Düsseldorf is one of the larger cities in Germany. Located in the western portion of the country, it’s the capital of the German Republic State of North Rhine-Westphalia, which borders Belgium and The Netherlands on Germany’s western boundary. Since 1949, Düsseldorf has been considered the fashion capital of Germany, which explains all the seriously high fashion clothing stores we saw when walking through the ultra-modern downtown districts, looking for coffee. There are a little over 500,000 people living in the city limits, with about 100,000 of them transplants from other than Germany, but mostly from around the European Union.
In the Altstadt, old town, there are many outdoor cafes along the Rhine River. Photo by Donald Fink.
There’s a vibrant Old Town along the Rhine River, where we spent some time wandering the shops and cafes. We found a great American style steak house called Block Steak House. It turns out that they’re a relatively large chain of restaurants with locations throughout Europe.
There was one Starbucks in town that we found. The Starbucks app lists one in Old Town, but it turns out that it’s closed, permanently. Interesting that the Starbucks app lists it as an open restaurant, but Google Maps lists it as closed.. Hmm. Still, we found another one that was open in a shopping mall in the Konigsallee fashion district, near the park, and less than a mile’s walk from our hotel.
Melia Düsseldorf is a very modern hotel, conviently located about 15 minute’s walking time to the Konigsallee shopping area or a 15 minute walk to Altstadt, Old Town, through the Hofgarten, Park. Photo by Bonnie Fink.
While in Düsseldorf, we stayed in a Melia Hotel. Melia is a European hotel chain that we’ve used before with good results. We use them for the same reasons we use Holiday Inn Express in the States. We get loyalty points, which leads to free nights and therefore reduced overall costs, and we also have an expectation of quality. At Melia in Dusseldorf, we found a relatively modern building with clean, large rooms. There was good internet in the rooms that was included with the price of the room. The restaurant served buffet style breakfast that was not automatically included in the room price, but available for a nominal fee. They also served dinner, but we didn’t sample evening meals, preferring instead to find our meals outside in one of the many close-by restaurants. Parking was an additional €25.00 per day. We would normally be annoyed at the parking price, but having just left New York City where the price to park (assuming you could live through a car ride to the hotel) was a staggering $70.00 per night! It made Dusseldorf seem like a bargain.
From our hotel, all destinations led through the Hofgarten, the oldest park in Germany. The first portions of the Hofgarten were built in the 18th century. We transited the Hofgarten on our way to the Old Town, and on our way to Starbucks in the Konigsallee Shopping Area. In each case, the walk was just under a mile, and we only made it through a tiny portion of the park. In terms of beauty, the Hofgarten isn’t Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, nor is it Central Park in New York City, but it does have its appeal. If we lived in Düsseldorf, we would no doubt spend a lot of time relaxing there.
This is the very popular Konigsallee shopping area . Photo by Bonnie Fink.
Speaking of the Konigsallee, it’s a major upscale shopping district in the heart of Düsseldorf. It features world renowned clothing, jewelry, and just about every other fine shopping store you could want. It was a place where, if we needed a new pair of cuff links, we would certainly be able to find them, but we might have to think about the purchase awhile before committing the money. Of course, on this trip, we didn’t feel the need for new cuff links, so we just went to Starbucks.
We had a good few days in Düsseldorf. If we needed to go there again for some reason, it wouldn’t be the end of the world. We enjoyed it like we enjoy pretty much any big, busy city. We found the people to be polite and friendly. They seemed to be used to tourists and our language challenges. Actually, most people we encountered spoke English. It was just kind of surprising that most of the people we interacted with were not native German speakers, but imports themselves.
Can we recommend Düsseldorf for other travelers? Sure, we used it as a base for travel to other locations in the immediate area. Düsseldorf is in the middle of some interesting historic places, and getting in and out of town was generally easy. Traffic was not as challenging as you might expect for a reasonably large city. Of course, at just over half a million people, it really isn’t that big. We aren’t big city people by our nature, but we found it easy to navigate, safe, and comfortable.
On our way to a laundry mat, we happened to walk through an area that seemed to be just a local neighborhood, just for locals. It was filled with shops, cafes, grocery stores and so on. We were as comfortable in that area as we were in the more touristy areas.
