This year, we decided to take a trip to Koblenz, Germany, which is a city on the banks of the Rhine and the Moselle rivers. In 2019, we biked along the Danube river for a week, starting in Passau, Germany and biking through some beautiful areas in Austria (A New Yorker in Oslo: Biking along the Danube River in Austria (paulamdeangelis.blogspot.com). Our 'hotel' on that trip was a boat (the Theodor Körner) that followed us from destination to destination. It was a wonderful trip and I decided at that time that I would like to visit the Rhine river region as well. This time however we did not bike along the river, although that would have been possible, mostly because we also wanted to visit Berlin and Lubeck, so we opted for a three-day visit to Koblenz. We took the overnight car ferry to Kiel and drove from Kiel to Koblenz in one day.
Koblenz is the city where the Rhine and Moselle rivers converge; the actual point of convergence is called the Deutsches Eck. The city is about 2000 years old, having been founded by the Romans as a military post. It has an 'old town' section called the Altstadt; this is a lovely area with many old and beautiful buildings, plazas, restaurants and cafes. We ate at an Italian restaurant one of the evenings we were there, and enjoyed very good food. One very hot afternoon was spent on a small cruise boat (La Paloma) that took us along the Rhine river for a two-hour trip. We got to see some old castles and beautiful scenery. Germany and Austria have preserved much of their history in the form of old buildings and castles. It's nice to see, especially since we live in a world that if given the chance, would knock down much of the old to make way for the new, usually ugly (but efficient) apartment buildings that have become representative of what is called new architecture. I dislike it intensely.
We drove to the town of Winningen, about ten kilometers outside of Koblenz, on another afternoon. That was a lovely drive. Winningen is one of the cities in the Moselle valley that is worth visiting for its vineyards, lovely views, small cafes, and wine stores. We bought some Riesling wines while we were there. The Moselle river valley is synonymous with Riesling wines and is one of the oldest wine regions in Germany. The Moselle river cuts through the valley that has steep hills on both sides. Here you can see hundreds of vineyards dotting the hills. We wondered how the workers actually manage to harvest the grapes, since the hills are quite steep. After doing some reading, I understand that there have been a number of worker fatalities in earlier years because of the difficulties of harvesting the grapes. They have solved those problems so that workers can safely harvest the grapes.
After Koblenz, we drove on to Berlin, where we stayed for two days. We've been to Berlin before, back in 2012 (A New Yorker in Oslo: Berlin's East Side Gallery (paulamdeangelis.blogspot.com); A New Yorker in Oslo: Sunday evening in Berlin (paulamdeangelis.blogspot.com). We always enjoy being there; the city has a very liberal and relaxed feel to it, despite being a large city. Our hotel was located right near the Spree River; the restaurant where we ate an excellent dinner one night was also located right on the river. We did a hop-on, hop-off bus ride one afternoon, and concluded that we had actually done and seen quite a lot in Berlin when we were there in 2012. We'll definitely visit it again at some point.
We then drove on to Lubeck, a city in north Germany, where we stayed for one night. It also has an 'old town' that we walked around in the evening we were there. According to Wikipedia, "Lübeck's historic old town, located on a densely built-up island, is Germany's most extensive UNESCO World Heritage Site". It is a very charming city with lovely old buildings and churches. It was nice to have seen it.
We then drove from Lubeck to Kiel, where we took the overnight car ferry back to Oslo. I don't know how many trips we've taken on this ferry route, but it's been many, since it is the major way for us to get to mainland Europe so that we can drive further to our respective destinations. There will be more such trips for sure. In my next post, I'll post some photos of our recent travels. For those of you who want to see where we drove, here is the google map summary:
