Hurrying Slowly : The Mosel in 22 Days

In the small hours of a rainy night in Neumagen, Germany, peering idly from our hotel window, I saw something that looked like a shadowy train, with an occasional lighted window, passing slowly and silently beyond a thin screen of trees lining the river. There are no train tracks by the river in Neumagen, so I watched for a full minute, mystified, as the long apparition glided by and finally out of sight. 

It was a cruise boat, I finally realized, one of those narrow, lengthy, luxurious vessels that carry tourists in comfort along the major waterways of Europe, stopping at historic towns and cities for guided tours of the local highlights.  I confess to a twinge of envy. Like the ship’s sleeping passengers, we too were traveling the Mosel, from Koblenz upriver to Trier; but our trip was hardly a posh, all-inclusive float on placid waters. 

You can, if you are in a hurry, go from Koblenz to Trier by train in an hour and a half.  If you prefer to drive, allow a couple of hours.  You can bike the Mosel Cycle Path in less than a week, averaging about 40 kilometres (25 miles) per day – and you’ll have plenty of company.  The route, signposted with a white “M” and bike pictogram on a green background, follows the meandering river most of the way, and is extremely popular.  If you are definitely not in a hurry, you could even walk, I suppose.  There is a long-distance hiking trail called the Moselsteig, which, beginning at the river’s mouth at Koblenz, will deposit you in Trier after about 300 kilometres (186 miles).  Our plans called for a leisurely 22 days, arranging boat rides along the way, which would allow us to stay several days in each town or village.

We’d planned well, we thought.  We’d reserved our lodging in each of our stops.  We’d studied the meagre online information about local boat schedules, and were confident we could get from place to place by river.  We’d read about the historic, or inspiring, or picturesque sites we might encounter, and intended to see them all.  Ah well – as Thomas à Kempis observed a few centuries ago:  Man proposes and God disposes.  Or, in this case, woman proposes, because I’d fobbed off most of the research to my wife, Patricia.

I turned from the window, whose wooden jambs and sill were crumbling; the floor creaked with age as I walked to the bedroom.  I glanced at the rain-streaked bedroom window, which I knew opened onto a small garden bordered by an ancient stone wall.  I suddenly realized that my envy was foolish. True, the hotel might be in need of some repairs, and the shower might leak a little; the carpet over the squeaky floorboards might be a bit threadbare; but in the morning, rain or shine, I’d look out the bedroom window upon a great chestnut tree spreading its branches over a tiny patch of beauty; and we’d go downstairs to breakfast cooked by a Dutch culinary wizard named Marteyn, who, if business was slow, would stand tableside and regale us with tales of the many misadventures that brought him finally to Neumagen and the arms of his enchanting girlfriend.  Neumagen is a delightful, friendly wine-growing village the cruise boat passengers rarely visit.  There are vestiges of Roman occupation older than any other city in Germany except Trier.  And, you can even can float back twenty centuries, as we did, having a glass of wine with a grizzled captain and his vivacious wife in a replica of an ancient Roman wine ship.

Sometimes, God disposes just fine.

Our four-night stay in Neumagen was actually the penultimate stop before reaching our goal, Trier.  We’d begun our trip upriver two weeks earlier, in Koblenz, where the Mosel flows into the Rhine at the pointed headland called Deutsches Eck, the “German Corner”, watched over by a giant statue of Emperor Wilhelm I. Koblenz is one of the oldest of German cities, with a tumultuous history caused by its strategic position. There is abundant visible evidence of the eventful past:  across the Rhine and overlooking the city from the east bank is the Ehrenbreitstein Fortress, an enormous fortification first built by the Archbishops of Trier to fend off the French, and then rebuilt in the 19th century by the Prussians after the French destroyed it.  You can take an exhilarating seilbahn ride – it’s an aerial cablecar from Deutsches Eck to the Fortress – where you can enjoy a grand view of the city and both rivers, while having an alfresco lunch.

But the most succinct visual symbol of the city’s ups-and-downs is a bronze fountain called the History Column –the  Historiensäule – by Jürgen Weber.  It shows 2000 years of Koblenz history in ten ascending cast-bronze scenes, from the town’s founding by Roman wine-traders through wars, peace, catastrophic medieval fires, the devastating bombings of 1944, and the emergence of the optimistic Koblenz of today.

