommodate speakers of other languages... which doesn't seem wrong to me since they don't promise foreign-language tours.

So I think it's possible that your expectations and your disappointment were fueled by anecdotes from posters at Rick Steves and/or Tripadvisor rather than on the actual offering from Burg Eltz at their website. While boards like this are generally helpful, they must be read in light of their limitations, the main one being that readers' stories and generalizations are anecdotal and often inaccurate.

I'm a little surprised even so that your experience was "horrible." The interiors there are stunning, no matter the tour language.

I'm really sorry to hear you had a bad experience, but in probably 8-10 visits there I never was disappointed. (We lived only about an hour and a half away, so it was an easy place to take visitors.) Usually if we arrived when no English tours were planned, they still would offer to do one when we asked, if we could round up a group. (That used to be fairly easy; just looked for ball caps and white Nikes.) A few times when no more Englishers were to be found, I have been on a German tour with the English handout, but even then the guide would answer questions in English, and the interiors still were interesting.
Because I've always been there with a car, I've never walked up from Moselkern, but I love the little unmarked path from behind the parking lot which meanders through the woods down to the castle and often has no one else on it. Always surprised that little gem has never made in into the RS book,

Sorry to hear this. We loved our visit to Burg Eltz. We visited on a misty late morning in mid October and there were no crowds at all. In fact, maybe 20 or so people total. We took a German language tour, but the guide filled us in a bit in English. We had a car and didn't do the walk there. The entire experience was the best castle visit we've had. Sorry it didn't go the same for you.

Hi Russ,

I respect the website might have said somethings that were overlooked. However, don't you see how broken a system it is when I have to rely on the website, that I might have not seen, in order to discover how to even enquire into English tours? As a customer if you see that I'm speaking English you should talk to me about English tours. I shouldn't have to look at your website and I shouldn't have to ask. That's just poor customer service--period. The assumption should be, this English speaker want's an English tour and there should be some accommodation for that in situations like this. Either offer the English tours in an obvious and orderly fashion, or don't offer them at all. This surreptitious nonsense with English tours in addition to the horrible organization with the queue speaks to me fairly poorly of the organization running the tour portion of the estate.

Also, the interiors were nice, but the experience was seriously soured by the mob-queue out front. The wife and I whispered each other pointing out things that were cool but I feel like the oral tour adds about 50% to the experience, and the pamphlet maybe only added 10%. I've been to residences that have beautiful interiors elsewhere, and have been to castles that were a much more rewarding experience elsewhere.

I'm glad that not everyone of you have had a similar experience. If you look at the negative TripAdvisor reviews our experience is not without precedent. Not everyone had the exact same bad experience but bad experiences in the same vein have been reported on. I hope this doesn't count as plugging a site as I'm not trying to do that, just trying to point to the fact that my experience was not wholly unique. And yes I know there are way more good reviews than poor ones there.

Thanks for all your replies.

I visited Burg Eltz several years ago so my impressions are dated but I find the comments on this post interesting.

We only have visited Burg Eltz once over the years and probably won't return. We were there in late Spring and were not given the option of joining an English language tour. We were given a photocopy of a printed sheet in English and a very grumpy guide. My German is ok for tours so we had little problem understanding our guide but some of the gloss was taken off by her regular shouting at people who had the gall to try to sneak a photo. No photos allowed. She was quite emphatic about this (think of the guards in the Sistine Chapel).

It was a nice place, don't get me wrong. But we have never made any effort to return. The attitude of the guide and others in authority was not pleasant. Before you ask, no, it was not me that she yelled at.

We toured Burg Eltz 10-15 years ago. As I remember, it was quite a walk through the woods from where we parked and there were no English tours. So we didn't do the interior... Didn't think it would compare with Versailles or Herrenchiemsee. We stuck with the outside which was OK but I wouldn't go out of my way to return. Just another personal input on visiting Berg Eltz...

