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German Roots Trip 2003 - Contents

SEEKING OUR GERMAN ROOTS

Chapter VI

May 26-27, 2003

KOBLENZ

Koblenz, Monday, May 26

By 12:45, we had finished our scenic tour of the Mosel Valley and arrived at the train station in Koblenz. (Koblenz means confluence, and it is at Koblenz that the Mosel River joins the mighty Rhine.)

No long, bumpy hauling of suitcases needed here to get to our hotel. Our Deutsche Bahn hotel guide had said the Höhmann hotel was right at the station, and there it was, directly across the street.

A sunny day here at the confluence of the Mosel and Rhine rivers. Tomorrow we plan to take a cruise on the Rhine so our first order of business this afternoon was to walk down to the bank of the Rhine River and purchase our tickets at the K-D dock. We found a K-D ticket booth even before we got to the river, and found that our train ticket stub gave us a significant discount on the price of the boat cruise. A pleasant surprise!

We strolled along the river bank which was really a pleasant park, with beautiful flower beds, statuary, and handsome old buildings adjoining the promenade along the river.

We took our lunch break at a little outdoor cafe right near the K-D dock where we would board the cruise ship tomorrow. We each chose the meat loaf, but with different toppings. Mine had a "goulash" sauce while Karen went with the mushroom sauce. Both very tasty and washed down with our "alster" or "radler" beer/lemon soda beverage. French fries accompanied the entree, but where was the catsup? Not to be had, apparently.

The Rhine is truly a working river, and there was a constant parade on the river of long, long barges carrying containers, coal, cars--a great variety of goods. Mixed in with the shipping were some of the cruise ships that ply both the Mosel and the Rhine.

Our wanderings eventually took us to the "Deutsche Eck" or "German Corner" where the Mosel empties into the Rhine.

A most significant place in German history and it is graced by about the biggest sculpture of a man on a horse that we will ever see. The rider, Emperor Wilhelm I, is given credit for unifying Germany. He led Prussia and the North German Confederation to victory over Napoleon III in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 and founded the Second German Empire in 1871. Apparently this huge statue was just too tempting a target for the Allied Forces who shot it down in the last days of World War II in Europe. Some years back, a local Koblenz publisher decided that the "Eck" wasn't complete without the statue and he paid half a million Euros to have a replica placed here.

On this sunny day, flags of many nations (or German states?) were waving in the breeze blowing off the river and the Eck was full of (what else?) German school kids on field trips and a few of us out-of-season tourists.

Everything about this German Corner bespeaks militarism. Across the Rhine from Emperor Wilhelm is the huge Ehrenbreitstein fortress. Of course, this spot would have been a strategic prize for every army from the Romans on down.

Near the Eck we found one of those little trolleys, similar to what we rode on in Trier. This seemed a good way to see more of Koblenz so we hopped aboard and toured the old part of the city.

Like almost every other city in Germany, Koblenz was 80 per cent destroyed in World War II and what we were viewing was the restored city. Only a small portion was rebuilt in the old style--the rest of the city is very modern, except for the streets, which retain their Medieval narrowness. Must be a slice of joy to drive a car through Koblenz!

The end of the trolley ride left us a good long way from our hotel so we puzzled out the bus system and for 1.20 Euros each, we had an easy ride back to the train station and the Hohmann Hotel. The bus ride was a chance to see how the working side of Koblenz looked and there were some very large shopping malls along our route.

Supper was at a Chinese restaurant in the train station complex--fried rice with veggies and very good. We found a telephone booth near the restaurant, called Glenn and learned that Mark is now on his way home from Peru. Karen's cat and Glenn are keeping the home front going.

An observation: restaurant food, ice cream, coffee, desserts all seemed quite spendy in most of Germany, while clothing seemed relatively inexpensive.

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