Koblenz and Castles

Welcome to Koblenz, a city in Southwest Germany:

Schloss Stolzenfels, one of the many castles that line the river valleys around Koblenz

Koblenz is located at the intersection of the Rhine and Moselle rivers and is surrounded by more castles than you can shake a stick at. After reading about some of the coolest castles in Western Germany, I figured Koblenz was a good place to start. Driving time was pretty short (about 2.5 hours from Utrecht) and the German borders had finally opened to Dutch tourists. After more than 3 months of quarantine, it was time for a relaxing (and responsible!) trip.

I looked for hotels with a nice view on one of the river banks and settled on the Mercure Hotel, a 4-star hotel on the Rhine River that checked all the boxes. As it turns out, they had just reopened a few days prior and had some good Coronavirus prevention strategies in place. Masks were required in the lobbies, elevators, and hallways, and rooms were left un-booked for several days between guest stays. Partly due to this and partly because of the type of room I had booked (City View ftw!) we ended up having the entire top floor to ourselves. There were beautiful views of the southern half of the city (including Schloss Stolzenfels in the distance) and the Rhine River.

Going into town that evening was an interesting experience. There were tons of people out and about, enjoying the night air. Many people had masks on, and they were required when entering any indoor area. Everything closed down around 22.30, with a pair of police officers politely going around the square and asking people to disperse. After picking out some to-go beverages, we walked on a nice boulevard that ran the length of the western bank of the Rhine and found a nice bench to people watch. A very solid evening.

Wandering through the old town the following day, it was time to seek out some breakfast (brunch actually. Wake-up calls are unnecessary when you’re on vacation and mornings are stupid). Eventually we landed at the Altstadt Hotel & Café (above) that had great outdoor seating on a beautiful square next to the Town Hall (below). Masks were required indoors again (a regulation throughout Germany) but once you sat down outside you are free to remove them in order to drink your massive “bowl” of coffee. And I mean massive. It required both hand to pick up and drink, and boy was it delicious. The sandwiches were no less delicious. Altstadt Café bakes their bread fresh, and the cream cheese/peppers/diced pepperoni panini daily special was exactly what I needed. 100 percent recommended.

Johannes-Müller-Denkmal, a monument from 1899 honoring Doctor Johannes Müller. It stands in front of Koblenz Town Hall and Citykirche.

The rest of the day was spent wandering the city, exploring on foot. Recommendations include:

  • Ludwig Museum and Basilica of St. Castor - Beautiful gardens and a beautiful church.

  • Memorial of German Unity/Deutsches Eck - People watching, river confluence, outdoor biergarten.

  • Weindorf Koblenz - Winery with an excellent traditional German menu (schnitzel AND POTATOES!)

  • Hauptfriedhof Koblenz - Hike into the hills surrounding Koblenz to see the main cemetery. Several WWI and WWII memorials and beautiful gardens.

Herz-Jesu-Kirche, a Catholic Church in Koblenz c.1903

Sunday: On to the castles! The goal was five castles in one day. Google Maps were created. The car was started. Here we go…

Burg Thurant, Alken, Germany. Vinerads lead down to the town of Alken and the Moselle River. Castle #4!

Pergola Garden, Schloss Stolzenfels, Koblenz, Deutschland.

Burg Lahneck, castle #2 on the whirlwind castle tour.

Burg Eltz. c.1157

Wrapping up with Burg Eltz (the castle that inspired the trip in the first place), it was time for dinner at Pizzeria Vulcana in the nearby town of Münstermaifeld. The outdoor seating provided a great view of Stiftskirche St. Martin und St. Severus. Great food with a great view!

Thanks for reading! Please Like or Comment below if you have questions.

Graffiti near Koblenz Stadtmitte, the main train station in Koblenz.

Advice: Traveling to Europe

Edit 30/06/2020: The timing on this post could’ve been better.

I’ve decided to put together some tips for traveling to Europe on a budget. These are from various things I’ve read and from my own personal experiences. Note that I usually travel with just a standard backpack because I’m able to fit my laptop, around 10 days worth of clothes, and my camera all in one bag. This makes travel significantly cheaper, because a normal sized backpack only counts as a “personal item” which is included in the ticket price of even the most economical (cheap) airlines. Also, it makes adventuring much easier because you only need to worry about one bag. Generally, adding a carry-on (the smaller wheeled bag that fits in the overhead) costs around $100 - $120 round-trip.

