Fortunately, we have a Garmin GPS unit we own that works 98% of the time and is pretty good at predicting ETA (Estimated Time of Arrival). As you may have sensed from the blog entries the Mosel river winds it way from west to east. If you were to simply drive to each destination along the road that runs beside the river it would take forever.
Quite often you will leave the Mosel River road and climb into the mountain(s) and then navigate back down close to your destination on the Mosel. This will mean you encounter extreme turns and in some cases hairpin corners that test the abilities of any driver. Plus, on some of the roads there are no white lines in the middle of the road. Overall, the German drivers are technically proficient. Given the demographics are baby boomer tourists, they may not drive the speed limit or just around the speed limit. The hairpin corners are memorable.
The speed limit through the villages is 50 km/hour. Some stretches outside of villages are 70 km/hour and then on the faster roads that go through the countryside behind the mountains you can go 120 km/hour. Some of the route will be driving in the farming country with wide open views. Sometimes, you are driving on freeways where you get some drivers going way over the speed limit.
Driving or navigating in the Mosel-Saar-Ruwer and Nahe villages means very narrow and winding streets, lanes and alley ways. On some streets there is room for one car only. Some streets are too narrow for even one car. You really have to depend on the GPS unit and your capable passenger navigator like Lana. Nothing will be organized like our North American grid patterns. Many of the Weinguts in the Mosel are located right in the village so parking will be challenging.
You may be wondering how can you do wine tastings and then drive? Easiest answer is that most German Rieslings have low alcohol content. Basically, the sweeter Rieslings have very low alcohol because the fermentation is stopped earlier than dry wines. The dry wines have substituted the sugar from the grapes with alcohol during the fermentation stage. If I am feeling the effects of a couple of wine tastings back to back then Lana drives.
**Lana here: as the navigator, it's my job to keep Randy informed of where we are driving so I try to tell him things like how long we are on a particular stretch of road before we need to turn, if we're coming up to any hairpin turns, which exit to take in the traffic circle, etc. etc. Despite my best efforts, sometimes the GPS gets confused and loses contact with the coordinates of where we are at. We don't expect the GPS to be perfect but the following are things that you don't want to see or hear while you are driving with one:
LANA:
1. The GPS says "Recalculating route"--even though you haven't deviated at all from the last set of instructions.
2. The GPS says "Please make a u-turn when it is safe to do so"--again, even though you haven't deviated at all from the last set of instructions.
3. The car image spinning around in circles in one spot on the screen as you go around a turn/corner!!!!
4. The car image skidding off the image of the road while you are driving (good grief!!)
5. The car image suddenly moves to an area OFF the roadway in the middle of a farmer's field as you are driving (yikes!!)
I will try to take a picture of the GPS screen when some of these happen because at the end of the day all you can do is "keep calm and carry on" and laugh about it when you finally arrive at your intended destination :)
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Today we have a less busy itinerary and only one (1) wine tasting. It is a beautiful sunny and warmish day in the Mosel. We had our breakfast at the hotel and then into the car for the 55 minute drive to Burg Eltz. This castle in the forest near the Mosel is recommended by many travel critics as the top castle (Schloss) in Deutschland. It was not disappointing. We really enjoyed our time. Admission is 10 Euros for an adult which gets you a tour and a visit to Armoury and Treasury rooms. You receive an english pamphlet for both the tour and the visit to the rooms below. We recommend this as a great destination. You need a car though.
We arrived at 10:15 and park for 2 Euros in the gravel parking lot. No sight of any castle though. It is a 15 minute walk through the forest. Early in the morning a little chilly, but once you are back into the light it is warm. When you come across the tall castle it is perched on a rock right in the middle of the forest. Why a castle in the middle of the forest? Well, back when it was first being constructed in the 1300s the surrounding forest provided a wealth of food and natural resources. From this high vantage point the Eltz family controlled traffic between the fertile Mayfield plateau (farming) and the Mosel river - a major medieval trade route. The Eltz family had three sons and they decided to build their homes in the castle complex so it is actually three separate residences but you would never know that. At this point, the only remaining family is the Eltz and that is the 33rd generation. Eltz means "red beard" so that is how the family got their surname. This castle was never conquered so it remains intact in all ways.
On our english-speaking tour there were almost 30 people. Some interesting notes I made while the tour guide was speaking:
- men in the medieval days were very short with a tall man around 5'6"
- no pictures are allowed in the rooms although before we heard this we took a couple of pics you will see below
- wooden ceiling beams in the main room are 600 years old
- original fireplaces as that was the only way you could heat the castle
- 80 rooms in total
- huge and beautiful tapestries on many of the room walls with some dating back to the 1600s
- the paintings on the walls are all from the Medieval days
- upper bedroom ceiling has wooden beams and painted in designs
- stained glass windows in many rooms and they are beautiful
- the bedrooms were designed for multi-use
- one bed was from 1620 and raised above the floor on stone steps given the poor insulation made it cold in the rooms and the higher to the ceiling the warmer the bed area
- one room was huge with a long table, huge tapestries and two fireplaces to heat the rooms
- interesting one room was the party and council room where a fool's mask indicated you had free speech while in the room and another signifier that what was said in the room stayed in the room (kind of like Las Vegas)
- huge bear rugs lying flat on the floor
- beautifully adorned wooden cupboards
- in one room called the kid's room there were paintings of children, but the torso was of an adult. Medieval times believed you should treat children like adults thus the paintings.
- spiral staircases always turned from the left at the top as you could use your sword easier on an attacker coming up the staircase. Why, because you were right-handed as you were righteous and God was always righteous.
