Moselle Germany and Luxembourg

We staid here in 2010.
https://www.tourenplaner-rheinland-pfalz.de/de/unterkunft/privatzimmer/weingut-reis-kroth/1644234/
In the town of Briedel. Winery in the basement. Has 2 guest rooms, rental bikes. Owners do not speak English, but we managed.
If you are there during a weekend, look for a weekend Strassenweinfest nearby. Lots of fun.

You might look in Traben-Trarbach for a winery-B&B. We chanced on a public trail through a vineyard, and found a wine cafe with (it appeared ...) farm-stays. (The wine was pleasant, but not earth-shaking.) It is also a busy tourist town(s), but not as mobbed as Bernkastel-Kues. Heavy bicycle traffic too, we noticed. I agree that September is a great opportunity for outdoor wine festivals. (And to taste Neuer Susser, only available just after harvest.) We found that the really famous wineries will not admit visitors without a booking. No exceptions.

I have only been to Luxembourg city, but I wonder if you really need 3 days? Presumably you have already seen the highlights of the scenic Middle Rhine?

Thanks Sam and Tim for the good advice. We have taken a Rhine cruise which did encompass the gorgeous middle Rhine. Sam, that place looks perfect for us! Hopefully, it will be available when I’m ready to book.

If we don’t visit other parts of Luxembourg, I think 2 days would be enough, depending on if we do any biking.

Besides Koblenz and Trier, the Mosel's "big cities", I've had very nice stays in Cochem, Bullay, Kröv, and Bernkastel. I've made repeat-stays in Bullay (very quiet, extremely untouristy - GREAT if you are into walking, hiking, easy biking) and in Cochem (touristy, but not anything like Rothenburg-touristy.) Bernkastel might be the most heavily-touristed of these 4 places.

Whether you stay in Cochem or Bernkastel - or not - both are as "must-see" as towns can get. I would not let the presence of other tourists scare me off. Visiting on a WEEKDAY, or any day after 4 pm or so, may be helpful if you wish to avoid crowds. Cochem remains my personal favorite on the Mosel as a place to call home for a while.

That said... Winery tours with a stay somewhere in between Cochem and Bernkastel might make good sense. Traben-Trarbach is bigger than most of the wine towns in this area and might have the most infrastucture after Cochem and Bernkastel. Kröv is just a little upstream from T-T and much smaller. From either town, you can catch a river cruise boat to Bernkastel for a really nice float.

T-T has a "Wine-Underground" tour that might interest you (some info in English here...)

Kröv has numerous wineries offering wine tasting; these two family-operated wineries offer rooms as well as wine-tasting sessions in English, and I see they also happen to be affiliated with booking.com:

Weingut Markus Junglen
Bio-Weingut Staffelter Hof

Some wineries like this one offer wine-tasting trips into the vineyards with tractor-pulled covered wagons:

https://www.weinhaus-hans-beth.de/mosel-erleben/planwagenfahrt/

I can't personally recommend any these wineries or other winery-stays. Love wine, but I love all kinds, and I'll have wine with dinner, but have just never been much interested in narrowing down my tastes to favorite wines... I'm a bad Californian for sure.

I'd also like to suggest that if you're doing 2 or more wine-tasting sessions in a day, you should seriously consider leaving the car parked. MANY nice wine towns are connected by rail - and unlike here in California, you can WALK from the rail stations to wine-tasting venues, which are almost always in town.

There's a little offshoot railway from Bullay (which is only 8 train minutes from Cochem) called the Mosel Wine Railway; it gets you DUI-free to the wine towns of Traben-Trarbach, Reil, Kövenig and Enkirch:

http://www.alpenbahnen.net/assets/images/autogen/k-IMG_2375.png

The trains on this little "toytown" railway can be seen here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBlUHP62bEo

Towns with rail stations on the main railway between Koblenz and Trier can be seen on this map:

https://assets.static-bahn.de/.imaging/focalpoint/727x545/dam/jcr:35bd03e4-289e-4ea5-96f0-16780dd8213e/191035-258837.jpg

We’ll be staying at Hotel Villa Keller in Saarburg and Hotel Weingut Schützen in Senheim. In 2012 we stayed at Pension Haus Thies in Cochem. At that time it only accepted cash, but we enjoyed our stay. No idea how it is now.

