Viking Grand European River Cruise: Exploring Koblenz, Germany

Viking Grand European River Cruise: Exploring Koblenz, Germany

Hello and welcome to day four of our Viking Grand European River Cruise. We start day four early in the city of Cooblins and then we take a cruise down the middle Rine visiting the castles and marvelous sites along the Rine Valley. So sit back and relax and join us once again in another adventure. We arrived quite early in Cooblance after sailing overnight from Cologne. Cooblins is at the intersection of the Moselle and Ryan rivers and our ship was docked very close to what was called the Deutsches Ek, the German corner where the Moselle River flows into the Ryan River. There was one main excursion and two optional excursions. We opted for the main excursion, but we’ll walk you through what you might see on the two optional excursions. Starting with the optional walking tour of Cooblance. As I said earlier, we were docked very near the Deutsches E where the Moselle River flows into the Ryan River and there is a statue to Kaiser Vilhelm I who is recognized for his unification of Germany in the 1800s. Both the Rine and Moselle are famous for their vineyards. And it turns out there’s a reasoning for everything. On the walking tour, you will visit Jesuit Square where there’s a statue to Johannes Mueller, who was a famous physiologist in the 1820s and made a number of discoveries that are still applicable today. Nearby is the history column, which was given to the city in 1992 to mark its 2000th anniversary. And it truly depicts the history of the city starting from the bottom with wine barrels being rode down the Ryan River and it goes to the top to show the future of Cooblance. Now the city is not without a sense of humor and that comes in the form of the Shangel Brunan fountain. The word shang is a German corruption of the French word ja and you need to be careful when you go by the fountain as sometimes the water goes beyond the base of the fountain. Another optional excursion is to take the cable car across to the Aaron Brinstein fortress. Very near the ship is a cable car that will take you up to the fortress. It is the second largest historical fortress in Europe only after Gibralar. The site itself dates back to the year 1000, but it was built in its present form in the 1820s as a Prussian fortress. Needless to say, from up here you have spectacular views of the Deutsches E and the city of Koblants itself. The regular shore excursion was to Marksburg Castle. This involved taking a bus along the rine to the city of Browach. I should also mention that the optional tours were also transported by bus to Brabach after their tours and the ship sailed earlier, so would arrive in Brabbach about the same time. The bus took us partway up the hill to the castle itself. But you should be warned that there’s a fairly steep walk up the hill to the castle. And inside the castle, there are quite a few stairs. In the old days, you didn’t want to walk under this as it was the toilet. Marksburg Castle is the only hilltop castle along the Rine, which has never been destroyed. In this section of the Rine, there is a castle to be found about every 2.5 km with over 40 of them still more or less intact. And we will see these in our afternoon Ryan cruise. Most parts of the castle date back to the 13th through 15th century and are remarkably well preserved. As you look out the windows, you can see the strategic importance of its location overlooking the rine. Well, they even undertook to have a little garden of herbs. As I said, the view from up here was spectacular, and I simply couldn’t resist the opportunity to get the drone out and see what this looked like from above. So relax and please enjoy this little tour of Castle Marxburg from the Gareth. While we were touring the castle, the buses from the other tours arrived in Bravach, and we took the bus back down to meet our ship, which was just now arriving at the dock. So, with that, it was time to put the drone away and walk back to the ship for a little bit of lunch. This is one of the few times that we cruised during the day. So, we spent the afternoon cruising down the middle Rine or the Ryan Gorge. It’s about a 40mi stretch of the Ryan River between Cooblins and Bingan. It has a lot of steep hillsides with vineyards on them and there are many castles that we will see. As a matter of fact, there are more than 28 castles, some in better shape than others, some as hotels and restaurants. For the first leg of the trip, we settled down for lunch and sailed past the village of Velmish. Oh, and did I mention there are a few vineyards along the sides and some of the finest wines in the world come from the Ryan River Valley. In addition to the vineyards, we saw lots of camping sites all along the river. The campsites were mainly occupied by caravans and stretched for kilome. And now we enter the Ryan Gorge and we go from fairly flat terrain to very steep hillsides, many of which are covered with grape vines. We also saw some companionships sail by us. Now we start seeing more castles. And here we see Berg Mouse, which was actually Thurberg Castle and it’s mockingly named Mouse by the counts of Katsenbogen, Cat’s Castle. Today it’s a farm for eagles and falcons. The next leg of the trip takes us past St. Gore on the right and St. Gorehausen on the left. The Rine is one of the largest rivers in Europe and it’s marked by a lot of freight traffic that we saw, much of which were heading to the port of Rotterdam. Next, we come to Reinfeld’s Castle. It’s the ruins of a mighty 13th century fortress. And today the castle’s home to a hotel and a museum. St. Gore is another one of the charming little towns along the Rine. And this one happens to be the home of the Rinewater Police for this stretch of the Rine. Directly across the river is the town of St. Gorehausen, which is called the Laura Liat. More on that in just a minute. Next comes Burke Catz, which is the companion to Burke Mouse. This castle was built in the 14th century, but was destroyed by Napoleon and then rebuilt during the Victorian era. This next segment takes us down one of the most storied and famous parts of the Ryan River Valley and that’s past the Laurelai Rock. You can even find a camping spot directly across from the Lurai. And playing in the background is the Lauraai, the famous folk song. This stretch of the rine is very narrow and flows very quickly. And there we see the Laurelai rock. This rock was made famous in the story of a maiden who was betrayed by her lover and committed suicide by leaping into the rine and became a siren who would lure sailors to their deaths in the rapids below. Next up is another picturesque town along the Rine and that’s Ober Vasil. You will find many of these towers along the water’s edge and they were used as toll towers to tax the merchants bringing goods up and down the Rine. Oberves has the Gothic Church of our Lady which has some important treasures. Also there’s St. Martin’s Church and remains of an old city wall. Above it is Shernburgg Castle, which is really now a hotel. Now we near the end of our cruise and the steep walls of the Rine start to fall away as we approach the town of Bingan. Next we see above the city of CB the Berg Hotel of Gutenfells. Again, one of these beautiful hotels that has been repurposed from a castle. Both Gutenfells and this particular castle, False Graffenstein, were substantial toll barriers for sailors going up and down the Rine. False Graphenstein would actually drag chains across the river to block sailors until they paid their tolls. We next quickly pass by the town of Bakarak before we come ac across yet another campground. And above that is the Berg Hotel Reichenstein, which looks like a delightful place to stay. [Music] Next up is Berg Reinstein, which I believe is now a private residence. And now our last castle before we exit the valley is Nolik Castle which dates from the 1300s. These ruins were never really a castle but part of the fortification of the city wall. Now above these beautiful vineyards is the Netherald monument which commemorates the reunification of Germany under Bismar in the 1870s. It’s also called the watch on the right. Here is another one of these toll towers right on the edge of the city of Bingan which is where St. Hildigard Fonbigan comes from. And as we turn we see some of the vineyards for Rutshime. Rutshime lies right at the end of the Ry Valley and is a beautiful place to visit and they have a marvelous mechanical music museum if you ever choose to go in there. Above the town is the Abbey of St. Hildigard plus a lot of vineyards. Well, that’s it for this trip on the Rine. As we travel from Bingan, we go to Mines and then turn left on the mine river in Mites. Just before we went to bed, we went upstairs to catch a glimpse of the very first lock we would go through, one of many that we would travel through on both the mine and the Danube canals. Well, that was a very long but a wonderful day four of our trip. And if you enjoyed this video, please subscribe to our channel. We’d greatly appreciate it. [Music]

