The Mosel wine region: 2 Blondes on tour surrounded by castles and vineyards

Welcome to the Mosel region: Where wine is a cultural asset! The more I traveled abroad, the more I learned to also appreciate the beautiful sights we have within Germany. All the great landscapes and places that we have here are now particularly striking to me. Last week I took Big Berta and a very good friend, Amelie, on it’s first road trip to the Mosel wine region in Rheinlandpfalz. The area around the Mosel is known for its excellent wines and impressive scenery. In the midst of this breathtaking natural setting we spent five nights in different places, on camp grounds and mobile camping spots. There are so many little villages, and countless castles, along this drive that deciding which you want to visit can be hard. Congratulations if your time is unlimited! We decided to use Trier as our starting point, where we had booked a camp site for the first night and traveled up north along the mosel river.

Trier

Without a plan or an exact route we decided to spend as little time as possible on the Autobahn. Therefore we drove through the Vulkaneifel and made our first stop for a hike around the Laacher lake. We drove past the popular Nürburgring arena and enjoyed our first wine at some vinery with a terrace and views over the mosel. It was an unbearably hot day and we really felt like we needed to cool off but have been advised beforehand, not to go swimming in the mosel river. We googled open air swimming pools and found a cute panorama Freibad in Schweich, which was unfortunately closed due to Corona. So no cool off until we reached the camp ground in Trier, however we were rewarded with great views from the top of the hill anyway. The first over night stop on our Mosel River Valley road trip was a campground outside the city of Trier. Here we already had our first incident no-one wants when on holiday: Amelie was stung by a wasp in her face just below her eye.

Trier & Trittenheim

In the morning we explored the city Trier which was founded by the Romans. It is the oldest city in Germany and full of history. Amelie had to attend a university zoom meeting so I took the time to stroll around the old city and visit Porta Nigra, the black gate – the ruins of Roman baths and an amphitheater just outside the center. We continued our drive in the late afternoon and spontaneously decided to spend the night in Trittenheim on a mobile campground. We had seen this type of sites everywhere along the Mosel but couldn´t work out if we are legally allowed to stay here without being a fully self-catered mobilehome. Instead of paying roughly 20€ and more for a campground, we were allowed to park here right next to the vines for 7,50€ but also had no shower or toilet. We thought we would head to the supermarket to get some stuff for dinner, but unfortunately there is only one and that was already closed, so we ate bread and snacks that we had. However we were lucky enough to have found a vineyard store that sold us some wine, which was so good that we ended up buying four bottles (!!) of which we drank 3,5 bottles that same night. Slightly drunk I managed to test Big Berta to its limit and broke one of the wood pieces and burnt myself on my bunsen burner. Here is our wine suggestion:

Bernkastelkues

The next morning we were so incredibly lucky to wake up only with a fairly mild hangover and managed to visit the tourist information to pay for our overnight camp and get some suggestions for a hike nearby. We hiked to a chapel at the top of a hill and grabbed some lunch at a restaurant before we hit the road to head to Bernkastel-Kues, a truly fairytale town on the Mosel. The town center was overflown with tourists, free parking spots nowhere to be found so we headed to the closest open air swimmingpool for two hours and decided to overcome the last bit of our hangover and visited the town village later in the evening. Colourful half-timbered houses and tiny alleys line up here. The night we spend at a campground further north near Traben Trarbach.

Moselschleife Bremm

Today we were going to do a one hour loop hike (or so we thought) which was recommended by a friend who had been here a few weeks ago and posted some great photos on Instagram. It was another hot as day and without a real plan we followed the hiking signs to the viewing point and somehow got lost on the way. We hiked across steep vine cliffs and ended up in the next village 6km away from where Berta was parked, exhausted and slightly dehydrated with no energy left – a girl offered us a ride back to the car. Later, we found out that the suggested route my friend was talking about was only a part of a four hour hike to the mountain top, where we later went by car and a ten minute walk to find the view we had actually hoped for on the hike. The sign posts in the mosel region reminded me a lot of the holiday vacations we used to take to Greece when I was a child. The distances where never really accurate, parts of the sign posts have fallen off and finding the right route was always a major mission. Exhausted from the hike and the heat of the midday sun we really needed a swim in the water and decided to go swimming in the mosel river like many other people were doing. “I told you so” was my parents reply when I developed an allergic reaction to the dirty mosel water. This night we stayed at a camp ground in Moselkern to be close to tomorrows attraction, a hike to Burg Eltz.

Burg Eltz & Koblenz

As one of the most famous castles in Germany, we could not not go here since it was enroute anyway. We started early-ish in the morning and hiked the 2km through the forest until we arrived at the castle to find a not too long line at the entrance. Sign posts had been set up to remind people of distancing due to Corona and the approximate waiting time to reach the entrance office. It was becoming another hot day, people left and right from us weren´t keeping the distance, Amelie had already visited the castle two years ago so we decided it wasn´t worth our time to wait around just to get inside the castle. I took some snapshots of the outside castle walls and we hiked back to the car and enjoyed a coffee at the closest cafe. We continued our drive to Koblenz. We parked the car at the Ehrenbreitstein fortress and bought combi tickets for the fortress and the cable car across the Rhine river to Koblenz town center. From above we had great views over the “Deutsches Eck” , where the two rivers Rhine and Moselle merge. We visited the old town of Koblenz (one street, not very impressive), or so we thought. Later we learnt, that the old town of Koblenz is not as we thought on the other side of the Rhine when taking the cable car from the Fortress to Deutsches Eck, but below the Fortress itself. I guess that just means we need to visit Koblenz again. We continued to drive further north, no longer along the Mosel but the Rhine and went to an open air swimming pool in Bad Honnef. We stayed the night at an old married couples private motorhome park which we found online because there no longer where any public mobile overnight parking spots. Because we are not self-catered we had to promise the old lady that we would not use her bushes as our toilet (which we really didn´t). We treated ourselves to a lovely meal for our last night on this trip before we would return home tomorrow.

Drachenfels

Today was our last day of the six day mosel wine roadtrip and we had just one more stop that we really wanted to see: the Drachenfels. It is a mountain in the Seven Mountains on the Rhin that was formed by rising magma that could not break through to the surface. It offers brilliant views over the rhine river, a castle and an old ruin. We hiked up early in the morning, but you can also use the very expensive rack railway. We were lucky to be the only ones up there to enjoy the view, our breakfast and a quick game. On our hike down, we were greeted by class groups and many other tourists, boy were we lucky that we started early. Before we continued to drive home we stopped at the Birkenstock shoe outlet and the Haribo factory sale in Haribo – might as well while we are here.

Outtakes

Six days, roughly 500km, only a few incidents, one hangover and lots of photos and memories later we returned home. The first official test drive of Berta was completed, everything worked as planned, we used it in all its functions and I am happy that apart from that one wooden piece, everything is intact and usable. Even with the two nights of thunderstorm and rain, we were able to be fairly comfortable inside Big Berta. As for the route and the region, the mosel wine region was stunning and vibrant, the views over the wine scenery are breathtaking at points, while the Mosel itself really is not made to be swum in. We can definitely recommend a trip like this, maybe a little bit more planning but oh well – sometimes you just have to go with the flow. Enjoy the not so photogenic outtakes of the trip and for more photos that I just couldn´t fit in here, go visit the Gallery.