The river Moselle infos and river cruising experiences

[Canal archive]

I just had to check Alsvin not a god but a horse evidently it means fast as it was one of the horses that pulled the sun across the sky. I suspect we all knew that secretly.
Jazzbeau maybe they are going to start using Disney characters now!

Edited April 11, 2022 by Canal archive

[Host Jazzbeau]

57 minutes ago, Canal archive said:

I just had to check Alsvin not a god but a horse evidently it means fast as it was one of the horses that pulled the sun across the sky. I suspect we all knew that secretly.
Jazzbeau maybe they are going to start using Disney characters now!

Not a chance:  Norse mythology (like astronomical objects) is copyright-free.

[Canal archive]

Silly me!

[notamermaid]

23 minutes ago, Host Jazzbeau said:

Not a chance

Good! Not a fan of Viking Pocahontas. I doubt a Goofy ship would sell well...

 

1 hour ago, Canal archive said:

I just had to check Alsvin not a god but a horse evidently it means fast as it was one of the horses that pulled the sun across the sky.

Thanks. Close enough to a god I guess - a superhorse. Not sure why they turned it phonetically into Alsvin, the original is supposed to be Alsviðr. Isn't that a Nordic 'th', or an Icelandic sound?

 

Talking of mythology. I/We have not really talked about Moselle lores and legends yet. Can't say I know any. Apart from the cat saving the town of Zell.

 

notamermaid

 

[CPT Trips]

Do tell us about Kröv . . . 

[Canal archive]

Now a Goofy ship - it’s gotta be done.

[Host Jazzbeau]

8 hours ago, Canal archive said:

Now a Goofy ship - it’s gotta be done.

There are several existing candidates, IMHO.  I'm biting my tongue...

[Canal archive]

I think we’ve cruised past a few of them.

[notamermaid]

You know, all this talking of weird river cruise ships, names, etc. makes me a tiny bit annoyed that I did not think of this for an April Fool's joke. I have long been thinking there must be a way to carry the Viking ships over land like the real Vikings used to do... Must remember all those ideas for next year. Not going to use the image of the Kröv vineyard, though. I am toiling with the idea of looking up how the name came about and posting the story...

 

notamermaid

 

[notamermaid]

On 4/11/2022 at 11:53 PM, CPT Trips said:

Do tell us about Kröv . . . 

Well... In Kröv is a famous vineyard area that is called Nacktarsch. That means a  naked bo**om. As it sometimes goes with these things, the name is unconnected to its modern meaning, but it is much fun and a legend has arisen of someone being punished physically for a misdemeanour.

 

It is more likely to have come from a Latin source that has been changed linguistically over centuries and came to be used for the hill to describe the barren nature of rock face when the vine is not green, something like that.

 

Weird history bit: during the 1930's there was an official move by the authorities to ban the name, but that faced opposition in the town.

 

notamermaid

 

[Canal archive]

I used to teach my Girl Guides map reading by getting them to find strangely named places on an Ordinance Survey map and getting them to plot their way home, needless to say many of the place names included that word and others similar, to them slightly risqué words. Mind you map reading is becoming an out of date art!

Edited April 22, 2022 by Canal archive
Spelling.

[notamermaid]

Place names along the Moselle are interesting for their Roman origins – sometimes even going back further, to the Celtic tribes. Koblenz is a commonly known Latin origin, Trier as well but is actually based on what the Romans called the tribe in the area, they were the Treveri. Several other towns and villages in between get their modern names from that, sometimes highly disguised, source. One good one with „oh of course“effect once you realize it is Detzem. From Trier down the Moselle the road was marked with stones telling you the distance. Like milestones. But the distance was actually a Celtic leuga – in English „league!“

 

Now, at Detzem was the 10th stone. So at that spot you were „ad decimum lapidem“. Voilá.

Only German info unfortunately:

https://www.mosel.de/region/orte/details/?cHash=1ab64c210d05ed432b588e26ae9f12e7&tx_ttnews%5Bcat%5D=22&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=31

 

This is the village and its vineyards in drone flight:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5mxWpjZxlU

 

notamermaid

 

 

[Canal archive]

Notamermaid it helps with the language comprehension to listen and look at something in a different language then I may not be able to speak it but I may be able to understand to a certain extent. So don’t worry about bits in German. An evening school Spanish language teacher I had hitch hiked to Spain and just before the border with France was given a lift from a Priest their common language was Latin a supposedly dead language they traveled together all the way to Madrid.