"As a customer if you see that I'm speaking English you should talk to me about English tours. I shouldn't have to look at your website and I shouldn't have to ask. That's just poor customer service--period... The assumption should be, this English speaker want's an English tour and there should be some accommodation for that... I feel like the oral tour adds about 50% to the experience, and the pamphlet maybe only added 10%."

I totally understand the value of getting a tour in one's own language. And the Eltz website is indeed vague about the availability of foreign-language tours - no question that this could improve. It's just that, if foreign-language tours are not clearly promised in their website and promotional materials - and if these sources indeed warn readers that they may end up on a German tour with a pamphlet in their native language - then it's important to consult the website in question so that you know all this before arriving - and to choose a castle tour that meets your expectations in the first place (like Marksburg, perhaps, whose website specifies hours for tours in English.) Discussion boards alone are just not reliable sources if visitors are to be informed and show up with realistic expectations. Nor can anyone expect guidebooks to get details right. Rick's pages on Eltz and Marksburg are unclear and inaccurate as well (although he does wisely warn potential Eltz visitors to call ahead for English tours in the shoulder season.)

In the absence of specific promises about foreign language tours... should such tours really be offered whenever a non-German-speaker shows up? That could mean 4 separate tours if 1 Dutchman, 2 Italians, and 2 Canadians turned up with 30 German-speakers. And should personnel need to explain - in the language of each visitor, whether Chinese, French, or Russian - the absence of tours that were never promised? I'm trying to imagine which family-operated attraction here in the USA would be able to chat with visitors in any of these languages, and I'm coming up blank; offering a foreign visitor a pamphlet in their own language would probably be more than anyone could expect here.

As a customer if you see that I'm speaking English you should talk to me about English tours. I shouldn't have to look at your website and I shouldn't have to ask. That's just poor customer service--period. The assumption should be, this English speaker want's an English tour and there should be some accommodation for that in situations like this.

So, balaamsdonkey, you don't say in your profile where you are from, so I will assume some country in which English is a primary language.

If 4 Italians turned up tomorrow at the museum in or near your home town would the person behind the counter note that these people are speaking Italian and offer them a tour in Italian or even note on their website that no tours were available in Italian? What if they were Greek?

I understand your frustration but having a printed sheet in your language isn't as bad as no tour.

Like Nigel, I'm finding a lot of interesting comments here. Like Nigel's.

"but some of the gloss was taken off by her regular shouting at people who had the gall to try to sneak a photo. No photos allowed. She was quite emphatic about this (think of the guards in the Sistine Chapel)."

IME there has always been an emphatic response from guides, in Germany anyway, whenever guests tried to use cameras after being told not to. And EVERYONE got the message, loud and clear. Swift, firm, and effective public slap-downs like this have come to be seen as rude and unnecessary in my culture... and we are now a bunch of rude folks who ignore rules or consider our personal interests more important than those of others.

And Kenneth's.

"...we didn't do the (Burg Eltz) interior... Didn't think it would compare with Versailles or Herrenchiemsee."

I think there's a tendency to compare such incredibly different, incomparable structures mostly because we tend to wrongly label all of them "castles." Eltz Castle was built in the 12th century for a totally different purpose (and under totally different historical circumstances) than the latter structures (which are not castles at all but residential palaces and were built 500-700 years later. )

I take a different view on the issue of language tours. Not every language can be accomodated each and every time. Should the tour be given in Italian, or Russian or Spanish? What about the Japanese tourists who show up or the Mandarin Chinese? Admittedly, I haven't been to Burg Eltz...yet.

A comparable comparision might be Burg Eltz and Sigmaringen as regards to language tours. I saw Sigmaringen the second and last time in the summer of 2009. The guide asked if we wanted the tour in Geman or English as obviously some participants were not German. We all voted for German. At least, he asked. In 1971 I went to Sigmaringen for the first time, stayed at the hostel there, and took the guided tour. At that occasion the young woman guide didn't bother asking if we wanted English or German spoken on the tour. It was expected that the tour would be conducted in German only..

