Beilstein

This past weekend was fantastic. Probably one of the best trips I’ve taken so far, with the possible exception of Brussels. Ben Holly and David Steinmetz and I took a train down to the Mosel Valley, to the tiny town of Beilstein. It’s so small that the train doesn’t go there; we had to take the train to Cochem and then transfer to a bus. We were the only Americans in town; everyone else was a German tourist. We hiked up the mountain, where we came across some vineyards (of course), a Jewish graveyard, and a truly spectacular view of the valley. We were higher than the castle! Stopped by the bar across the market, and encountered a lot of stares upon our entrance. We lowered the age median by about 20 years when we walked in! Met a friendly couple from Essen, mainly because the husband was drunk and kept wanting to talk with Ben.

On Saturday, we rented bikes for only 6€ for the whole day, and biked 10 kilometers to Cochem. There’s a skytram up the mountain in Cochem, but we decided to hike up the mountain instead! Had a looooong lunch at the top of the mountain, where a bee flew into my beer (twice! They must like Pils-Cola). Then hiked down the mountain, stopping to have a wine-tasting behind the train station on the way back to town. Made it back to town only to decide to hike up another mountain to the castle. It was a small castle, but pretty. Hiked back down, and biked another 10 kilometers back to Beilstein. Can you spell "tiring"? We stopped at a winery after returning our bikes to buy a few bottles of wine. We met the same couple from last night at the winery. Can you believe it, we actually bumped into the same couple yet a third time at the top of another hill where the town church was situated! Three times in less than 24 hours.

We also hiked up the same mountain from last night, this time armed with a bottle of red wine. It was pitch black, but Dave had his trusty camera along that gave off a truly spectacular range of light. It was as good as having an actual flashlight.

On Sunday morning, we took a boat ride from Beilstein to Cochem, where we then took the train to Moselkern. Got off the train at Moselkern and had to hike 70 minutes to Burg Eltz. After Burg Eltz, we decided to try to catch the hourly train to Koblenz, and cut the hike back down to only 40 minutes! We still missed the train by about 3 minutes; had to watch it go right past us. Talk about frustration.