Cochem - lodging recommendation?

Cochem is not very big. In 2008, I walked down the hill from the castle (Reichsburg), through town to Weingut Rademacher, across the parking lot from the Bahnhof, in just a few minutes. I didn't stay at Rademacher, just tasted wines there, but it looked like a nice place. A word about stars. According to the star criteria of DEHOGA (German hotel and restaurant Assoc.), stars are awarded for things like the number of hours the front desk is open or the number of hours you can get room service. One star hotels must meet the same level of cleanliness and maintenance as five star hotels. To quote from the DEHOGA Hotel Classification, "Sauberkeit und ein hygienisch einwandfreies Angebot sind Grundvoraussetzung in jeder Sternekategorie" (Cleanliness and a hygienically perfect offering is a basic assumption in each star category). I've stayed in many, many unrated hotels in Germany and found all of them to be clean and well maintained (it's a German thing). Based on over 100 nights in Germany, I really don't believe stars are important. Any hotel with two stars or more must accept credit cards. Any hotel with three stars or more must have someone on staff that speaks English. That doesn't mean that hotels with fewer than those stars won't, and, as I remember, neither of those criteria apply to B&Bs. For the best selection of properties, look on the town website, www.cochem.de.

Thanks. I had no idea about the stars.

You can read the criteria here for yourself. While certain criteria, like cleanliness, taking credit cards, and speaking languages ARE mandatory for certain number of stars, others, like sizes of rooms and sizes of beds only have a point value and the hotel has to accumulate a minimum number of points to qualify for stars. Some criteria are like how many days the bar is open, having a vanity mirror, more it it is lighted, or having heated towel racks. Of note, for all number of stars, a double bed must be at least 1.8m (70.9") wide, or they must tell you before you commit. I've seen hotels state that the bed is a so-called French bed, only 1.5m (79") wide (just about an American queen). But in actuality, I've never stayed in a German hotel, even one without stars, with a double bed that was less than 1.9m wide. There are a great number of hotels in Germany that don't have stars. I believe that is because they are reluctant to take credit cards, therefore the most they can have is one star, so why bother.

It's was about 7 years ago, but we stayed at Pension Hendriks. http://www.pension-hendriks.de/. It's a short distance uphill from the center of town. Clean and reasonably priced room with a huge German breakfast. They didn't speak much English, but we managed just fine. We were referred by the tourist info center in town. You might also check with them as they can find a vacancy for you if needed.