Hi Russ,

This post was mostly a word of warning. I don't want others to make the same mistakes I made. My main source for information on Europe when traveling, and this clearly in this case has been to my determent (though even if I did read their website more carefully my confidence in Rick Steves' has been such that I would probably have just assumed English tours would be at least referenced), has been from Rick Steves' resources (books and TV Show). Like I said in my initial post, his material had yet to steer me wrong, and his material (at least in his 2013 Germany book if someone has the 2014 and it says something differently then crow shall be consumed by me) only said that they offer English tours. No such tours were offered. that was just my experience.

I'm struggling to buy into your scenario. Obviously you can't have a different tour for different languages. But there should be a system in place to accommodate the third largest native speaking language on the planet (1). That doesn't even include the millions of Europeans whose native tongue is not English that have learned English for one reason or another (primarily Western Europe) that would also be accommodated in this. In fact there is a better chance than not that every person in your scenario speaks English (2). it's easier to at last actively offer, even if it isn't a super smooth and easy process, a tour in a language that the majority of people are likely to understand, then not speak of it or inform the customer that there likely won't be one when there is clear precedent for them having existed in the past.

My main issue with the place is how disorganized it all is. I was put off before it became clear I would be in a German language tour. It would seem intelligent to have a reservation system like many museums have. One where you call or contact ahead and the company running the tour groups people together at the same time, or has their tour at the same time.

This is what the "line" was like from the end. And later in the day it did get worse. I think I saw it spilling outside of the courtyard into the walkway that is exposed to the sun. http://imgur.com/gU9OejR

Here is the line from the point of view of just going into the tour: http://imgur.com/gU9OejR,20oiPw0#1

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers

Nigel,

Not to be pedantic but the museums in my town are tiny because I live in a town of less than 100k, so not many Italians or Greeks are traveling there as tourists. If they are they are going to do something in the mountains or state/national parks where there are few places where other languages are needed but I believe maps are provided in multiple languages.

Anyway, you can't compare Italian and Greek to English. There is probably significantly more people in Europe that speak English as their native or as a second language than Greek and Italian combined. That's not to discredit those languages. I took a year of Attic Greek in college and would love to learn Italian, but your argument falls flat with knowing how much of the world speaks English. I think if the company running the tours did a little market research on who comes to their castle, and spent some time making their processes more clear, and fluid then problems like this wouldn't arise.

I didn't have a bad time but I'd say the castle and tour (I didn't wait for English, just took the first tour) were just okay. I've seen much better castles and had much better tours. The easy hike to the castle and back to Moselkern, along a stream in a forest, were the highlight of the experience for me. Without the hike, I wouldn't go too far out of my way to see Burg Eltz.

When I went (late September) the crowds were very reasonable and the weather ideal. I enjoy traveling outside of high season so much more, I'm surprised it doesn't cost extra.

It was a mob scene when we were there summer 2013, but we managed to elbow our way into a previously announced and scheduled English speaking tour. I think we were numbers 29 and 30 through the door. Since no timed-tour tickets were given to anyone, English speakers who had been waiting in the courtyard for the English-speaking tour were left behind, while some non-English speakers were very upset and arguing with the guide when they found themselves inside the castle on an English speaking tour. I agree that organization was not a priority for this privately owned castle. Once the ticket is sold, you are on your own to get a tour that fits a language you understand. The op has valid points IMHO. I liked the hike up and looking at the outside the best. I also appreciated the interior of the castle in Cochem more.

Edit: I just saw the photos and that's how the courtyard looked the day we were there.

We were there 10 days ago. Hiked up the trail (I live in CO and expect spectacular hikes) and were included in the English tour soon after we arrived. The interior was wonderful and we thought it was well organized. Just adding my experience to the discussion.

We were there 10 days ago. Hiked up the trail (I live in CO and expect spectacular hikes) and were included in the English tour soon after we arrived. The interior was wonderful and we thought it was well organized. Just adding my experience to the discussion.

donkey,

I had no problems at all with my visit to Burg Eltz a few years ago, which took place in July. I arrived via road and took the Shuttle down the hill, so didn't have to contend with the hike through the woods. I'd have to check my notes, but as I recall I arrived at the right time to get an English-language tour.

