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Moselle River Cruise Holidays
Moselle River Cruises
Past Vine-clad Slopes
The meandering Mosel Valley's cheerful vineyards and gentle woodland make a cruise a carefree jaunt where you can just lean back and enjoy it. This river is nothing but light and good will. Its delights are not coloured by the occasional hint of foreboding evoked by the dark crags looming over the Rhine. The kind of fairy-tale spirits it conjures up are more likely to be jolly dwarfs of the Snow White variety than nasty Nibelungs heralding the Twilight of the Gods.
Turning away from the Luxemburg border west of Trier, the German part of the relatively narrow Mosel river flows through a smiling valley to Koblenz, where it joins the great Rhine. This covers 242 km (150 miles) of the river's total length of 545 km (340 miles), from its source in the Vosges mountains in northeastern France.
The town of Trier still has a number of impressive ancient imperial monuments testifying to its role as a "second Rome". The river was a vital communications link between the Romans' territories in Gaul and their bastions keeping Germanic tribes and other barbarians from crossing the Rhine. The noble remains of feudal castles along the river emphasize the continuing strategic importance of the Mosel in the Middle Ages, both for robber barons and the often rapacious archbishops of Trier. And Koblenz owes its handsome palace, castle and Balduin bridge to the Trier archbishops who wanted to control the town's key position at the confluence of the Mosel and Rhine.
The Romans' most important contribution for the modern visitor was the introduction of the vine. Mosel wine has set the tone for the whole valley—fragrant, pleasant, easy on the palate, celebrated with a festival, wine-tasting or colourful museum in almost every village you stop off at on the way. Names such as Piesport, Bernkastel-Kues and Cochem bring tears of joy to a connoisseur's eyes. Indeed, there are many Frenchmen who prefer Mosel wines to those of the Rhine because of their affinity with the wines of Alsace. Mosel wine owes its characteristic bouquet to the fact that the often steep slopes of the vineyards capture a maximum of sun in what is Europe's northernmost wine-growing region. But teetotallers, too, appreciate the lusty local cuisine and succulent fruit and fresh juices from the local orchards.
Moselle River Cruises - Further Information
Connections - Elegant River Cruises
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