- one of the stone floors was dated to 1409
- 3 separate kitchens which were interesting given how they utilized the fire/oven/keep meat and food away from rats/mice etc.
- we did a self-guided tour of the treasury and armoury given the pamphlet was extremely detailed (how German) :-)
I phoned Alte Thorschenke to see if this restaurant in Cochem was open today for lunch. No luck as another tour group was using the facilities. We decided to drive to Bremm where the Weingut was located and see if they were willing to delay the 14:00 appointment so we could have lunch.
Online picture of Burg Eltz from an angle we could never attain. As you can see the castle is nestled deep in the forest.
Online pictures of the inside of the castle on the left and on the right the external side.
The beautiful Burg Eltz.
The only way to take a picture of the front of Burg Eltz is to walk down the long stairwell and then across the stream to a bridge.
Picture taken from the back side of the Burg Eltz castle. Front the front you can't get pictures as it is forest. This is the angle you first encounter from walking from the parking lot to the castle. If you take the shuttle for 2 Euro each you are dropped off near the causeway.
The only entrance to Burg Eltz.
Lana taking a picture of the gate of Burg Eltz as we are leaving. If you look closely you can see another smaller structure at the top of the hill. This was built by an Archbishop from Luxembourg who tried to take over the entire region and and thus started a feud with the Eltz family. This lasted 5 years but the Eltz family refused to give in and eventually won out!!
Examples of armour from the castle. Just check out how short the warriors could be hundreds of years ago.
Our tour guide explained these lances had three uses in battle. 1. pierce the enemy 2. slash the enemy and 3. use the corners to catch the man on horse and drag him off.
Lana beside a doorway on the inside of the castle. You can really see just how short people were in the Middle Ages. Lana is about 5' 6" tall.
Grass field just outside Burg Eltz surrounded of course by trees. A small stream runs around the castle although I didn't think it was deep enough to sustain any fish.
Lana's excellent panoramic picture inside of Burg Eltz.
Deutschland is a world leader in large scale renewable energy projects such as this solar energy farm in a farmer's field. We encountered a few of these during our trips in the countryside. In addition, it is not uncommon to see many huge wind turbines in the fields all over this part of Deutschland.
Gigantic bridge structure that is unfinished and it does not appear that any work is occurring. Apparently, a new bridge over the Mosel river. It was pretty freaky to see an unfinished bridge of this size/stature going across the big valley.
When was the last time you saw a phone booth and someone actually using it? This phone booth is in Bernkastel-Kues and at least two persons used it while we were dining.
We arrived in Bremm around 13:35 for our wine tasting appointment at Weingut Reinhold Franzen. Very small facade in the Weingut. Angelina was our wine tasting host. We stood at the front counter. A Weingut since 2010. 70,000 bottles per year. Export some wines to USA and Japan. Strictly use stainless steel. All grapes are hand-picked. 10 Hectares of vineyards - all slate. Some of their vines are up to a 100 years old. We tasted seven wines only. They had sold out of a wine that I was keen on sampling. We bought a 2015er Neefer Frauenberg Riesling (Trocken style) for 12.90 Euro. Only 30 minutes. The disturbing circumstance was the fact we needed to make an appointment, yet on two occasions different customers wandered in and got her attention. They are a small operation with basically the two of them running the Weingut and the retail side.
Online picture of the winemaker Kilian Franzen and his wife Angelina who did our wine tasting. Lana found a small jar of Urwaldpfeffer for 15.90 Euro. This is wild black pepper from the exotic island of Madagascar.
Lana outside of Weingut Reinhold Franzen in Bremm.
An example of the very narrow streets in these Mosel villages. These villages were built centuries before the automobile. We barely made it through this street. Our rental car has worked very well so far on our trip. It accelerates well, shifts fairly easily and you ride higher than most vehicles.
We stopped for lunch at Hotel Hutter Restaurant in Bremm. We sat upstairs beside the window so we could see the Mosel. I ordered a glass of 2015er Bremmer Calmont Riesling Qb4 Halbtrocken for 3.90 Euro. Serve chilled like they do with their white wines in Deutschland. It was tasty, but not the depth we are used to in our wine tastings (we are getting spoiled by the superior Riesling wines from the Weinguts). Our male server was pretty blunt and not a happy guy. The female server's child was running around the restaurant screaming. Hmmmm....we left quickly after this started.
Randy's lunch order of Schwiezer Wurstsalat for 8.50 Euro. Described as "feiner hausgemachter Wursalat mit Käse dazu Bratkartoffel".
After lunch we head back to our hotel in Bernkastel-Kues. Some work on the blogs and Lana checks Trip Advisor ratings and finds a place that is about an 18 minute walk into Kues centre. Still warm enough for shorts although with the angle of the sun we are mostly walking in the shade. This restaurant was built into the old train station so is pretty unique and hip. Lots of dining inside and outside. Given it is still reasonably nice we find a table outside. We forgot though that in Deutschland you can smoke outside in the restaurants and we just happened to be around smokers who had either finished eating or hadn't received their food yet. Our server wasn't happy nor personable. I am beginning to think that the servers get frustrated with the customers in these very touristy areas?
Menu for Bahnhof Cues Dãs Brãhãus in Bernkastel-Kues. Bahnhof means train station in German.
Our meal of Grillhaxe as den Backofen (pork hock) with the crispy skin. Plus, sauerkraut and what they call potato dumplings which are just potatos. This is a huge piece of pork meat that we couldn't finish. The crispy skin and fat underneath are so tasty! We shared our meal and had a house salad and bratkartoffeln (fried potatos). Meal was OK, but service slow (32 minutes before we received our meal) and not super friendly :(
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