Cozy up on the Mosel

This past weekend, we decided to make our first trip of the year, my husband and I, and our dog, Shakespeare. We looked up places where we could drive to and decided to head on over to the Mosel Valley. The Mosel Valley runs through Northern France, Southern Germany, and Eastern Luxembourg and its center is the Mosel River. There’s much history along the Mosel River. Dating back to around the 1300s, many of battles were fought between the Roman Empire and France, to name a few. Now, it’s a valley filled with prosperous vineyards.

Within a 2-1/2 hour car ride, we made it to our first destination, Cochem. Cochem is mentioned as early as 886—developed during the Celtic and Roman times. Many parts of the town were destroyed during WWII. Unfortunately, it happened to be a dreary weekend, so the pictures don’t truly express the beauty of the town and ruins.

This is artwork we found near the marketplace. I couldn’t find any information on it, but if you zoom into it, you can see different dates and names. My guess is it somehow signifies the history of Cochem.   

Here is the Enderttor. It’s one of the lasting city gates of Cochem—built in 1332. 

We walked up to Cochem castle, so here are a few pictures we took along the way. 

In my opinion, Cochem castle looks impressive from afar. Once we got up there, I wasn’t in awe of its structure. Here are a few from far away and up close. 

The view from the castle was nicer. As you can see, there are many vineyards setup along the castle. What’s also interesting is there are two schools within the vicinity of the castle. How interesting would that be to look out your school window and see this castle on the hill?

 

By the time we came back down from the castle, we decided to drive to another one. I read a suggestion by Rick Steves to visit the Burg Eltz. It took us a bit to find it, due to its remote location, but this castle was worth getting a bit lost. It’s one of the few castles that has not been destroyed, and is still owned by the same families—33 generations later. 

 

The next day, we left Cochem and drove to Trier. These are a few pictures we took along the way.

Trier is presumed to be one of the oldest cities in Germany, founded in 16 BC, and previously occupied by the Roman Empire. Below is the Porta Nigra (black gate)—the largest Roman city gate north of the Alps. The name came from the darkened color of grey sandstone between 186 and 200 AD. This was the main reason I came to Trier. I wanted to see the Porta Nigra. Unfortunately, it was the off-season, so we couldn’t see any performances done inside the it. 

Although this town was suggested by many, I can’t say it was a favorite of mine. Many of the sites had costs, so my husband and I took a pass on several. We’ve learned over our traveling years that not all things of cost are worth it. Plus, we had Shakespeare with us, and he wasn’t allowed in many of the places. Below is a plaque of Karl Marx and his birthplace. 

 

We walked around Trier and found the Emperors Bath. They were charging 3 Euros to get in, and blocked some of it with brick columns. We could see much of it, so we passed on going in and took pictures from the outside. 

Here are some pictures we took walking around Trier.

 

Have you gone on some travels lately?

Mosel and My Loves,

Bea