Thursday night, my friend Corry called me out of the blue to ask me what I was doing on Saturday. "Running tedious errands with Lance," I replied.
"Well, get out of it!" (I don’t think this is exactly what she said, but the gist of it anyway).
She went on to invite me to Bernkastel-Kues, two villages across the Mosel River from each other, connected by a bridge. She said she was going with a Canadian group to the wine festival and fireworks, and she wanted me to come as her guest.
Anyway, I talked to Lance, and he insisted that I go.
So yesterday morning at 9 am, I met up with the bus and the other merry travelers, and we set out for the Mosel. I don't think Corry mentioned that we were stopping in Cochem first. But that was explained on the bus…we would arrive in Cochem around 11:30 and have two hours to spend there before moving on to Bernkastel-Kues.
We passed the time well enough. Corry brought her PDA loaded with Monopoly, so we played that for a bit until we both got sick of it.
At 11:30, we arrived in Cochem. I got off the bus and was instantly amazed. Burg Cochem, which I had only heard about but had never seen pictures of, was beautiful and huge…the obvious highlight of the town. Since we only had two hours, we debated walking up to the castle…I didn't really want to. I just wanted to spend time walking around town, but I was convinced otherwise. So we began our huge ascent up the hill to the castle, which was more tiresome than I imagined. Once there, we asked for general admission tickets, but ended up getting on the guided tour instead, which is only conducted in German. They gave us a sheet in English explaining everything, but it was still a bit confusing. It was cool to see the inside of the castle though.
Once we finished the tour, we had about 40 minutes to get back to the bus. So we walked back into the center of town, which takes about 25 minutes (or at least it did going up…I think it was less going down). I was looking for a quick bite to grab for lunch, and happened upon a bratwurst stand. So bratwurst in hand, I got back to the bus and the rest of our group, and we were on our way to Bernkastel-Kues.
The drive there was pretty…going through all the small towns dotting the river. There aren't as many castles on the Mosel as there are on the Rhine, but the ones that are there are just as impressive, if not more so. I saw mostly quaint guesthouses and wineries during the drive, which took a little over an hour. The hills were completely covered in vines.
We finally arrived at Bernkastel around 3…the bus parked there. Our first stop was actually in Kues, at a wine cellar where we were going to a wine tasting. So we took a short walk across the river to the cellar, where we got one glass and 150 varieties of wine (mostly Rieslings) to taste. I drank a total of maybe 3 glasses while I was there. Some people just proceeded to get completely plastered. I gravitated to what I knew I liked, and tried a few other kinds. I ended up walking away with two bottles: a semi-dry Riesling Kabinett and a sweet Riesling. I waited outside for a bit until Corry came out. She's not much of a wine drinker, so she was choosing bottles to give as gifts. She bought a case, and we walked back to the bus with our purchases, then back to the wine cellar so Corry could meet up with her friends that were wandering around with us. They said they would join us shortly, so we walked back to Bernkastel to wait for them.
After we all met up, we decided to go for dinner. Corry and I wanted to sit down somewhere. The 3 others in our small group eventually decided they wanted to grab food to go, so we split up and Corry and I went to a nice restaurant where we sat out on the balcony with the view of the wine festival below. I had a nice dinner of pork steak smothered in sautéed onions with fried potatoes on the side. It was served with horseradish, which Corry ended up eating because I didn't really like it. Corry had something pretty similar, except she also had green bean bundles wrapped in bacon.
After dinner, we went to one of the areas of town where the festival-goers were congregating. We met up with some Americans there who had come from nearby military bases, and talked to them for a bit, and then we started running into people in our group. So we hung out in this area for awhile. I saw a booth selling Federweisser, which is essentially young wine (Junger Wein). It only comes out this time of year. It's produced the same year you are supposed to drink it. It's best described as half grape juice, half wine, and it only has about 4% alcohol in it. The Germans love the stuff (it traditionally accompanies onion cake). I bought some in Luxembourg a couple years ago, but it had already fermented and tasted nasty, so I ended up pouring it out. I decided to give it another try. It has to be consumed immediately and they don't cork it…they just put the foil seal over the bottle and leave it at that (this is because it builds up carbonic acid, and the bottle will explode if sealed). Anyway, I bought a glass and it was good. So I ended up purchasing a bottle of that.
Around 8:15, we had to leave to meet up with the rest of our group at the river cruise. By the time Corry and I got on the boat, it was pretty full. We wanted to sit out on the open deck, so she asked some nice (somewhat drunk) old ladies if we could sit with them. They said it was fine. They were a riot. There were 4 German ladies, and only one of them spoke any English, and only limited. Nevertheless, we were able to have a conversation with them, and they were just hilarious. We all had a lot of laughs together.
Even though we were outside, we were still sitting under an awning, so once the fireworks started, Corry and I left our new friends and found a spot that was more suitable for seeing the show. I videotaped the first 10 minutes of it with my digital camera. It was honestly one of the better fireworks displays I've seen. It simulated a battle between marauders on the river and the castle up on the hill, so there were fireworks going back and forth between the two locations, and then simultaneously at both. It was awesome.
After that, we headed back home. It was an amazing day, and the weather was absolute perfection. Lance and I are going to a Rhine wine festival this coming weekend in Oberwesel, which will no doubt be similar, so I'm really looking forward to that.
Pictures
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