I hope this helps you save some time and money!

Flying from the US to Europe:

This is not nearly as expensive or daunting as it may first seem. There are several airlines that have non-stop round-trip flights from large US cities to major hubs in the EU, and you can often find these in the sub-$400 range. Also, these are generally red-eye flights that leave at 11 pm or midnight and arrive the next morning. These flights go on sale pretty regularly. If you know you are going to be planning a trip in the next few months I would highly recommend checking out ScottsCheapFlights.com and see if there are any that fit your schedule. If you know the exact dates you want to fly, momondo.com and skiplagged.com will have the best prices. Skiplagged also has a graph of flight prices over time so that can help you find even better deals if your dates are flexible.

My favorite resource (especially if I have no idea where or when I want to go) is Google Flights. You can go to flights.google.com and do all kinds of fun things. For example, you can put in a starting airport (say, JFK in New York City) and then just use “Europe” as the destination. You can also select options for “1 week trip” or “two week trip” and select a month and you will get to see a list of some of the best deals to the various cities in Europe. You can narrow this down further by using destinations like “Western Europe”, “Spain”, or even regions like “Andalusia”. So a sample search could give you the best deals for traveling from Washington DC to France for a two week trip in June. Once you find a cheap option, just take the dates Google gives you and put them in on momondo.com or skiplagged.com to see if you can get it even cheaper!

Now, since I am writing this with the intention of sending it to friends who want to come visit The Netherlands, I’ll give some advice specifically for that. There are direct flights daily from New York City, Washington DC, and Boston to Amsterdam and vice-versa. New York City is almost always the cheapest and least painful. There is a daily flight on Norwegian Air that leaves at 12:05 (five minutes past midnight) and arrives in Amsterdam the next day. Getting to New York City is pretty easy as well. RDU has several non-stop flights per day that are around $100 round-trip.

So for friends coming to visit from NC:

  1. Check Scott’s Cheap Flights for deals to Amsterdam. I have occasionally seen very cheap, 1-stop flights to Western Europe that include an extra bag. This is the best case scenario. Sometimes these are not to Amsterdam, but go to Paris, Madrid, Rome, or Germany. This is okay. Once you are in Europe it is very easy and inexpensive to fly from city to city (compared to the US).

  2. If you don’t see anything on Scott’s Cheap Flights, I recommend flying from RDU to JFK, and then JFK to AMS on the Norwegian Airlines flight. This should end up being the cheapest and easiest option. If you try booking from RDU to AMS, you are going to pay twice as much and still have a layover in another city because there are no direct flights from RDU to AMS at this time.

  3. You can also check flights to different cities using Google Flights as mentioned above. There are often cheap flights from Washington DC to Paris, for example. From Paris, you can take a high-speed train and be in Amsterdam in 2.5 hours. Search for flights from Washington DC, New York City, and Boston to Western Europe. These will give you the best options, and getting to any of these cities from anywhere in the US is pretty easy.

I hope this advice is helpful, and let me know in the comments if you have any questions or want something explained further. Happy Traveling! Come visit soon!

Genève, Suisse

Here are some pictures and words from a weekend trip to Geneva, about as far west as you can go in Switzerland (and surrounded on 3 and a half sides by France).

The former Collège de Genève, founded in 1559, and now Calvin Middle School.

Atop Cathédrale Saint-Pierre Genève. November 2019.

Geneva is a beautiful city, and one of the most expensive places I’ve ever been. When people tell you that Switzerland is expensive, that is not a joke at all. But the distant mountains are striking, and the water is crystal clear. We spent a Saturday wandering around the city (as usual). The landmark that really stands out is the St Pierre Cathedral. Since it’s up on a hill, you can see it from almost anywhere in the city. So of course I had to check it out.

St Pierre’s is easily one of the most accessible cathedrals I’ve visited. Not only can you tour the interior, but you can go up into the belfry, the “attic” and both towers. The views from the top were incredible. Even cooler, there is a rather extensive museum underneath the building. You can see tombs and the foundations of the various buildings that have existed in the same spot for almost two thousand years. It’s a “can’t miss” attraction.