I had a great time at Burg Eltz. True, the line was really long (it was August), but it was worth it. I think that one of the main things to be impressed by is that the castle has never been destroyed. And on the footpath, rounding the bend and catching your first glimpse of the castle--that view alone is worth the trip. On our day, they happened to be calling for English speakers periodically during our wait. We were able to hop quite a bit of line when we heard them start our English-language tour. That said, I don't think someone should have an expectation that a company should hear you speaking English and then bend over backwards to accommodate--you're in German-speaking Germany, not the US. You can't expect everyone to cater to English. If you go into your visit expecting English and it doesn't happen, your experience will automatically be tainted.

"That said, I don't think someone should have an expectation that a company should hear you speaking English and then bend over backwards to accommodate--you're in German-speaking Germany, not the US." That's a good point. In fact, many of the castles and palaces that offer guided tours in Germany do not have English-language options.

That is quite a photo in the link.

Luckily, it was nothing like that when we went a few years ago. Not a little ironically, maybe that was because they had scaffolding up and even this board was "warning off" people from the visit. I also use Rick's books avidly, but maybe his rabid enthusiasm (not too strong a statement, if I may say so ... ) for Burg Eltz may be a big factor in that awful photograph. I've posted before that I found the castle too modernized and too much a seat of a living family, rather than being like, say, the Wartburg, as I was expecting it to be.

We had a wonderful open-air lunch, served by busy but friendly German-only short-order cooks in the Burg Eltz cafe. It was a pleasant experience, overall. And we had paper translation-sheets at both Eltz and Wartburg. Remember to bring your reading glasses, Rick-Book-Buyers!

We made it an along-the-way car stop from hotels in Koblenz to a hotel in Mulheim. I wonder if the OP's dissatisfaction (which I'm not contradicting) is partly due to the common practice of making it a pilgrimage day-out from the Rhine, which raises expectations?

Sorry your experience was unpleasant. We had no problems at all. It was spring, perhaps May, and fairly crowded. We were told an English tour would be organized when enough people showed up, and they gave us an approximate time, maybe about 30 or 40 minutes. We had a coffee and wandered around until the tour began pretty close to the time they suggested. Everything was orderly. The young man who led our group was excellent. I'm always glad for an English speaking tour but have no expectation that the the people whose country I am visiting won't be speaking their own language. I just saw the pictures and it was nothing like that when we visited.

We toured Burg Eltz several years ago and the only bad part of the experience was the rain.

Having done my homework and gone to the Burg Eltz website, I knew there would not be a tour in English. However, we were given an English translation sheet but once inside our guide went out of her way to give us little tidbits in English and answered any of our questions in English as well.

I'm sorry you had a bad experience.

Dear Balaamsdonkey,

thank you for taking the time to write about your visit at Eltz Castle, and please let me start by apologizing that your expectations were not met. We try to provide a pleasant experience for all our guests and take all criticisms and critique to heart.

We try to provide foreign language tours whenever we can, mainly in English, but also French, Dutch and other languages. Usually, when you buy your tickets you are made aware that if you would like to have a tour in English, to please ring the doorbell in the courtyard. If at all possible, an English Tour is always offered.

The reason this did not happen is because the day you were there was the German Day of Re-Unification, and as it was on a Friday, it was also a long holiday weekend. It is always particularly busy day for us, but in combination with the long weekend and the good weather, it was the busiest day of the year so far. Because of this, for the third time this year, we stopped offering foreign language tours for a certain time (between 12:30 pm and 4 pm I believe) because it was logistically simply not possible to provide them.

There are two reason we do not use “timed” tickets (as you suggested on TripAdvisor) as some other places do. Firstly because it is highly unusual to wait for more than 20 minutes for a tour. This happens only on the big public holidays and sometimes on summer weekends, and even then only in the busiest time between 12 and 3 pm. Secondly, we find the idea of expiring tickets and losing your money if you for some reason get held up (which such a system would by necessity entail) to not be in line of our efforts to provide the most pleasant experience that we can. Especially as even with a system like that, on the few really busy days a year, it would unfortunately not reduce the waiting time for our guests.

