My husband and I are going to the Rhine area in August. We hope to spent about 5 days exploring the Rhine and Moselle as far north as Koln, west to Trier and south to Mainz. We will have a car and plan to drive south afterwards. We'd like to stay in one place to avoid the in and out of hotels thing. Is there one place that would be a good "headquarters", provide us with restaurants after a busy day of sightseeing and some shopping? Hotel or B&B suggestions? We plan to visit the various places by boat and/or car.

Check out Cochem - a wine town with lots of family-run down comforter equipped guest houses and restaurants, wine stubes, etc. and a fairy-tale castle popping out of the town center. Vineyards swirl around the town covering the Mosel Gorge walls.

Cochem is very popular with Dutch (who come here to see hills they say), Brits and of course Germans but relatively few Americans, except GIs who are stationed in the area often on manoeuvers.

20 miles about from Koblenz and start of the best part of the Rhine - few miles from Burg Eltz and best of Mosel Valley upstream from Cochem.

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But it is not only the fairytale buildings in and around Cochem that remind visitors of its ... German National Tourist Board. All Rights reserved. ...
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A simply gorgeous setting - IMO Mosel is prettier by far than the Rhine Gorge.

Cochem is a good choice for the Mosel. I'd suggest two days there (3 nights), then one day to visit Bonn and Koln on the way to (2 nights) in Bacharach/St. Goar area.

See the Roman ruins and town of Trier, Burg Eltz and sample some of the wine. I agree that Mosel is prettier but the Rhine has more site.

For the Rhine we liked the Rheinfels ruins and short cruise from St. Goar to Bacharach (about 1 hour) but there's more to choose from. The Rhine has it's own wine - one uses green stemmed glasses (Mosel?) and the other brown stemmed glasses to distinguish where the wine originated. There are many more castles and towns to visit along the Rhine based on your preferences.

There are many more castles and towns to visit along the Rhine based on your preferences.>

agreed - but only Marksburg is intact i heard - Napoleon and other marauders raising the others, leaving them in ruins, which i actually find more romantic than real ones - trekking up to a hilltop ruined castle is a joy for me - there is a great one a few miles hike up from Cochem - and provides a broad view of the Mosel Valley.

A good place to stay, with parking for your car, is the Hotel Triton. It's across the river from the main part of town, and if you get a room overlooking the river you will have a spectacular view of the castle. Also you can easily walk over the river bridge nearby and spend as much time in the town as you wish. We also ate at a couple of nice restaurants there, but I'm sorry that I can't recall their names. One was only a hundred meters or less down river on the same side as the motel.

Cochem would be a very good choice. On the Rhine, Boppard is also a very nice town with lots of restaurant choices, a nice river promenade, and an attractive town square with outdoor cafes. It may be a bit more central to your area of travel as well.

Hi,

I agree with Cochem as a base. We also preferred the Mosel to the Rhine.

We stayed across the river (Mosel) from Cochem at the Hotel Rebenhof in Valwig. Very nice place, friendly hosts and a central loction.

www.hotel-rebenhof.com

From here we visited Trier, Zell, Bernkastel, Beilstein and Burg Eltz. Cochem was our favorite town and Burg Eltz is our favorite castle. A "must see" in our opinion.

We have some pic's at:

www.worldisround.com/home/pja1/index.html

Paul

Cochem is a good choice. We have stayed in Beilstein and Bernkastel-Kues on the Mosel and in Oberwesel and Bacharach on the Rhein. We enjoyed all of them.

On our last trip in September 2007, we stayed in Bernkastel and visited Trier and also drove across into Luxembourg to Echternach. It's a lovely little town with a delightful old town area.

The center of the area you are talking about, the middle Rhine and Mosel, is Koblenz, and very nearby is the town of Braubach. Braubach is a good central location to use as a base for the area. In Braubach is one of the places you want to see anyway, the Marksburg. From there you can go up the right bank of the Rhine to St. Goarshausen and take the ferry across to St. Goar from which you can take the cruise to Bacharach. You can also go into Koblenz and take the train down to Moselkern (Burg Eltz) or Cochem. BTW, the Reichsburg castle in Cochem is not very authentic, having been destroyed by the French in around 1800 and rebuilt as a home later.

Yes like Larry says cochem's picture-perfect 'medieval' castle is an Ersatz one - totally rebuilt from rubble in the late 1800s i think. Though that diminishes its historical aspect a bit that fact that it looks like what a mint medieval castle does makes it a rare thing in this area.

It is the 'perfect' castle in many ways.

We stayed in Beilstein some years ago and thought it was picture perfect. Our hotel, Haus Lippman, is on the Mosel. A highlight of the trip was a day trip visit to Burg Eltz.

Beilstein is tiny, but we had memorable evening at a small family owned wine-bar near the hotel.

http://www.hotel-haus-lipmann.com/

Yes many Fodorites have simply raved about their sojourns at the Haus Lipmann

I did not note this before because the OP was asking for a place where they could come back to restaurants, pubs, etc.

Beilstein is very tiny with few of those options outside the Lipmann itself.

Thanks to everyone for your help. I have a bit more research to do, but staying on the Moselle is definitely in the plan now. Will report back later on our hotels and the trip itself.

We stayed in Boppard a couple of years ago. Bacharach was a cuter but we stopped at the Am Market Cafe and had the apricot cream cake and a glass of wine, it was all over for me . If you don't stay in Boppard at least stop for the cake, it was the best I've ever eaten.

Lsky..Love it! I am on the same wave length!