[notamermaid]

On 4/23/2022 at 11:34 PM, Canal archive said:

An evening school Spanish language teacher I had hitch hiked to Spain and just before the border with France was given a lift from a Priest their common language was Latin a supposedly dead language

It may not be spoken by people as an everyday language, so officially dead, but I know similarly to you the story of a religious education teacher who met another person who was also in a religious profession. They used Latin because they shared neither German nor English as a language. I did Latin at school myself and apart from the Classics we did fun things like comedy sketches and modern words turned into Latin, like "escalators". My memory fails me but I remember that it was something like a Latin word for rolling stairs.

 

I have been to Niederfell again! That place is not of Roman origin, although they say Romans must have settled in the area. Niederfell dates back to 980, as the date that can be proven that is. Main reason to go was to get cake from Café Sander again and of course also to see the landscape. The Moselle was in good shape, neither too low (helped by the locks) nor too high. And all looked lovely Spring green, i.e. blossoming trees and the grass young, not dried out from sun yet.

 

We dropped down to the river bank coming from Dieblich hill and saw the Niederburg Kobern at Kobern-Gondorf on the other side:

 

And this is Schloss Liebieg again:

 

If you have been to the Rhine or the Danube you will probably have seen year markings for flooding on buildings, usually bronze plaques that mark extreme events. The Moselle is no exception. At the road at Niederfell is this marking from (or for) 1882:

 

The two buildings for context:

 

When you look down to the Moselle there (apart from the fact that it is a little on the low side due to it in modern times being past a lock at this point) you understand how high that must have been compared to normal. The building on the right had been the public house "The Three Swans", then a bakery and later a shop. The inscription:

 

Café Sander is just a few metres further from there. I was delighted to see the terrace busy with guests and the place doing good business again. Now, anticipation was rising as we entered the premises to get some cake.

 

To be continued...

 

notamermaid

 

Edited April 25, 2022 by notamermaid
grammar

[Canal archive]

Notamermaid evidently according to several friends my Latin, I suppose nickname is - dignatis et temporbis, excuse the spelling it’s supposed to mean ‘dignity at all times’.

[notamermaid]

Café Sander had very nice cake and apart from fruit cake we got the apple cake again. Four out of five stars this time as the base was a little bit too soft. But the apples had a very good taste to them again. We went back to the car straight away again as we wanted to go a little further upstream and had planned another quick stop. Fortunately there are bridges close by so we could hop across the river. The road gives you that lovely view (you can do better than me when you are not sitting as a passenger in a car doing 80km an hour) of Thurant castle above Alken:

 

But there is also this construction on a hill near Niederfell - we looked at the village from the other embankment now of course - which looked quite inviting for a magnificent view over the valley:

It is called the "Möch-Felix-Hütte", named after a monk: https://www.niederfell.de/tourismus/moench-felix-huette/

 

We headed downstream towards Winningen and its aerodrome for mainly small pleasure aircraft. This way:

Actually, this is not a road sign, it is for river traffic, hence the fact that you cannot read it from the road. And yes there is a very high motorway bridge over the river in this photo. It carries the Autobahn 61. It even has a short English Wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moselle_Viaduct Switch to the German for more photos.

 

Winningen is an attractive small place surrounded by vineyards. We have talked about the village briefly before. This time we wanted to go up to the aerodrome to which I had not been in many years. It has a Greek restaurant by the way, if you fancy staying longer than to admire the few planes and the view from the hill over the village:

If you fancy, you can walk up to there from the village, through the vineyards and then on a tiny stony path where you see the banister interrupted in this photo. Looked dizzying to me.

 

There is a hut which you can book for small parties, note the direction signs for the serious hikers:

 

This is the name of the hill:

 

Winningen stands at 79m, so quite a nice steep climb.

 

It was time to head back and coming out of the car park at the aerodrome I noticed the service car on the runaway to the right. "Interesting" I thought and then I turned left in time to see a plane approaching and in the next second flying in quite close over our heads! We recovered from the unexpected and scary sight quickly and drove home, hoping we will be back along the Moselle soon, with perhaps the time to explore another small town further upstream with a hill to - drive up to.

 

notamermaid

 

 

 

 

[gnome12]

Sorry @notamermaid. I know we discussed this a while back, but I can't find the discussion. My sister and I will be flying in to Frankfurt, and taking the train to Cochem for our bike and barge at the end of September.

 

There are 2 different trains that go from the airport to Koblenz. One is an ICE that makes only one stop in Mainz, and the other is a regional express that makes a whole bunch of stops, but travels on the west(?) side of the Rhine. We will not be in a hurry. Which route would be more scenic?

 

Strangely, in terms of connections to Cochem in Koblenz, the ICE trains seem to arrive to connect to a very local train (an RB) to Cochem (13 intermediate stops), while the RE trains connect to other RE trains which make only 2 intermediate stops.