Our plan for now is to not return to Düsseldorf in the near future. We visited, enjoyed this city, and now it’s time to move on.
There’s a little town called Cochem along the Moselle River, about 20 miles upstream from where the Moselle empties into the Rhine. It’s a German vacation spot, where locals come to camp, play on the river, enjoy some of the local wines, or just hang out in this quaint little town, enjoying the food and shopping.
We discovered this town on our first trip to Germany a few years ago when we were visiting castles, and the local castle, called the Reichsberg Castle, found its way onto our sights. We showed up in this town on a weekend that happened to be a German holiday, and even though we never learned the meaning of the holiday (it seems that everyone would give us a slightly different meaning when we asked), we did learn that the Germans know how to party.
There were literally thousands of German bikers in town on that first trip, along with river cruise ships, and daytime sightseeing ships docked along the river. There were jet skis, kayaks, and yachts cruising up and down the river, and the occasional river-going cargo ship was passing by. Bicycles are a big form of transportation in Europe, and Germans brought their own while the local bicycle rental businesses were doing a brisk business too.
You may find that we use the term Moselle when we’re talking about the River that runs past Cochem, when other folks will say Mosel. Our reasoning is simply that Google Maps calls it Moselle. In France, it’s generally agreed that it’s called the Moselle River. Once it crosses the border into Germany, many locals call it Mosel. Certainly, the wine region is called the Mosel Wine Region and it’s Mosel Wine, not Moselle Wine, that comes from this area. Still, when you’re looking things up on the map, you wouldn’t want to be confused.
This Town Goes Back
We would normally talk about the “old town” when speaking about the touristy parts of any destination in Europe because that’s usually what interests us, but in Cochem, it’s all Old Town. It has its earliest mention in official documents as far back as 886 AD. It was granted “Town Rights” in 1332, presumably by Archbishop Baldwin, who was the Electktor of Trier Territory. The town remained under Trier rule until the French occupation in the 18th Century. From there, it moved forward. There was some damage in World War II with one bombing raid in September of 1942, but most of the town was left standing, and the Castle of course, was not the target.
What to Do In Cochem
Shopping
The first thing we noticed when entering the “tourist” parts of Cochem was the large number of shops. Unlike the usual cafes, bars, and restaurants that you’ll see in a tourist environment, there were also many boutiques and general stores of all kinds. Our first thought was, “we’re never going to get things home if we bought them here,” but the point that this is a German hot spot, catering to local Germans, is underscored. The German tourists can make their purchases, then simply take them to the car and transport them home, again emphasizing the point that this is a German tourist spot.
Wine grapes seem to be the popular crop to row in the Mosel Valley, just upstream of the Rhine River near Cochem. Photo by Bonnie Fink.
Wine
The valley along the Moselle River is a major wine producing area. It seems that every square foot of area capable of agricultural use is engaged in growing wine grapes. We’re not proficient in all the types of wine grapes, but we saw many different varieties during our wanderings through the valley.
The week we arrived at Cochem was the conclusion of their annual Food and Wine Festival. Not to worry, other villages were preparing for their annual Wine events too, and our guess is that pretty much every little village along the Moselle River will be doing a Food and Wine festival of some kind before winter.
Restaurants
There are too many restaurants to count in Cochem. It seems that we would pick one each day more or less at random, and the experience never went bad for us. Language was an issue in most cases, with some servers able to speak a little English, others not so much. It seems like the younger folks were remembering some of their basic English they learned in school, but not much more than that. Still, with our few words of German, a high school course in English on the part of the server, and a trusty Google Translator App to work out the menu, we didn’t go hungry.
One of the many unique restaurants in Cochem, Germany. This establishment seemed to be carved out of a cave in the side of the hill. Photo by Bonnie Fink.
Our favorite café turned out to be a place called Gaststatte Noss. It’s located on the main street of Cochem, about midway through town. We stopped in over the course of several days. Sometimes we’d have coffee, sometimes coffee and dessert, and on one occasion we had a full meal. Everything was perfect for us, and the atmosphere was exactly what we were looking for in a small German village. There was outside seating, inside booths, and our favorite table was actually inside, but inside a glass door that opened to the outside in good weather and closed when it was raining. It was the best for all weather for us. Oh, and the restaurant had free bathrooms for customers. We mention this like it’s unusual in Europe, because it is. We’ll definitely visit again next time we’re in town.