This is a in-depth look at Koblenz, Germany. It includes a great day cruise down the middle Rhine with its castles and vineyards.

Koblenz is a traditional German country town at the confluence of the Rhine and Moselle Rivers. Founded more than 2,000 years ago, this former trading settlement rests on a massif of the Middle Rhine Highlands. Its cobblestone streets, wood-beamed houses adorned with flowers, ancient market square and medieval churches recall the fairy-tale Germany of old. At the “German Corner,” where the two rivers converge, a massive equestrian statue of Prince William I observes the lovely riverside scene. The famed Teutonic Knights set up their first base here in 1216. The Romanesque Basilica of St. Castor, Koblenz’s oldest building, dates to 836.

Castles and wine take center stage-particularly along the Middle Rhine, brimming with remarkable beauty, history and culture. On the steepest riverbanks, grapes are still harvested by hand, a tradition dating back 2,000 years to when the Romans introduced viticulture to the area. Later, medieval noblemen built soaring castles to oversee trade, collect tolls and defend kingdoms from marauders and power seekers. Storybook villages rise along forested shores. Today, the Rhine-where renowned Rieslings, crisp chardonnays and other vintages are just a pour away—is one of Europe’s most spellbinding rivers.

Here are several links to short clips from the Rüdesheim House of Music
https://youtu.be/Ej6qyvneDyo
https://youtu.be/oImx_NV1HAQ
https://youtu.be/KHV2rqFIAk8
https://youtu.be/iolr4FCwu3Av

00:00 Introduction
00:36 Walking Tour of Koblenz
02:21 Ehrenbreitstein Fortress
03:03 Marksburg Castle
04:19 Flight over the castle
05:50 Start of Rhine Cruise
08:03 Sail past the Loreley
10:49 End of middle Rhine

All of our hotel bookings are done through Booking.com
https://www.booking.com/index.html?aid=7987353

Equipment used:
DJI Mini 3 Pro (have since upgraded to a Mini 4 Pro) https://www.dji.com/mini-4-pro
Insta360 x3 (360° camera) – https://store.insta360.com/product/x3…
Insta360 Go 3 – https://store.insta360.com/product/go…

Music from Epidemic Sound:https://share.epidemicsound.com/2xplxj
Editing is done on a Mac Studio with Final Cut Pro