Mosel River Cycle and a bit of the Rhein.
Our first week gave us 6 days along the Mosel and one on the Rhein. I’ve written pages of daily highlights, but will spare you those details. Suffice to say …
We started in Trier. Got to enjoy the city a bit, from stepping off the bus by the Porta Nigra, going to the wrong hotel before we found the right one, and then spending the eve and much of the next day wandering the Old Town including Rick’s walking tour, the DOM, Basilicata Konstantinos, touring the Anthropology Museum and peeking at the Imperial Baths.
We got fruit and sandwiches “to go” and biked to our next hotel in Trittenheim. Finding our way to the Mosel R. Trail was an error-prone adventure but after about 3 or 4 miles we finally got off streets and a highway and reached the trail for a late picnic. About 5 miles later, the wine country I had envisioned blossomed, so to speak, though we’re actually just approaching the harvest.
Highlights. Smaller towns and sights along the way: Trittenheim, Burg Landshut, Zeltingen, Traban-Trarbach, Punderich, Zell and Beilstein. We had a memorable dinner in Zeltingen at Zeltingen Hof. https://www.zeltinger-hof.de/. A lovely stop for Riesling along the Mosel in Punderich. And another lovely lunch and Riesling along the cycle trail further downstream at Kobern-Gondorf. The soup was poor, but the schnitzel with grilled onions was just perfect as were the French Fries. Lovely salad. Delightful ice cream sundaes. It was the most unpresupposing restaurant nestled along the river’s edge along the bike trail. Moselterrassen was its name. Cash only.
Cochem was fun, lively and full.
Castles! In addition to Burg Landshut, we biked up the hill to the Reichsburg in Cochem and took the tour. The next day, we followed RS’ guidebook instruction and took the #365 bus from the river to Burg Eltz. We met two German residents on the way and spent close to an hour with them, on the bus rides and walking 20 minutes to the castle. We talked about a bunch of stuff and shared a lot. Our last castle of this first week in Germany was, of course, Marksburg. It’s not as well furnished as Cochem’s Reichsburg or Burg Eltz near the Mosel, but we had a lovely visit there and biking there was pretty easy.
Those of you who know the region will notice that I failed to mention Bernkastel. We were there on the eve of the Wine Festival, which made the town seem like a Dystopian Disneyland, rather than the enchanting town I had read about. But it was lovely managing to cycle up to Burg Landshut above Bernkastel for views, lunch and Riesling.
Continued in Reply.