After 3 nights in a winery at Cochem, we stashed our large luggage with our gracious hosts and went off to stay in an authentic German castle for one of our most anticipated stays. But between leaving Cochem and arriving at Burg Arras, we spent a leisurely day in the little town of Beilstein.
This is yet another charming village on the Mosel, hugging a sharp turn of the river and surrounded on three sides by the classic steep vineyards for which this wine-growing region is famously known. There's no train station, no bridge crossing the Mosel, and the main connection to its neighbor across the river is a miniscule car ferry with no roof.
The lack of a train station also works great in deterring most visitors without cars. Our options coming from Cochem were the hour-long ferry trip, or a 15 minute bus under the VRM network. And that's what we boarded with our VRM 3-day ticket, arriving on Bus #716 in the mid morning.
Beilstein is one of those complete medieval village with an intact core of attractive half-timber houses and its own estates of timeless vineyards, crowned with the romantic ruin of an ancient castle on the hilltop above. Along with Cochem and Bernkastel this was one of my favorite towns on the Mosel in terms of aesthetic quality.
The only reasons for not basing ourselves here was the inconvenience of public transportation, and the fact that it didn't offer as many shops and restaurants as Cochem for a longer stay. This tiny wine-growing community had one castle at the top, one church on a small knoll, and two streets full of drinking establishments and shops focusing on the world-famous vintage from the nearby slopes.
One logistical problem though ... there's no storage facility for our daypack! The village had no coin lockers, no formal Tourist Info centre (the "i" was actually a souvenir shop), and of course no luggage deposit rooms for its size. I actually shouldered our daypack around town, all the way up to the viewing platform at the church, before deciding to try my luck with the local shopkeepers. We're lucky to come across the friendly Hilde Hardy of Hardy's Bistro, who was gracious enough to keep our daypack inside her café. More on that later.
With lightened shoulders we started exploring more of the village and its picturesque and strikingly steep alleys, flanked by the village's lively Weinstuben and timber-framed homes. Further uphill was the castle ruin dating from 11th Century. Sights were few aside from the village, the church and the castle, and since we weren't intending on lounging at a Weinstube, we started to run out of things to see after two hours. In retrospect we should have stayed longer in Cochem, and plan to arrive at Beilstein at lunchtime.
We had lunch at the Gute Quelle, one of the venerable half-timber houses on the historic and cozy Markplatz. Prices were very reasonable for such a prime location -- we're looking at 13.5 Euros for a 3-course lunch.
Autumn was the season for all kinds of wild mushrooms as signified by the restaurant signage for "frische pfifferlinge," or freshly harvested local Chanterelles. My wife's 3-course meal came with this cream of champignon, though I saved my anticipation for the next dish.
The wide availability of Chanterelles, and of course the delightful and sweet Federweisser, were among my favorite reasons for visiting Germany in the autumn. While these weren't the best of Chanterelles, they still tasted much more flavorous compared to the domesticated varieties. That's why I never pass up any chances to have fresh Chanterelles on our journey ... in Canada I typically only find the desiccated ones.
The main dish in the 3-course lunch turned out to be an overly charred trout, likely a farmed fish judging from the noticeable "muddy" taste in the flesh. While my wife thankfully didn't mind it at all, I couldn't quite stand it without washing it down with the local version of the sweet Federweisser. Perhaps we should have simply stuck with all things Chanterelle.
Bill for Two Persons
| Pan-Fried Trout | 13.5 Euros |
| Bandnudeln with Chanterelle Mushrooms | 13.5 Euros |
| Glass Federweisser x 2 | 5.0 Euros |
| TOTAL before tips | 32.0 Euros (CAD$44.8) |
With more time to kill while waiting for our 16:00 ferry, we returned to Hardy's Bistro to thank Hilde for keeping our daypack, and to try out her desserts while sipping more of the terrific Federweisser from the local hills. That seemed to be exactly what everyone else had in mind, as Hilde's patio was entirely packed with day-trippers and their waffles.
I would have had to shoulder our daypack for 6 hours without Hilde's kind offer to stash it inside her shop. Meeting friendly locals like Hilde often becomes a very memorable part of our journeys, and I really can't think her enough. Besides, I'd much rather spend money on dessert than dropping coins into a locker.
Hilde's waffles were good, but her Federweisser was excellent with fruity flavors and a higher than usual alcohol content than what we've tasted elsewhere along the valley. This batch of the half-fermented wine apparently came from the wine-producing village of Senheim, just a few kilometers to the south. Unbeknownst to us at the time, we would pass through this village on a boat later that afternoon.
At 16:00 our long awaited ferry arrived from Cochem, carrying us along this serpentine river upstream in the direction of Alf-Bullay. There we would sleep inside the spectacular castle of Burg Arras, the oldest in the Mosel Valley, for one of the true highlights of our journey.