I biked the whole valley last summer (including the Luxembourg part, and some of France too), and thought Traben-Trarbach was a very nice town to sleep in. Just big enough to have an assortment of hotels and restaurants, good looking buildings and towns, right there in the core of the best wine areas. Not as touristy as some other villages but also not dead.

Cochem is popular for a reason. It's really pretty and a lovely place too walk around or launch a bike ride. I didn't stay there, but I wouldn't hesitate to stop over for a night.

Trier was an okay city. Reading up on the history ahead of time makes the place open up.

The Moselle through Luxembourg is not as dramatic or as obviously a tourist destination as the Mosel farther downstream up in Germany. I described it to my wife as the place where I would want to be relocated if Interpol had a witness relocation program. It looks like a fabulous calm place to live, but not a lot of pizazz. Luxembourg City on the other hand is pretty cool, really wild geography and a neat medieval city core. It's also close to the Luxembourg Moselle, easy enough bike ride on dedicated paths through some pretty farmland, albeit some uphill.

This is such great information, I appreciate the responses. I may not get there this fall, but this itinerary is at the top of my list for the future.

This trip is a go! I wish there was a Luxembourg category on the forum. Since public transportation is free in Luxembourg, we are hoping to take advantage of it. We will need a car for a day to explore Petite Suisse Luxembourgeoise and Viaden. Wondering if anyone could recommend a town with easy access (about .5 hr) to Luxembourg City. Extra credit for Inn/BnB recommendations.

Ettelbruck is a lovely little town about a half hour by train from Lux City. We never stayed there — we based in nearby Diekirch, as we were doing a geneology trip. We too took advantage of Luxembourg’s wonderful public transportation. But every trip we took from Diekirch required a change in Ettelbruck. We soon learned that Ettelbruck is a transportation hub for this part of Luxembourg and wished we had stayed there instead!

Ettelbruck had a bit of Italian feel, with good gelato and a lovely piazza near the church with restaurant tables outside. There was a market day on Friday. It has a Patton museum & some good restaurants.

I encourage you to visit the WWII museum in nearby Diekirch. Absolutely amazing. Filled with actual tanks and equipment abandoned in nearby fields after the battle of the bulge.

Also worth a visit is the Family of Man photo exhibit in Clervaux. It toured the world years ago & is now on permanent display here. If you have a car for a day you might stop in Clervaux after Vianden. Or you can reach it by train or bus (I forget which we used). Tiny, beautiful town.

Thank you, Charlene, Ettelbruck looks like a great place to base. Google maps is indicating most places we want to go are very easy via public transportation, except Larochette requires a transfer. Did you go to Larochette?

It appears that if we want to do the part of the Moselle that is in Luxembourg, we'd need to use the car. We will be spending 4 days on the Moselle in Germany. I'm interested in comments regarding, Luxembourg's wine region/Moselle.

No, sorry, we did not visit Larochette.

Like you, we made this trip in September. We started with a week in Belgium, then Luxembourg, and then to Boppard, Germany. We saw the Rhine in Flames fireworks display in St Goar. Amazing. If you can arrange your schedule to see a Rhine in Flames, I highly recommend it. We also loved our “Rhine cruise” from Bingen to Boppard. We then moved to the Mosel— stayed in a b&b in Ernst, in order to attend the Strassenweinfest (New Wine Fest) in Neef on September 26. Lots of fun. And from there to Amsterdam for a week. This is a wonderful area to visit in the fall!

I was in Trier three weeks ago and it's already getting crowded on weekends with tourists. It's a nice town to walk around, but the Germans really need to start cracking down on the graffiti; it's getting out of hand. I can recommend Cafe Zietsprung behind the Landesmuseum as a good place for lunch or just a break from walking.

You might look at Bernkastel-Kues for lodging on the Moselle.

I will look for info on Rhine in Flames. I'm having a little difficulty with getting info on inns/BnBs. I'm seeing one hotel in Ettelbruck and it doesn't thrill me. I tend to lean to charming/modest inns, or budget hotels. I don't see much in Luxembourg city that thrills me either. I'm going to try Rough Guides or Lonely Planet this afternoon.

If you’re into WW-II, the American cemetery in Luxembourg is somber. General Patton’s grave is one of thousands of graves. Also, the National Museum of Military History (MNHM) Asbl in Diekirch was very interesting. It focuses mostly on the Battle of the Bulge.

As you will have a car, petrol is cheaper in Luxembourg. I paid 1.58€ per liter. In Germany and France I paid between 1.78€ and 1.94€ per liter.