Weekend trip to Cochem!

Finally, spring is here. There’s really no reason to complain with 20 degrees and clear blue sky. And exactly on such a day, we were having a two day trip to Cochem. The plan was fairly simple: we take a train from Düsseldorf to Pommern on the first day, which is a city close to Cochem. Then we follow the Moselsteig up to Cochem, which is a well established hiking route going from Koblenz to Trier along the river Moselle. Then we stay in the youth hostel of Cochem. On the second day, we take a train to go to Treis-Karden, in order to hike from there to the Eltz castle, which is a medieval castle, a famous one in this area.

Not every train stops at every station between Koblenz and Trier. And our starting point, Pommern, not being quite a large one, we would have had to wait for one hour if we had missed the train we were planning to take. We almost missed it. And it looked very much like a miracle that we didn’t miss that one.

But maybe we should anyway be grateful for the existence of this line. From the train, we could see the never-ending beautiful vineyards everywhere, even though it wasn’t so green yet. In a few months, this region will become gorgeous. Well, seeing what it was like today makes us look forward to a different season. At least this slow train was comfortable, whether it economically makes sense for the German railway to keep this line or not.

The river Moselle lies in a valley, so that we had to go up a hill as soon as we arrived there. But since there weren’t many tall trees, we could have a greater view with each step we made. Again, the slope was not quite green yet, but the view was still amazing there.

As I stated above, this Moselsteig is really well established. There were therefore quite a few platforms on the way, where we could have a break and have a great view at the same time. Today was an exceptionally warm day, but probably not many people have planned a hike, so that we hardly saw anyone on the way. In a few months, this area will probably be full of hikers.

There was quite a variety of landscapes as well on the way. Despite my understanding of going along the river, we were also going through fields and forests. I was rather surprised to see also a vast plateau. Even if it’s close to the river, it’s apparently not always hilly in this area.

Nevertheless, the 20 km we did today wouldn’t be something that you’d do without preparation. Everyone looked exhausted at the end of the day, so that we could not find energy anymore to visit the famous castle in Cochem in the evening.

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Next day, we hiked from Treis-Karden to the Eltz castle. This was just as hilly as on the first day, although the distance was significantly smaller. Even though the hiking path itself is fairly well established, we could not always go straightforwardly.

The situation changed drastically by the time we were arriving at the Eltz castle. This one apparently is a really touristic spot, so that there were also people carrying high heels and everything. The castle itself was by the way closed; it was meant to be open from 1 April, exactly one day later. Well, I knew that it was closed, and I also wanted it to be closed, but it was visibly shocking to some people. It’s beautiful from outside as well. Why pay money additionally.

At the end of the day, we took a train from Moselkern and back to Düsseldorf. Again, a nice slow train to watch a great landscape outside. Hopefully we’ll come back in summer.

You can download the trail from here (kml-format) and here (gpx-format) for the first day and here (kml) and here (gpx) for the second day.