Travelling Around the Area
With so much to offer in this region of the Moselle River, you need a way to get around. For us, we have a leased car, so getting around is as easy as it is any other time. We’re in our comfort zone. The only issue for us is parking once we get to a new village. Most villages we found had either street parking or organized parking lots. For us, arriving at most destinations before noon, parking was not an issue, but we found that parking in some of the busier places like Cochem became a challenge after lunch. Of course, in Cochem, we typically walked from our hotel with the car safely parked there.
The entire region along the Moselle River is connected by a walking and bicycle path on both sides of the river. We saw that many folks used bicycles to move from village to village. Most were locals bringing their own bikes, but we also found a bike rental business on the main street just on the edge of Cochem. Were we into bicycling, this would have made for a pleasant way to travel from the various villages, and parking is less of an issue with this mode of travel.
Bicycles and pedestrians have a separate walking path along the Moselle River in cochem. The pavement on the right is for bicycles while the paving bricks are for walkers. In most places, there is no railing separating the two, You’re on your honor to stay clear of the bicycles. Photo by Donald Fink.
There’s an etiquette involved when it comes to sharing a walking path with bicycles in Cochem. Much of the walking trail is divided into one area that’s paved with black top, and another side that’s paved with concrete pavers. The paver side is for people walking while the smoother black-topped area is for bicycles. It’s best to stick to your side of the trail. Some of those bicycle folks are fast, and the can get up on you very quickly. Pay attention!
River boats are a big item along the Moselle River. Everything goes up and down the river from Viking Cruise Lines to local sunset cruises. Cochem has a couple of small docks with cruises that usually last most of a day, making several stops in other villages before returning to Cochem in the afternoon or evening. We didn’t do a river cruise, but the way the local boats seem to work is they publish a schedule of when they’ll dock at a particular village along their route, then again along their route on the return trip back to Cochem. This means that you can choose to stay with the boat as it makes its way up and down the river, maybe catching some brief shopping at each stop, or you can get off for a longer stay at one village. Maybe have lunch or dinner at one village along the way, then catch the river boat on its return leg to Cochem. Kind of like a hop-on, hop-off bus, except along the river, and worth looking into. Of course, cruise lines like Viking will work all that out for you as well. We know people who have used the Viking Lines in particular and have reported a great experience.
One day cruise operator we saw in Cochem was KD Day Cruises. We can’t recommend them, or not recommend them since we didn’t cruise, but we saw their boats operating from the town. Actually, according to their web site, they have operations all over the area including up and down the Rhine River.
The Castle
You can’t come to Cochem without seeing the Castle. This one is called Schloss Rheichsburg. It sits prominently on the hill directly behind the town of Cochem. There are two ways to get up to the castle: you can walk as we did or you can catch a shuttle bus from the Town Square. We walked, not because we feel the need to punish ourselves, but because we didn’t know about the shuttle until we were already at the top of the hill and we saw a bus go by. Fine!
Tours inside the Reichsburg Castle are guided, meaning that you can’t just wander the halls. But there was plenty of time to stop and take it all in and take photos. The tour guides offered several different languages with their tours too. On a previous visit, we discovered a lighting fixture in the castle that’s supposedly a mermaid, and according to the tour guide, touching the mermaid would bring about good luck. At the time our house in New Mexico had an offer pending. It was the only credible offer we had seen in seven years on this property, so you can imagine that we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to make contact with the lucky-mermaid-lighting-fixture-thing. And of course, the house closed shortly after and we went about our merry lives. Hooray for the lucky Mermaid!
Where to stay
We stayed at the Stumberger Hotel located just outside the village along the Moselle River. We’ve made two trips to Cochem and stayed there both times and couldn’t be happier. If we return to Cochem—and we certainly will—we’ll stay there again. We feel so strongly in our recommendation about Stumbergers Hotel that we posted a separate article about it here. It reads a bit like a commercial advertisement, but it was just a great place to stay.
There are indeed dozens, if not hundreds of hotels located in and around the Cochem area, and most of them would probably be good choices. We’ve only stayed at Stumberger’s so we can’t recommend the others, but we’re sure you can do your own homework if you plan a visit to Cochem.