View of Geneva to the South.

Dusk. Lake Geneva. November 2019.

All of this walking around obviously makes you hungry. Especially because Switzerland actually has hills (unlike a certain mostly-below-sea-level country we had flown in from…) Across the lake from the hotel Google led us to a fantastic Italian restaurant called “Da Paolo”. You should eat there. We ate at Da Paolo again the following day because there were so many things I wanted to try. Then we watched the sun dip below the buildings.

Guide Light in Lake Geneva.

Lake Geneva at Sunset, November 2019.

Day Two consisted of another walkabout. Morning coffee came from the insanely charming Cottage Cafe, right beside the Monument Brunswick. Literally placed in a tiny cottage in a peaceful park, this place turned out to be a great find. There weren’t very many cafes on the northeast shore of the lake and we almost settled for Starbuck’s (please no.) but walked up to the Cottage just before serious caffeine withdrawals set in and things got ugly. It’s been notoriously hard for me to find a big American-sized cup of coffee in Europe, but this place helped me out (and served with Swiss chocolate!).

I had two.

Other highlights included a walk down the Rhône River, visiting a beautiful ancient cemetery, checking out bridges and lochs, and a floating shopping center in the middle of the river (Da Paolo for lunch of course. Also, cemetery has too many “e’s”. One of them should definitely be an “a”.) On the southeast bank of Lake Geneva there was a playground made of bouncy recycled tire remnants. Swings made of tires, climbing rubber tire strands, and a tire swing held up by other strips of tire rubber. Kids be damned, swinging on bouncing swings on the shore of a clear lake is just as fun for adults. Also noteworthy was the nearby Villa la Grange, an extensive open park area with a central villa and an amphitheater.

Cathédrale Saint-Pierre Genève

Lac Léman (Lake Geneva). November 2019.

If you’re ever in eastern France and want to check out Switzerland, you could do far worse than Geneva. Coffee, Chocolate, Cathedrals. And Coffee.

Leiden, Nederland

Welcome to Leiden. I had been trying for over a month to coordinate a trip to Rotterdam and using my friend Carolien as a guide. We finally found a day on the weekend that we both had available and the weather was nice and decided that would be the day. But as you can see from the title of this post, we ended up in Leiden instead.

Hooglandse Kerk from Beschuitsheeg

There is a direct route from Utrecht to Rotterdam by train, but on the weekend we chose the way was shut due to maintenance on the tracks in Gouda. For no particular reason, we settled on Leiden. Leiden is a smallish city in The Netherlands northeast of The Hague.

Leiden is a very interesting city. The Hooglandse Church is built with a variety of different bricks, making for very appealing visuals. The nearby hill is topped by an old stone circular wall that offers excellent views of the city from all angles. We even stopped in an old record shop for a quick browse. If you are in need of a peaceful city with some amazing architecture, look no further than Leiden.

Hooglandse Kerk, Leiden. c.1377

On the Docks of the Herengracht. October, 2019

Haarlem, Nederland

Pick a number, end up in Haarlem.

With no plans for the weekend, I decided to hop on a train. Armed with my trusty OV-Chipkaart, I headed to the central station. I picked a track at random and boarded the next train. After passing through Amsterdam, I arrived in Haarlem and jumped off, my camera in tow.

Sint Bavo Kerk ("Saint Bavo Church") from the Grote Markt, Haarlem's Central Square.

A beautiful Dutch city, Haarlem sits about 20km (12.4mi) west of central Amsterdam. The only attraction I knew of in Haarlem was the large church in the middle of the old city. It was hard to miss. the church is tall and beautiful. Inside the spectacular organ was playing. The grote markt outside was bustling, and a very nice contrast to the towering old building.

After visiting the church and the market, I wandered around the canals. The buildings lining the canals are colorful and interesting. I even found a sailboat. After wandering for several hours, I finished the trip off with some bitterballen and a crazy strong smoked Russian Imperial Stout at the Jopen brewery on the west side of the old town (at the recommendation of my friend Carolien). A solid end to a random Saturday in the Netherlands.

Binnen Spaarne, Old Town Haarlem.

Hope you enjoyed this small tour of Haarlem.