In fact, there is an upbeat mood in town; we found it in full display on Zentralplatz, a large square (really a triangle) between an ultramodern downtown shopping mall and an equally ultramodern civic museum/library/tourist office. A cheerful crowd was strolling among the venerable exhibits of a classic car show, while on a temporary stage, an energetic band called the Wild Bobbin Baboons turned the area near them into a dance party with 1950’s American rock and roll.  They seemed to transport the crowd back 60 years and 5000 miles away – especially when their keyboardist set his instrument on fire during Jerry Lee Lewis’ Great Balls of Fire, as The Killer himself is said to have done many years ago.

Our own upbeat mood became less buoyant on Tuesday, when after confidently expecting a relaxing float upriver to Cochem, our plans sank with hardly a ripple.  Turns out, we somehow failed to notice that “Dienstag” was not on the K-D Line’s schedule for trips to Cochem.  (K-D Line is short for Köln-Düsseldorfer Deutsche Rheinschiffahrt AG, the only day-boat operator on the Mosel from Koblenz to Cochem; and Dienstag is German for Tuesday, the day we had a hotel booked in Beilstein, a tiny village we could only reach from Cochem.)

So, with our river trip just begun, we had to do the first leg by train, gazing wistfully at occasional passing views of the Mosel.   But, in Beilstein, we quickly recovered our aplomb.  Our hotel was perched near the Carmelite Church of St. Joseph, at the top of the town, just below a ruined 12th century castle. From the church’s terrace, which doubles as an open-air café, we looked down on possibly the prettiest of Mosel wine villages, (Beilstein’s nickname is “the Sleeping Beauty of the Mosel”), nestled sweetly among the vineyards on a gentle curve of the river.

It happened to be pfifferlingen season, with wild chanterelles featured in the soups, sauces, and garnishes of almost every restaurant in town.  A glass of Riesling is always in season along the Mosel, and if you want a bottle or two, there are cellars in town (Zehnthauskeller in the Marktplatz is one) where you can sample before buying.  What with eating, drinking, hiking up to Metternich Castle for spectacular views of the river bend, strolling the steep and narrow streets, or just lazing along the riverbank, a couple of days passed quickly.  We realized we needed to get tickets for our departure three days hence, because we’d booked a holiday apartment in Traben-Trarbach, our next stop upriver.  We’d carefully checked the schedule, and the shipping company was Personenschifffahrt Gebr. Kolb oHG, not the K-D Line, and so on Wednesday we confidently stepped up to the ticket window in the little wooden booth by the dock.

“You betcha,” the agent said (or words to that effect), and even let us charge the cost without complaint.  Tickets in hand, we headed for the main square and a celebratory glass of trockener weisswein, when the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps and heavy breathing stopped us.  “So sorry, I was mistaken.  The boat goes not on Saturday.  Only on Thursday it goes. It is needed Saturday in Köln for the fireworks.”  With this cryptic message he led us breathlessly back to the booth, where it was evident he’d never cancelled a charge before.  So … we quickly decided to change our ticket to a round-trip on Thursday, take the boat to Traben-Trarbach and back, just for the experience.  Of course, we still had to figure out how to get by land from Beilstein to T-T on Saturday for our stay there.

I discovered later that there is an annual fireworks display along the Rhine banks in Cologne called the Kölner Lichter.  It happens in mid-July, just when we were in Beilstein. Nobody told us, of course; but then, nobody told the ticket seller either.

The Mosel Valley from the river is breathtakingly lovely.  The grapevines ascend the slate cliffs in orderly but luxurious patterns – horizontal here, vertical there – often clinging to sheer rock faces, like the hanging gardens of ancient myth; and they go on for miles, interrupted here and there by villages surrounding steepled churches.  In Traben-Trarbach, we only had time for a hurried bowl of kartoffelsuppe before boarding the boat back to Beilstein; but not to worry, we knew we would return to T-T.  The only question was: how?

No one we asked in Beilstein knew where we could catch a bus to Traben-Trarbach, though the consensus was that there might be a bus stop on the other side of the river, where there is a campground and a small village called Ellenz-Poltersdorf.  The only way across is a small car-ferry boat usually tethered on the Ellenz side.  The boat is summoned from Beilstein by energetically waving one’s arms.  It seems there was only one person who would know about life on the mysterious other side.  “Ask the ferry-boat man,” we were advised.  “He can tell you.”  So, we decided to take a ride across the river and back, and discuss our plight with him.

I’ve always assumed that Charon, who ferried souls to Hades across the River Styx, was a man of few words, and our modern incarnation was also appropriately taciturn.  As we rode slowly across the stream, he finally allowed that, with luck, we could get to Traben by train, but first we would have to take a bus to a small town we’d never heard of called Bullay.  There, he thought, we might be able to catch a train to Traben-Trarbach. When I asked where and when the bus to Bullay departs, he waved us toward a weathered sign near the two-lane highway by the river, and, as a light rain began to fall, hopped into his car and sped away.  Fortunately, he returned, after apparently enjoying a leisurely lunch, and we crossed back damply to the Beilstein side of the river to wait for Saturday.