One possible reason for staying somewhere else is that Stumberger’s is on the very edge of town. It takes a bit of a walk to get into the city center. We happen to enjoy walking, so it worked as an advantage for us. You may not feel the same and prefer a room in the center where your favorite café is right outside your door. It’s certainly possible in Cochem.
Our overall impression of Cochem is that it is a great place to come and play. It’s also primarily a place where Germans come. We’re not usually all that interested in where the “locals” hang out, but in the case of Germany, it seems appropriate. The Germans, for the most part, seem to like the same things we do. Good food, good drink, recreational opportunities all around. What’s to go wrong? And in Cochem, we found all that and more. After two visits, we’re sure it will be on our list in future visits too. Cochem has become our German home town.
Not long ago, we happened through Cochem, Germany on our summer’s trip through what we consider to be the heart of Europe. Our purpose when coming to Germany is to view castles, and just take some time to look over the pristine countryside. Cochem is on the Moselle River, about 20 miles from the Rhine River. It’s in southwest Germany, not far from France and Belgium. Aside from the famous Reichsburg Castle, this is a major wine producing region, and a popular German holiday spot. You’ll find a few English speakers in this town, but not many since most of the vacationers here are locals.
When staying in Cochem, we like a small, independent hotel just on the edge of town called Stumberger’s Hotel, no doubt named after the Stumbergers who own and operate this establishment. It seems to be just Mr. Stumberger and his wife, along with a small handful of staff that makes this establishment run.
The hotel consists of a few rooms, a restaurant, and a beer garden. The beer garden isn’t always open, but also serves fast food along with ales when it is. On one of our first trips, the beer garden was open because there was an unusually large number of bikers in town on that particular weekend, and it was popular among them.
The restaurant might be unique to Cochem because it’s a Mexican themed establishment. We were surprised to see this in Germany, and had to try it out. Surprisingly, it was pretty authentic. The main dishes were spot on while the Mexican Rice seemed a little different than our usual Tex-Mex expectations. And the refried beans weren’t enough, compared to the usual portions in a Mexican restaurant in the States. But the overall experience was pretty close, and way better than we were expecting. After all, Germany is a long way from Mexico, and being original Californians who lived in New Mexico for several years after retiring, we have pretty high expectations when it comes to our Mexican cuisine.
We enjoyed the view sitting on our balcony at Stumberger’s Hotel. Photo by Donald Fink.
We requested a “castle view” for our room at Stumbergers Hotel. There are only ten rooms, but three of them have a large balcony with a stunning view of the Reichsburg Castle, nestled on top of the hill overlooking the riverfront town of Cochem. What you’ll see from a Castle View room is the River Moselle across the road, the town of Cochem to the left with the castle on the hill above. The river is active most of the day with river tour boats, river cruise boats, bulk transport ships, and pleasure boats ranging from yachts to kayaks. It makes for quite a show from the balcony in the afternoons after a day of trudging through your favorite castle of the day.
Normally, we prefer to stay in chain hotels when we travel for a number of reasons. The main reason is that we like the consistency they offer. We know what to expect when we book a room. There’s a level of excellence that we enjoy when staying at a familiar place, and we’re rarely disappointed. Stumberger’s Hotel is an exception to this rule. We’ve stayed there twice now, so we do in fact have an expectation, but the first time was a shot in the dark that paid off for us. Truthfully, we do stay at independent hotels quite a bit even though our goal is to stay somewhere that’s better known. Sometimes it pays off, as is the case with Stumbergers, and sometimes it doesn’t.
What You Can Expect
At Stumbergers, you’ll get a clean, comfortable room. It’s not the biggest room we’ve stayed in, but it’s big enough.
Internet is included, and quite good. We were at about 6Mb/s up and down with small latency times.
Parking is free. And there’s enough of it.
Breakfast is included, and quite good. It’s a typical European kind of hotel breakfast, which is not quite what we’re used to in the US, but everything was there. The one notable difference for us was that eggs were cooked to order rather than having to dig through a bowl of old scrambled eggs, hoping to find that sweet spot where they weren’t too runny or too dry. Mr. Stumberger brings your eggs freshly cooked to your table, as well as your orange juice and coffee.
