Rhine Valley
©Matteo Colombo/Getty Images
Overview
Between Rüdesheim and Koblenz, the Rhine cuts deeply through the Rhenish slate mountains, meandering between hillside castles and steep fields of wine-producing grapes. This is Germany’s landscape at its most dramatic – forested hillsides alternate with craggy cliffs and near-vertical terraced vineyards. Idyllic villages appear around each bend, their half-timbered houses and Gothic church steeples seemingly plucked from the world of fairy tales.
Attractions
Must-see attractions
Koblenz
On the right bank of the Rhine, 118m above the river, this fortress proved indestructible to all but Napoleonic troops, who levelled it in 1801. To prove…
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Rhine Valley
Dating from the 12th century, this one-time Cistercian monastery, in an idyllic little valley 15km northeast of Rüdesheim, went through periods as a…
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Rhine Valley
In the 1820s, privately owned Rheinstein, 6km downriver from Bingen, became the first Rhine castle to be converted – by Prussian royalty (a branch of the…
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Rhine Valley
Every April, Oberwesel crowns not a Weinkönigin (wine queen), as in most Rhine towns, but a Weinhexe (wine witch) – a good witch who is said to protect…
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Rhine Valley
On the edge of the plateau above the Loreley outcrop, 4km southeast of St Goarshausen, this visitors centre covers the Loreley myth and local flora, fauna…
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Rhine Valley
Once the mightiest fortress on the Rhine, Burg Rheinfels was built in 1245 by Count Dieter V of Katzenelnbogen as a base for his toll-collecting…
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Koblenz
At the point of confluence of the Moselle and the Rhine, the ‘German Corner’ is dominated by a soaring statue of Kaiser Wilhelm I on horseback, in the…
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Koblenz
A vision of crenellated towers, ornate gables and medieval-style fortifications, Schloss Stolzenfels rises above the Rhine’s left bank 5km south of the…
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