Category: Germany

Unable to move on because of the wine fest we elected to use Saarburg as a base from which to visit nearby towns.

We had enjoyed a short boat trip up and down the River Saar when later in the day during an impromptu wine tasting session in the ‘Bonsai & Wine’ off- licence on Kunhof, the very friendly and knowledgeable chap running the place suggested we visit Trier and the much smaller town of Traban-Trabarch. So off we went.

Vanya wasn’t keen on our visiting Trier (her hip was causing her some considerable pain and she wouldn’t be able to walk both Trier and Traban-Trabarch in the same day) and so we headed directly for the much smaller town of Traban-Trabarch some 50 miles north east of Saarburg on the River Moselle.

Traban-Trarbach (Traben is on one bank of the Moselle and Trarbach is on the other) is a charming little town of about 6,000 people famous for it’s castle and it’s wine. Unfortunately, there must have been nearer 26,000 people in the town as we arrived (I’d forgotten all about the wine-fest) and even after driving an almost complete circuit of both Traban and Trarbach we couldn’t find a parking space anywhere near the old town centre. Vanya simply wouldn’t cope with the walking. Once again we were required to improvise but this time it was easy. All the work was done for us. As we drove in ever widening circles in search of somewhere to park (that’s a bit of an exaggeration), we stumbled upon the small village of Wolf an der Mosel.

Surrounded by meadows and vineyards Wolf, is just 3 kilometres up the Moselle from Traban-Trabarch and not far from the beautiful little castle at Bernkastel-Kues. It’s a winegrowing village almost completely surrounded by a loop in the river and it even has it’s own municipal campsite. Perhaps most important one of the Wolf wineries, Weingut Comes, was open and serving. After a good walk around the village, that was to be our destination.

The family in Weingut Comes were very welcoming and the wine was good. We enjoyed glasses of a 1921 Rivaner Trocken (a dry Riesling) and a younger 1922 Schieferlay (another dry Riesling with a stronger flavour) with Vanya favouring the Rivaner and me opting for the Schieferlay. We drank them with a shared breaded cheese which was fantastic and left with more than a few bottles in the back of the Van.

It’s odd but sometimes the simple little stops such as in Wolf can make for as good a day as any in a historically rich and interesting city.

This was a return to the Rheinland Palatinate but our first time in the popular tourist town of Saarburg. We expected Saarburg to be busy but were unaware the town holds it’s annual “Saarweinfest” during the first complete week of September and we arrived on Tuesday 5 September to find the place absolutely teeming. Ordinarily a wine festival is reason to celebrate but there will be wine festivals throughout all of Germany’s wine producing areas during the month of September and this will make it very difficult for us to find suitable camp sites along our intended route. And so to Plan B. We had secured the last available space in the Leukbachtal Campsite but were allowed to stay on beyond our planned one night (possession is everything in camp sites across Europe). We decided to stay on and use the place as a base from which to make day trips until such time as something resembling normality returned. Plan B worked. Over the next three days we saw all we needed to see of Saarburg, took a boat trip up and down the River Saar and visited both Traban-Trabarch and the little village of Wolf in the Van.

Saarburg old town isn’t that big but it is very picturesque. It’s most interesting features appear to be, in no particular order, the 10th century castle ruins (Burg Saarburg), it’s two primary churches (Saint Laurentinus and the Evangelical Church) and it’s very scenic centre (the cafe area) bordering the tiny River Leuk. The centre is referred to in certain blogs as Little Venice because of the number of footbridges crossing the River Leuk but, I suspect, it will have been named by people who have never been to Venice. No matter, it is still very much worth seeing.

My first exploration of the town took me from the Leukbachtel, past the Parish Church of Saint Laurentinus (I wasn’t particularly impressed with this church – contrary to what I’d read, it is very plain inside and the stain glass windows are not at all grand) and then on up to the highpoint of the town, Burg Saarburg. There is little left of the original castle, other than it’s keep. The castle was dynamited by a French army in 1709 and was left an almost total ruin. The focus of all the recent restoration work appears to have been towards creating a restaurant, viewing points over the town and a series of lifts and ramps for the disabled but the views are impressive and the short walking route up to the castle takes you by the pretty sandstone Evangelical Church.

I didn’t stay long in the castle because one of my primary objectives during this first walk around Saarburg was to find a decent restaurant and book a table for the evening. This search took me on to the scenic cafe area and waterfall… and I was fortunate enough to secure a table in a pleasant spot by the river for dinner.

I’ll let the photos of the River Leuk do the talking…

Dinner that first night in Saarburg was pleasant enough, with Vanya’s dessert very much looking as if it were the main event but my apfelstrudel wasn’t bad and the local Riesling wine was fine.

Over the next couple of days we made frequent returns to the old town and were invariably there for dinner. Vanya has always liked ice cream and now she has discovered ‘spaghettieis’, a dessert created by Dario Fontanella in Germany during the 1960’s. Vanilla ice cream is extruded through a potato ricer, giving it the appearance of spaghetti. It is then placed over whipped cream and topped with strawberry sauce (to simulate tomato sauce) and grated almonds to represent the parmesan cheese. It is very popular across Germany and with Vanya.