Again I apologise that you did not have a good time at Eltz Castle. I sincerely hope that you may visit us again in the future and give us a chance to prove to you why Rick Steves and so many others consider us to be the best castle experience in Europe.

Yours sincerely

Jakob Eltz

Now I'm impressed. Balaam's donkey speaks? Not to imply that Herr Eltz is a donkey.

Wow, I'm impressed too! I've never seen a direct reply like that. Thank you Jakob!

I'm not impressed by his intervention.

I didn't have a bad time, nor was my visit ruined, but I wrote that it was a disorganized mob scene when I visited, too. It was neither a weekend nor a holiday during my visit, so that can't be an excuse. Furthermore, I contend that they should offer tickets with a tour time stamped on them, not necessarily advance purchase on line, but as people arrive during the day. Instead people were jockeying for position at the doorway to get onto a tour. Older people and those with children didn't stand a chance but were left to wait out in the courtyard as tour after tour went in. As I said, we had non-English speakers who had pushed their way inside on our tour, while the English speakers were left outside. I felt sorry for the lovely young people leading the groups.

I'm not impressed with his comments.

I expected you to say you saw an angel with a drawn sword standing in your path ;-) ......but that would only be slightly more terrifying than those photos. Wow! That's Neuschwanstein-like 8^0

Angels with drawn swords barring the path are at Mont St. Michel.

I don't know, but our pictures show what we found at Burg Eltz when we went in mid October... practically no one at all.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/pjbassplyr/sets/72157646843361106/

Paul

Reading that reply from Jacob gives me more incentive to visit Burg Eltz and take part in a tour the next time I am in the Middle Rhine area.

From Numbers 22:22-23:

"Balaam was riding on his donkey, and his two servants were with him. 23 When the donkey saw the angel of the Lord standing in the road with a drawn sword in his hand, it turned off the road into a field."

Then to paraphrase, the donkey saw that mob of people in the field and exclaimed, 'Heck, no! Let's find a Biergarten and hang there for the rest of the day and regroup, then move on to Rheinfels tomorrow'.

At least that's what I've heard...but you can't always trust a newfangled translation/paraphrase...

was that an iPhone paraphrase?

Nigel, that last bit may have been some especially wacky AutoCorrect ;-)

And just because I'm feeling generous (with thanks to Andrea for recommending the site), AutoCorrect yourselves silly. Be warned - this isn't always the cleanest of sites, but it's pretty funny.

My family and I have visited Burg Eltz a half dozen times over the past 40 years. We have enjoyed its rustic charm and have never felt rushed, hassled been treated rudely. I don't speak fluent German, but more conversational. That said, My wife doesn't understand a word of German, so we've always opted for the English language tours and have never been unable to get in on one nor waited longer than the 20-30 min stated.
Certainly "sneaking" pictures when one has been told not to do so invites admonishment.
BE has always been a great stop and when we are back in Germany, we will carve out a few hours to revisit.
Kudos to Jakob Eltz for addressing this and responding.

I prefer my King James edition, in which Balaam rides an ass, not a donkey.

The newer translations are so plain and boring, completely lacking in the beautiful language found in the King James Bible.

It definitely is a pain when the crowds overwhelm a sight, unfortunately it goes with the territory some times of the year at certain sights. Still, it seems they would have better crowd control procedures in place. I would personally prefer to visit without a guided tour, it just happens this one requires it. When we visited Burg Eltz in May 2006, it was not crowded at all and we did not have any problem getting an English tour. I would not have sweated the part about no English tour too much myself. We had a nightmare experience at Versailles in 2010, when we made the mistake of visiting on Sunday against Rick's advice. He was spot on, because it was a nightmare with the crowds. Wish we had stayed in Paris that afternoon.