The restaurant is good. Truthfully, we ate there only one night on this trip. We had various enchiladas that were authentic to our idea of Mexican cuisine. There are also various German inspired dishes on the menu, but the menu was primarily Mexican.
The Beer Garden was not open this trip. We were at a somewhat slower time, and it probably didn’t pay to have it open. Keep in mind that most of the time it’s Mr. and Mrs. Stumberger running this operation. They can’t be everywhere at once.
About the only thing we can find fault in at Stumberger’s is the fact that there are no elevators. To stay here, you’ll need to walk up at least one flight of stairs. Having only ten rooms, there simply isn’t space for an elevator. This was not a problem for us, but for a person with severe mobility problems, negotiating the stairs could be a challenge. Getting your bags up to the room wasn’t really a problem for us, but again, for a mobility challenged person, this could be an issue. We wouldn’t be surprised if Mr. Stumberger was willing to help with the bags if necessary. He seemed to be interested in making us comfortable.
Keep in mind that the lack of an elevator is not uncommon in small hotels, and especially small hotels in Europe. We didn’t find it a hindrance, but we felt compelled to mention it in the interest of full disclosure.
In The Future
We’ll come to Cochem again. It’s one of those kind of places where it takes many trips to see all there is to offer. When we do come back, we’ll definitely make Stumberger’s Hotel our home base. It’s got everything we need, and Mr. Stumberger made us feel right at home.
Even though we write this review of this hotel like it’s a paid advertisement, we were not paid or even approached by the Stumbergers to comment in any way. We’re doing this simply because we think it’s one of those hidden treasures you occasionally find on a trip that helps to make your vacation a pleasant experience. We’ve been here twice and the experience has been the same each time, so we know it’s not just a fluke. This little hotel in this little German vacation spot is the real deal.
Today we made our way from our hotel in Düsseldorf to the small town of Solingen, where we spent some time at the Schloss Burg, or the Burg Castle. This building dates back to the Middle Ages—to 1130—when it was constructed as the Neuenberge Fortress. It wouldn’t be referred to as a Castle until somewhere in the 14th or 15th Centuries, after its strategic importance as a fortress had declined.
Originally, Neuenberge Fortress was built by the Counts of Berg as a family seat, and as the name implies, a strategic fortress to repel aggressors. There was a wall around the buildings and even a moat at the entrance. The moat wasn’t filled with crocodiles as we all grew up seeing in our Saturday cartoons, but rather, it contained thorny bushes. Presumably there was a gate that could be raised when needed.
On our visit, we found an elegant but small castle. The main buildings have been converted into a museum, describing life in the late Middle Ages. There were items of everyday life, including cooking utensils, tools for wood working and metal fabrication, and of course, weapons and armor all around.
You can use this Google Map to find the location of Schloss Burg in Germany. Click on the View Larger Map link to see a new page with a larger map.
We particularly enjoyed the visit because it was self-guided. For us, trying to take pictures, we could move at our own pace. And of course, all the plaques and descriptions were in German, so we needed a little extra time to work out their meanings.
After our tour, we stepped outside the castle walls and immediately found a small outdoor restaurant. After some brief negotiating with the mostly German speaking server, we settled on coffee and a dish of ice cream, which is pretty much what we were after.
We probably spent about two hours touring the Castle. Altogether, it used up about half a day of our time including travel both ways from Dusseldorf. That’s about what we thought it would take. Of course, in addition to visiting the Castle, we got to see some fantastic German countryside, and made a couple of runs down the Autobahn. In our diesel powered Renault Dacia. Six speed manual and all.
Eltz Castle is one of the few castles in Europe that’s never been destroyed, by fire, by war, by anything. We spent some time walking the grounds and touring the interior of this pristine noble home, and came away with an appreciation for how life could have been for the very wealthy in the middle ages.
Early History
It all began in the 12th century, when three branches of the Eltz family jointly built this castle along a trade route between the Moselle River and the Eifel Region. The Eifel Region is an area of mountains in western Germany and eastern Belgium. According to the information we’ve read, the idea of having more than one part of a family jointly owning a castle is simply one of economics. One family by itself could not afford to build, own, or maintain a castle, but by pooling resources, several families could enjoy the status and more importantly, the security of having a large, defensible castle.
