Cochem
We made a day trip to Cochem recently. It's a town on the river Moselle, known for a hill-top medieval castle and wine production, particularly Riesling wines. We parked our car on the riverbank opposite the old town and the castle. They looked lovely over the river.
We walked across the bridge to the old town. Some ferries were moored at the bank. I remembered a travel tip, "Come to Cochem in the very early morning before ferries arrive to avoid crowds," which I saw somewhere online. Oh-oh.
The old town was filled with shops, cafes and restaurants and lively with tourists who I guess those ferries brought there. The onion tower of St Martin church, which was built after WWII, was an eye-catcher. The tunnel at the bottom of the tower led us to the market square.
Adorable half-timber houses decorated the market square, which looked relatively new. The history of the town told me why. Cochem was first written in the 9th century. It became an important town to control trade via river in the Middle Ages. Many of the buildings were built between the 13th and 15th centuries. Cochem was almost completely destroyed by the troops of the French King Louis XIV, known as the Sun King in the 17th century. The town was rebuilt in the 19th and 20th centuries, based on tourism, but was crushed during WW2. The town rose again. Today it's like a tourist magnet.
We followed the street sign to the castle, climbing an uphill pass to the castle. It was very steep! About halfway up that hill, the scenery changed to a vineyard. I stopped a couple times to take photos of grapes as well as catch a breath.
The castle sat among the vineyards and looked down on us. There was more slope to go up there...
Finally we reached the gate, which is called the second gate, I believe. Where was the first?
The view was a reward to be on the hill top. The weather was beautiful.
A stone statue of a lion wearing a Knight's helmet was overlooking the river Moselle. It didn't like a lion from this angle, though.
We joined a guided tour to walk through the castle. The castle was first mentioned in a document in 1051. The castle had been an Imperial castle and then was enlarged and fortified by the archbishops of Trier in the Middle ages. When the troops of the Sun King took over Cochem in 1689, they burned the castle down. The castle was left in ruins until 1868 when a Berlin business man, Mr. Louis Ravené purchased the castle. Based on the remaining structures, he rebuilt the castle in the Neo-Gothic architectural style, which was popular at that time, to be a family summer house. In 1942, Ravené was forced to sell the castle to the Prussian Ministry of Justice. Following the end of WWII, the castle became the property of the new state of Rheinland-Pfalz and later was bought by the city of Cochem, which made the castle open to public!
The tour took us inside of the castle, including the Dining hall,
the Gothic room,
the Romanesque room,
the room above the gate,
the Hunting room,
The view from the balcony attached to the weapons room was lovely!
Then we were back to the courtyard. Our guide showed how deep the old well was by dropping some water in it.
According to our guide, the white tower, called the Witch tower is the only remaining part of the original fortress. The witch's magic made the castle remain intact.., really?
The tour ended at the third portal where it began.
Good bye to the lion!
Good bye to the castle! The way down to the town was so easy and quick.
We stopped by one of several wine shops there. J bought a couple of bottles and asked the man at the casher which restaurants in the town he would like for lunch. He kindly gave us some names.
We tried one of his recommendations, which was La Baia, an Italian restaurant that he would go to for pizzas. The restaurant was on the second (third in the States) floor and had a large terrace. We chose a table on the terrace, which gave us a fresh air and a lovely view of the castle. The place was also quiet. The terrace was very high up from the busy streets and tourists, and there were only a few other customers at that time.
We ordered a pasta dish (Carbonara) and a pizza (ham and mushrooms) to share. Both were pretty good.
For desserts, we picked gelato up at Gelateria Fratelli Bortolot. I had the same flavors that J chose. One was Mosel Riesling, of course. The other was... I don't remember the name but it tasted like toffee. Very refreshing!
We walked back to the market square to find a bench and eat the gelato but I finished my gelato before we arrived there. There wasn't a bench there anyway. By the way the salmon pink building was the 18th century town hall.
Enderttor is one of the three remaining Medieval city gates in Cochem. We walked through the gate and kept walking straight.
Then we found a mustard shop, Historische Senfmuehlen.
They make their special mustards in one of the oldest mustard mills in Europe. In the shop you can taste all their products. J did several and bought three kinds. Their mustard is sold in their original salt-glazed ceramic pots, which make the shelf life to be up to 2 years without refrigeration. Actually the lady at the casher told us not to put their mustard in the refrigerator. Yes ma'am, I got it.
We were also told to use a plastic spoon, not a metal one. It is generally said that mustard could pick up a metallic taste due to a kind of chemical reaction between metal spoons and mustard. Although we have been using a stainless spoon and haven't noticed any flavor change, we can try to adopt a new practice.
One of the large ferry was leaving. It was also time for us to go home. We had a lovely day out.