No visit to Saarburg would be complete without a walk down to the Saar River where it is possible to cross the town bridge to the Saarburg suburb of Beurig and/or take short boat trips along the Saar.

We did both, starting with the short (1.5 hour) boat trip up and down the river. I wouldn’t particularly recommend this trip (there was little to see) but the weather was ideal for a short cruise; we could take the dogs with us on the boat at no extra charge and; the bar stocked bottles of the locally produced sparkling wine which we enjoyed in the company of a couple of two friendly Dutch ladies. Well, Vanya enjoyed it. I succeeded in spilling two glasses of wine and shattering one champagne flute which almost took the edge off our little cruise.

Saarburg is a lovely little town. We were perhaps unlucky arriving during a local holiday while the place was so busy but, in response to that, I recall our arriving in Colmar in France during the Covid Pandemic two or three years ago and our finding the streets, even the town centre, totally deserted. That was most disconcerting and, when all is said and done, much about these places has been created for people to enjoy.

One final bitter sweet observation about Saarburg: There are numerous stolpersteine (stumbling stones) dotted all around the town. Outside one house in the suburb of Beurig, I stumbled on ‘stones’ recognising a family of ten. These small brass blocks or ‘stones’ stand outside the homes or workplaces of people who were persecuted by the Nazis during and in the lead up to World War 2. The 10 stones in the photo below are outside what was the home of a Jewish family on Kloster Strasse in Beurig. There is a stone for each family member and the stone identifies their name and birthdate and what happened to them; being the year they were arrested and/or deported, where they were taken to and what ultimately happened to the person (where and when).

In many cases, stolpersteine serve as the only memorial to so many ordinary people whose lives were devastated by the Nazis and the initiator of the scheme (Gunther Demnig and his team) and the towns and villages which support his initiative (Saarburg included) are to be applauded.

Vanya wasn’t so keen on Mainz but she has an aversion to larger towns and was always going to feel disappointed after Bacharach. I, on the other hand, didn’t mind it but the city has a wonderful cathedral and there was a beer festival on over the weekend we were there.

We booked into a city centre camp site just over the river from the Old Town. The main bridge across the Rhine was a stones throw from the camp site and the beer festival was at the other end of it. Perfect location and planning!

Founded at the confluence of the Rhein and Main Rivers by the Romans in the 1st century, Mainz (previously Mogantiacum) is the capital of the Rhein Palatinate region. More than 80% of the city was destroyed by allied bombing in WW2 but, to see it now, you would barely believe those figures. It was quickly and carefully restored. There is one church, that of St Christoph, adjacent to the Karmerliterplatz, of which only the outer shell remains and that has deliberately been left standing in memory of the victims and the destruction of the city during the heavy bombings of 1942 and 1945.

Anyone visiting Mainz old town will very quickly find the Marktplatz, just follow the crowds of people. In this square and the surrounding area is a large part of Mainz’s history. There are a number of beautiful pastel coloured buildings, the marktbrunnen fountain, the Gutenberg Museum and most important of all, the Mainz Dom (St Martin’s Cathedral). It’s worth going to the old town to see the cathedral alone.

Almost next to the Cathedral is the Gutenberg Museum. In case you don’t know, Mainz was home to Johannes Gutenberg who in the early 1450’s invented metal type printing. This means of mass printing revolutionised publishing and it perhaps comes as no surprise that Mainz is home to both Germany’s first ever newspaper and the Allgemeine Zeitung. William Caxton subsequently built on Gutenberg’s device and introduced printing into England.

After fully exploring the Markplatz and the area thereabouts I headed off to walk the eastern side of the old town. There I found so many stolpersteine (see previous blogs on Bacharach and Rudesheim) but, more uplifting, I stumbled on the Evangelische Christuskirche (the Evangelical Church) where, inside, a string orchestra was rehearsing. Don’t misunderstand me, it wasn’t the church which so fascinated me although the church building is impressive. No, Evangelicals are a bit too fundamentalist for me, I was captivated by the music being played. Sadly, I didn’t recognise the music but it was an enjoyable 30 minutes just listening and watching. I don’t think I have ever seen a conductor work so hard to get his points across to the orchestra.

On the way back to the camp site I paused at the beer festival down by the riverside. There were some 20 to 30 kiosks selling different predominantly German beers and a handful selling snack foods or wine. Needless to say, I stopped and tried a couple of the local beers (three to be precise) and a really cold Vinzentiner Weissbier won the day.

We were ready to take a second boat trip, this time down river. We wanted to go to Boppard (which had been recommended to us by a local) but the boat time tables worked against us and so we settled for St Goar. That was a shame because Sankt Goar proved to be something of a disappointment. Certainly, you don’t want to believe all the hype on the internet about Sankt Goar having the wow factor and being a real up and coming tourist destination, etc. It really doesn’t and it really isn’t.