 

The costs seem to be similar, a bit cheaper for the ICE (presumably if booked in advance) but there isn't a huge amount of difference, so I would think that the more scenic Rhine route will govern. (Both trains going Koblenz to Cochem are presumably on the same tracks with the same views.)

 

Thanks in advance for your help.

[notamermaid]

No need to be sorry. With a bit more time I would try and find our discussions but I am not sure if we actually talked about the trains in detail. Good of you to mention the West, or as we call it, the left bank of the Rhine. Trains can travel on both sides of the Rhine Gorge but the left bank is the more prominent one as regards traffic, meaning from Mainz the only one that takes the IC/EC/ICE trains, with few exceptions, so you should be on the left bank (Mainz itself is on the left bank anyway). Both the left and right bank have slow trains, the RE (several stops) and RB (tons of stops). On the right bank is the VIAS line which is quite slow but I think it does not stop at the airport. Both sides are scenic, but for photos of the Lorelei you need to take the left bank. Booking in advance can make fast trains very reasonable. The Moselle line is not a very main line so has no high speed or very fast service. Deutsche Bahn has been criticized for not having fast connections along the Moselle anymore... There is only one track on the Moselle, you are right, no difference between trains.

 

On the Rhine, if the train stops in Rüdesheim, Kaub, Braubach or Lahnstein you are on the right bank. If it stops in Bingen, Bacharach or Boppard you are on the left bank. Both sides are nice of course. I would say because of the Loreley and Marksburg castle, being on the left bank is more attractive.

 

On the ICE you should be a little faster as regards overall speed. The regional trains will obviously need longer due to them stopping at stations. Would a slow train be more scenic?  Not sure if there is that much in it, but for taking photos of castles, yes, it is probably better to be on a RE but a RB can be a bit tedious. The ICE is probably a bit more spacious with luggage but I tend to find the regional trains comfortable enough. They are all modern carriages.

 

Just one note on booking. Changing trains can mean just four minutes at Koblenz train station, I would check that. There is a setting on the DB booking website where you can give yourself more time for connecting. Koblenz is not big, four minutes is probably enough when the train is on time, but you do need to change platforms normally. Down and up escalators... See how you feel about that.

 

notamermaid

 

 

 

[gnome12]

3 minutes ago, notamermaid said:

No need to be sorry. With a bit more time I would try and find our discussions but I am not sure if we actually talked about the trains in detail. Good of you to mention the West, or as we call it, the left bank of the Rhine. Trains can travel on both sides of the Rhine Gorge but the left bank is the more prominent one as regards traffic, meaning from Mainz the only one that takes the IC/EC/ICE trains, with few exceptions, so you should be on the left bank (Mainz itself is on the left bank anyway). Both the left and right bank have slow trains, the RE (several stops) and RB (tons of stops). On the right bank is the VIAS line which is quite slow but I think it does not stop at the airport. Both sides are scenic, but for photos of the Lorelei you need to take the left bank. Booking in advance can make fast trains very reasonable. The Moselle line is not a very main line so has no high speed or very fast service. Deutsche Bahn has been criticized for not having fast connections along the Moselle anymore... There is only one track on the Moselle, you are right, no difference between trains.

 

On the Rhine, if the train stops in Rüdesheim, Kaub, Braubach or Lahnstein you are on the right bank. If it stops in Bingen, Bacharach or Boppard you are on the left bank. Both sides are nice of course. I would say because of the Loreley and Marksburg castle, being on the left bank is more attractive.

 

On the ICE you should be a little faster as regards overall speed. The regional trains will obviously need longer due to them stopping at stations. Would a slow train be more scenic?  Not sure if there is that much in it, but for taking photos of castles, yes, it is probably better to be on a RE but a RB can be a bit tedious. The ICE is probably a bit more spacious with luggage but I tend to find the regional trains comfortable enough. They are all modern carriages.

 

Just one note on booking. Changing trains can mean just four minutes at Koblenz train station, I would check that. There is a setting on the DB booking website where you can give yourself more time for connecting. Koblenz is not big, four minutes is probably enough when the train is on time, but you do need to change platforms normally. Down and up escalators... See how you feel about that.