The castle has only been attacked one time, between 1331 and 1336. There was a dispute between the leader of an area known as the Trier region of Moselle and the knights of several houses, including Burg Eltz. It seems that these knights had been allowed to wander away from loyalty to the previous Trier Leader, and when Archbishop Baldwin took power, he decided to set things straight.
Ruins of the siege castle that was built by Archbishop Baldwin during the Eltz Feud of 1330. The ruins are approximately 230 meters away from Eltz Castle and uphill, which provided a good strategic position from which to launch a five year attack. Photo by Bonnie Fink.
The Archbishop made a direct assault on Burg Eltz, but failed, so he built a “siege castle,” which was a fortified structure about 230 meters away from Burg Eltz and slightly uphill. The purpose of the siege castle was simply to give soldiers a safe place from which to lay siege to Burg Eltz without being in danger themselves. Archbishop Baldwin pummeled Eltz Castle for several years, using rock filled trebuchets and an early form of cannon.
The purpose of the siege was not to destroy the knights of Eltz, but to bring them under control of the Trier government. After five years of siege, the Eltz knights finally agreed to recognize Archbishop Baldwin and the feud ended.
Where is Burg Eltz
Burg Eltz is located in southwestern Germany near the town of Wierschem. We were staying in Cochem, along the Moselle River when we visited, so it was simply a matter of driving along the river to Moselkern, where we headed inland towards Wiersham. Using a rental car, it wasn’t a problem to find the castle. There was a parking fee, and from the parking lot there were two choices to get to the actual castle site. First, there was a walking path of about 1.3 kilometers (about .8 miles), and there was a shuttle bus. This is a downhill walk to the castle, so it’s easy getting there, and a little more difficult getting back to the car. The shuttle bus was €2.00 each person, each way. We rode the shuttle bus, but had we known that the tickets were only good for one way, we probably would have walked downhill into the castle grounds, and ridden the shuttle back out.
What will you see at Burg Eltz
Rooms for worship were often built high above the ground, outside of the main building. The rules requiring a private worship place were complex. One could not live above the chapel, for example, which is probably the reason they were attached outside the main building. Photo by Bonnie Fink.
There are no photographs allowed inside the castle. This is highly annoying to folks like us who are trying to bring stories to folks like you, but we understand. They are probably concerned about flashes damaging artwork, tapestries, and wall paintings. And we know that they can’t simply say, “No flashes” because of the large number of people who won’t read their manuals on their phones and cameras, and have no idea how to turn their flashes off. Plus, it’s their castle. Their rules. So we’ll show you no pictures from inside.
The interior is only open for tours from early April through the first part of November, but the grounds and the interior court are open year-round .
There was a small gift shop where you purchased tickets to take a tour of the interior of the castle. The cost was €10.00 per person, and there were tours in German and English, with French and a few other languages on request.
The castle is divided into three separate family spaces which were used for the three separate branches of the Eltz family. This works to an advantage here because on the tour, we were able to see a complete set of rooms, from the entrance hall, through the living quarters, and finally right down to the kitchen. We did this without infringing on the Eltz family’s private living space, which they still maintain elsewhere in the castle, apart from the spaces set aside for touring.
Many of the walls were hand painted with artwork as was the style in medieval Europe, with tapestries on the walls, carvings and paintings on the bedroom furniture, and so on. There were several examples of various chests, tables, and chairs from earlier times, and apparently these furnishings are pieces that have been in the Eltz family throughout the centuries.
There was a “treasury,” which was a museum that displayed personal family items from jewelry, to tableware, to clothing. There was also a large assortment of weapons, including swords, bows, cross bows, various long guns, pistols, and derringers. This was included in the price of the tour, but was self-guided, so you could take your time in this area.
There were two areas to grab a bite to eat, or have a drink, and there was a set of stairs leading down to the Eltz River. The river area was a treat because it gave a sense of how the forest would have been, and still is, for that matter.
Overall
We think that touring Burg Eltz is worth the time if you happen to be in Germany, and happen to be passing through this area. It’s a relatively small castle in a remote area of the forest near the Moselle River, but considering its long history, and its pristine condition, we think it’s worth it. We’ve seen many castles that were well conditioned and furnished, but it was an extra special treat to know that the furnishings in this castle were actually family possessions, from the original and current family. And that the family has had this home longer than a great many countries have even been in existence was extra special as well.
