Join me as we explore a section of the Rhine which is a UNESCO World Heritage
Site. Hi I'm Gary Bembridge of Tips for Travellers. 67 kilometers between
Rudesheim and Koblenz full of castles, quaint villages, history and beautiful
scenery - and it's the UNESCO World Heritage site it's known as the "Upper
Middle Rhine Valley". So what are the things that you should absolutely do. Now
the first thing I recommend you do is actually get onto the water and get a
sense of the lay of the land. So there is a series of great boat trips that take
about two hours and run between Rudesheim and end in a place called Sankt
Goar and Sankt Goarshausen. You drift along the river and you pass up to 18
castles and fortresses. There is multilingual commentary, so there's
English, French, Spanish, Italian and Japanese. They explain to you the
different castles you've seen, the different fortresses, some of the history,
the struggles and battles over the centuries that happened along this stretch
of the Rhine. The boat actually stops a number of these very beautiful quaint
towns where passengers either embark or disembark. It gives you a real
sense of just how concentrated and significant this stretch of the Rhine is,
and it helps better understand why it became a UNESCO site. It's quite
magnificent because, in addition to incredible scenery, you just see castle
after castle after castle. You get to see River cruise boats. You get to see
cargo boats, and you get a real appreciation for just how important the
Rhine is from a commercial perspective. Now the reason that many
people actually do this trip is to see the Lorleley - a big craggy rock. It's over
130 meters high and it's a very significant part of the Rhine, because
it's where the Rhine is at its narrowest and its deepest, and so it used to be very
treacherous part of the river. There's a fable and story, and in fact a song
all about a siren that would be right on top of this rock with beautiful
golden hair and she would sing and distract sailors - and they would
eventually ruin and wreck their boats on the rocks below.
Once you get to Sankt Goarshausen what I recommend is actually head back to
Rudesheim on the train. It's only about a 5-minute walk from where the boat
leaves you, and only takes half an hour on the train back to Rudesheim. The next
thing I recommend you do is head up the cable car to an incredible memorial:
the Niederwalddenkmal or the Niederwald Monument. As you head up, you get
magnificent views of the Rhine Valley. Once you get up to the top there is
beautifully maintained gardens and the memorial itself is phenomenal. It was
actually built to commemorate the unification of Germany in 1871. On
top of the stone structure is the magnificent and very dramatic ten and a
half metre statue of the female figure called "Germania". Underneath the memorial
is a great viewing platform. Beautiful views. You can then spend time strolling
around the park before you get back on that cable car and head back down into Rudesheim.
Now once you're back down in Rudesheim, there's a very important place
to go and this is called the Drosselgasse. It's listed as one of the hundred
top things you should see. It's a very narrow street, it's only a
hundred and forty-four meters long. It's packed full of crafts shops, wine shops
(because the region is very well known for wine), restaurants. There's
really interesting buildings. l Drosselgasse is a really popular place to go.
It's also a great place to go if you want to get some really traditional
German food or wine or beer. It really is a magnificent place to go. From
there I would recommend that you then head to your next stop, which is
Oberwesel. Now Oberwesel is roughly in the midpoint along the stretch of the
UNESCO World Heritage Site. it built two and a half kilometers of walls around it,
and the walls were anything between six to 16 meters high. They are the best
preserved fortresses and walls of its kind within Germany. It had 22 towers and
16 of them have survived. Many of those 16 remaining towers you can actually
climb up the towers, and from the top you get great views. Oberwesel for me was
a really significant place because of those walls. It's a great place to
be based at to explore other parts. I would then head off towards Koblenz
and go and see a couple of castles that you will not have seen on the boat tour.
The first of them is near Sankt Goar, and it's called the Rheinfels castle. The
reason I chose this castle is it is the largest
fortifications of its kind on the Rhine. A big part of it are actually ruins. It's
a very dramatic place with beautiful big thick walls. There's also great Museum
within the actual old part of Rheinfels Castle.
On the old turrets you can look down across Sankt Goar, the Loreley and Sankt Goarshausen.
And so again magnificent views. From this really really important and
really significant castle, the second castle I recommend is a castle called
Stolzenfels Castle which is quite near Koblenz. The reason I chose this castle
is because, unlike many of the other castles on the Rhine, this is very gothic
in nature and it's quite a modern castle, relative to the other castles. King
Frederick William IV of Prussia commissioned the current castle as a
summer residence. It was built in the 19th century between 1836 and 1842.
Beautiful gardens. As you continue your journey towards Koblenz
these are two great castles along the way to stop. And so to the last stop, and the end
of the UNESCO World Heritage Site which, is the city of Koblenz.
There's two really important things to see here. The first of these is
reached by this very beautiful and modern cable car the fortress of
Ehrenbreitstein. The fortress stands 118 meters above the Rhine. The fortress
itself is humongous. It was built to ensure that no one could ever take this
fortress, with big thick walls which were designed to take a big battering.
Inside there are walls within walls, sections within sections and one of
the big highlights is to this Plaza area, where there is a viewing platform. You get to
look down where the Moselle River meets the Rhine River. The view is absolutely
magnificent. Now if you don't want to pay to go into the fortress, but you still
want to get the view, in 2011 this viewing platform was built. The view is
not as good by any stretch I don't think as the one from the fortress - but this
is another option. Next thing to see is head back down on the cable car and a short
walk away is the Deutsches Eck, or German corner. It's 37 meters high and the top is a
14-metre statue of the first emperor of Germany Kaiser Wilhelm.
During World War II, the statue was actually destroyed and just
the plinth part was left. The statue on top was only replaced in the 1990s
after Germany reunited. This is a remarkable 67 kilometre stretch of
the Rhine. If you go on a Rhine cruise you pass through this area, andyou get a glimpse
of it, you get a feel from it. But hopefully, as you've seen, by getting
onto land and really exploring this place
there is so much to see. Now clearly you could spend ages visiting. If you enjoy
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