 

notamermaid

 

 

 

Thanks for that. I think we’ll go for the RE trains rather than the ICE; those all seem to be on the left bank. All the connections I am looking at in Koblenz are showing 12-14 minutes between trains, but the connections are between tracks 1 or 3 and track 9. (I think that the last time I looked there were tighter connections, but they don’t seem to show them now. I have printed out, separately, trains from Frankfurt airport to Koblenz and Koblenz to Cochem so I can adjust the connection time if I need to. )

[notamermaid]

Track 1 is for the regional arrivals, tracks 2 and 3 for the long-distance trains. So the ICE should come in on track 3. From track 1 to 9 it is a bit of a distance when handling luggage so for the connection I would always make sure there is a buffer of eight minutes just to give me peace of mind. Ten minutes sounds okay.

 

notamermaid

 

[notamermaid]

Apologies, I should have thought of this earlier. The ManinSeat61 has a page on the Rhine: https://www.seat61.com/places-of-interest/rails-down-the-rhine.htm

 

Train travel along the Moselle is quite interesting for historical reasons also, so I will post about that a bit soon.

 

notamermaid

 

[gnome12]

3 hours ago, notamermaid said:

Apologies, I should have thought of this earlier. The ManinSeat61 has a page on the Rhine: https://www.seat61.com/places-of-interest/rails-down-the-rhine.htm

Very helpful. Since we are transferring at Koblenz, does that mean that both the ICE and the regional trains go on the same side of the river? Somehow, I had thought that the ICE was on the right bank and the regional trains on the left bank, but I don't get that impression from the website. If they are both on the same side, it is really just a question of how fast the train goes through the valley from Mainz to Koblenz. That might make it make more sense to book the ICE train which is cheaper than the Regional Express version. (The times end up being fairly close, because the ICE connects to the slow local train that makes 13 intermediate stops on the way to Cochem, while the Regional Express connects to a Regional Express on the Mosel that only has 2 intermediate stops.)

[notamermaid]

25 minutes ago, gnome12 said:

Since we are transferring at Koblenz, does that mean that both the ICE and the regional trains go on the same side of the river?

Yes, I meant that but it seems I did not express myself well. It really is the question how fast do you want to go through the valley from Mainz to Koblenz. Although the river has many bends the route is quite fast, seeing also that the tunnels help to "straighten" the line. As I said, for the castle watching you may want more time, but you can of course see them as well when taking the ICE. I have had a look at the travel times from Mainz to Koblenz: ICE 51min, IC 58min, RE 1h 3min. So not that much of a difference.

 

I would think that the booking system will almost certainly only suggest trains on the left bank, if you book Frankfurt airport to Cochem via Koblenz. Should come more naturally to the algorithms. A quick check from me seems to confirm this. Again, ICE and the other high speed trains do not normally run on the right bank, just regional trains.

 

I had a look if the ManinSeat61 has travelled along the Moselle. Could not find anything.

 

I love going along the Moselle all the way to Metz but arguably the most scenic stretch, as it is right at the river is from Bullay to Koblenz. Further upstream the train runs through the low Eifel hills. But more on that another day.

 

notamermaid

 

[gnome12]

11 hours ago, notamermaid said:

Track 1 is for the regional arrivals, tracks 2 and 3 for the long-distance trains. So the ICE should come in on track 3. From track 1 to 9 it is a bit of a distance when handling luggage so for the connection I would always make sure there is a buffer of eight minutes just to give me peace of mind. Ten minutes sounds okay.

 

notamermaid

 

I'm not sure what time we will go for; I'm arriving very early, but will probably have to wait for my sister to arrive. All of the connections that I am looking at in Koblenz are between 12 and 17 minutes; fortunately, if we go the cheaper ICE/RB combination the connection distance is shorter and the time is longer, either 14 or 17 minutes. The RE/RE combination has a longer connection distance (track 1 to 9) and a 12 minute connection time but should still be doable. (Of course, I'm looking at July connections when we will be making this trip at the end of September, but presumably not too much will change. However, I know from looking at the schedule to get from Cochem to Burg Eltz that the train timetable only goes out to September 8. The new bus 365 that replaced the old Burgenbus, runs daily until 1 November.)

[notamermaid]

On 5/12/2022 at 11:45 PM, gnome12 said:

However, I know from looking at the schedule to get from Cochem to Burg Eltz that the train timetable only goes out to September 8. The new bus 365 that replaced the old Burgenbus, runs daily until 1 November.

Oh, interesting. A slight change perhaps  due to children going back to school and holiday making patterns being different in autumn? Shouldn't be major. Big timetable change is always early December. A pity about the old Burgenbus, but the new arrangements seems a logistically sensible substitute to me. Not sure if it works for all the cyclists and other tourists in that area of the Moselle.

 

The train line along the Moselle... There is the "Kanonenbahn" which is the main line and there is the small "Moselweinbahn". So the Moselle has got two lines, one for military purposes and one for drinking!

 

notamermaid