The best part of our boat trip to Sankt Goar was the journey there and back. It took about an hour heading downstream and an hour and a quarter heading back and this section of the Rhein (between Bacharach and Sankt Goar) is even more picturesque than that which we experienced two days ago. Moreover, sitting and doing nothing while drifting down the Rhein is actually very pleasant.

On the way we passed the two small picturesque towns of Kaub and Oberwesel, numerous almost obligatory castles for this part of the Rhine (one of which, the Pfalzgrafenstein, is particularly eye catching) and, of course, we passed the famous Lorelei or Loreley Rock.

That’s the small town of Kaub to the left of the above photo with Castle Katz overlooking the town and the far more attractive Castle Pfalzgrafenstein in the foreground. Pfalzgrafenstein was used as a toll station between 1327 and 1866

The 132m Lorelei Rock sits on the right bank of the Rhein just up river of Sankt Goar (or, to be more precise, Sanktgoarshausen because Sanktgoarshausen is on the right bank and St Goar sits directly opposite on the left bank of the river). It’s a fairly irrelevant little hill not unlike many others on the banks of the Rhine but, it was made famous in the ballad “Zu Bacharach am Rheine” where a stunning young girl named Lora Ley, after being shunned by her lover, sought revenge and caused the death of numerous men. She was arrested and banished to a convent but, on the way to the convent, she asked to view the Rhine landscape one last time and then jumped to her death from the rock. There is another more modern story about Lora Ley sitting on a rock by the Rhine brushing her hair and distracting passing sailors and so causing them to crash and drown and, as if to support this theory, just to the south of Sanktgoarshausen is a statue of a girl sitting on a rock, brushing her hair. I favour the first story.

A little bit about Sankt Goar. The town is named after a Celtic missionary who settled in the area in the 6th century. He was subsequently made the patron saint of innkeepers. It is a small town but it’s castle, Rheinfels, was once the largest in the area until French revolutionary troops sacked it. Rheinfels was subsequently repaired and is now a tourist hotel. The town’s only other claim to fame is it has the world’s largest free-hanging cuckoo clock suspended outside a souvenir shop near the catholic church. We stood outside the shop at eleven o’clock, video camera at the ready, waiting for the cuckoo to show, but once again we were disappointed.

After walking around Sankt Goar we hopped on to the car ferry and crossed over to Sanktgoarshausen where we found a nice little cafe and sat drinking coffee in the sunshine until it was time to catch the boat to Bacharach. That was very pleasant.

And so we set off on a boat trip up and down the Rhine. This was not just any part of the Rhine; it was along a part of the 65 kilometre stretch running from Rudesheim to Koblenz which is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site due to it’s historical significance – there are so many castles.

We travelled upstream with a day return ticket to the small town of Rudesheim am Rhein; passing Lorch, Trechtingshausen, Assmannshausen and Bingen on the way and; we had the boat almost to ourselves.

The journey took us almost 1.5 hours and was both pretty and interesting. We passed numerous castles on the way and received a brief history of each one over the ship’s tannoy system but don’t expect me to remember them all. There were simply too many.

Rudesheim is okay but nowhere near as authentic nor as welcoming as Bacharach. Many more cruise ships dock in Rudesheim and it has become very touristy. A cruise ship docked moments after us and, in no time, a throng was heading off towards the north of the town in the direction of the Niederwald Monument. I can understand that; the Niederwald is an impressive sculpture with, no doubt, fine views up and down the river but it was enough to turn us in the other direction.

The Niederwald Monument (not my photo). Commissioned by Kaiser Wilhelm I and built between 1870 and 1880 to commemorate the Unification of Germany after the Franco-Prussian War. The principal statue is Germania but the Kaiser also figures, on horseback, as do some of his victorious soldiers.

At the heart of Rüdesheim is Drosselgasse, a long two metre wide cobbled alley lined with original timber-framed buildings. The alley is now full of souvenir shops and cafe bars but it is as close as you’ll get to the original in Rudesheim which now attracts three million visitors a year.

Vanya, Nala, Beanie and I spent almost 5 hours in Rudesheim before rejoining our boat for the journey back to Bacherach. That would be about right if you were to include the Niederwald Monument in your stay.

We made a short stop at Siegfried’s Mechanical Music Cabinet Museum (it is different!). We went for a stroll around the outside of the Bromserburg Castle which is now a wine museum and we discovered yet more Stolpersteine.

Just outside 20 Rathausstrasse are four Stolpersteine in the names of Karl Keller and his family. I’m sure there are others elsewhere across the town. Karl was a cobbler born in Bacharach (related to Willi Keller mentioned in the Bacharach blog) who fought for Germany in WW1 with the 97th Infantry Regiment on both the Western and Eastern Fronts. He was wounded in action and was decorated with the Iron Cross but that didn’t save him nor his wife and two children.

Back to Bacharach.