On Saturday, though, our travels went smoothly.  The bus to Bullay was on time. The train from Bullay to Traben-Trarbach is known locally as the Moselweinbahn – the Mosel Wine Line – and takes less than a half-hour to reach the small Bahnhof on the Traben side of the river.  The double town straddles the middle of a big loop in the meandering river, and the two halves are linked by the Moselbrücke, an iron bridge dating from 1899 but rebuilt in 1948 after being blown up during WWII.  On the Trarbach end of the bridge is the Brückentor, a monumental town gate that’s guarded the river access ever since the original bridge was built.  There are hotels, cafes and restaurants aplenty along both riverfronts.  The Traben side boasts the elegant, jugendstil Hotel Bellevue, designed by renowned architect Bruno Möhring, who also designed the bridge.  Surprisingly, the hotel owns a turquoise-blue amphibious automobile, which can carry guests across the river either on or beneath the bridge.

On a hill high above Trarbach is something much older, from 1350 in fact:  the remains of Grevenburg Castle – just one wall of the old keep, tall and lonely.  Back in town there’s a museum of local history in a house that once hosted Goethe. There’s a 120-yard long underground wine cellar, officially only open for guided tours, though we happened to find its cave-like entrance under the Traben end of the bridge.  It was open, so we strolled in and were ignored by a worker cleaning equipment until he finished his job and then politely ushered us out.

The most surprising of Traben-Trarbach’s many attractions is housed in a remodeled former winery building on the banks of the Mosel.  It now contains an astonishing collection of thousands of Buddha images from Thailand, Burma, China, India and Afghanistan, some of them more than 2000 years old.  The collection was assembled by the industrialist Wolfgang Preuss, who also financed the museum.  Its very hospitable director, Lydia Unger, was born in Trier, just up the river.  The beautifully maintained exhibits are like a voyage through the history of a great religion, though it’s a bit disorienting to look out the window at the vine-clad banks of the Mosel instead of the Chao Praya.

From Traben-Trarbach to our next stop is about four miles as the crow flies, but our boat on the twisting river traveled roughly 25 miles to reach Bernkastel-Kues, another double town straddling the river and connected by a bridge.  Bernkastel is very picturesque, with a famous medieval marketplace surrounded with timber-frame houses from the 14th to the 17th centuries.  We stopped there only briefly, just long enough to catch another boat, this time headed to Neumagen, where, you may recall, one sleepless, rainy night, I watched with envy as that long, sleek luxury liner slid past my window.

From Neumagen, there were no boats we could take to Trier, our journey’s last stop.  So we finished our slow transit of the Mosel wine valley by local bus.  Trier, the oldest city in Germany, was founded by the Celts in the 4th century BC.  The Romans conquered the Celtic settlement three centuries later.  And, of course, they built:  there are remains of three huge bath complexes, a very impressive and well-preserved amphitheater (you can even visit the underground rooms and cages for gladiators and animals, a smaller but equally grim version of the facilities beneath the Coliseum in Rome).

Most imposing of all is a massive city gate called the Porta Nigra from the 1st century AD.  You can clamber from level to level of the huge edifice, stopping for breath and panoramic views of the city. Elsewhere, you can visit Constantine the Great’s throne room, perhaps the only complete Roman Basilica remaining from antiquity, which is now a Lutheran church.  Think of all the turbulent religious history encapsulated in this one building!

In the Karl Marx Haus (he was born there), we walked through a multi-media presentation about Marx’s life and his impact on history, and were fascinated and a little nonplussed by the solemnity and intensity with which many young visitors took the tour. 

And, in the Rheinische Landesmuseum Trier, a wonderful archeological museum, we encountered reminders of our stay in Neumagen:  1st century grave monuments from the Roman military settlement there.  They were like old friends.  On a self-guided archeological tour, we’d seen replicas in Neumagen, their original home.  In fact, one of the stone sculptures was the inspiration for the replica wine ship on which we’d taken our kitschy but enjoyable ride a week before.

We had set out, 22 days earlier, to cruise, slowly and little-by-little, the most scenic stretch of the Mosel; and having achieved our dream (with a little necessary cheating), and having enjoyed every one of our stops along the way, we headed back by train to Koblenz, and then on to Cologne. We were there in about two hours.

Text © 2020 by Joe Gartman; Photographs © 2020 by Patricia Gartman. First published in German Life Magazine, August/September 2020