Cruising the Moselle: from Luxembourg to Cochem

You have no idea how gorgeous the Moselle River is: lined with steep-slope Riesling vineyards as it curves through gorges, winding past cliff top castles and picturesque villages. Although cruises are offered along the Moselle, those on the Rhine are more publicized. You are missing something special if you just go with the flow. If you have your own boat, don’t miss this river. The Moselle takes you to the Rhine so you can enjoy both. I will share our experience in our own boat, a 12 meter steel Dutch built boat.

Below: see our route

We shared the river with few pleasure craft in late June to mid-July. Mostly we encountered huge commercial barges and cruise ships. The Moselle has plenty of depth and width so we had no problems with these ships, and with just one exception we were able to moor without getting pounded by the wash. Furthermore we never felt at risk from vandals nor thieves. Finding moorings sometimes took quite a while – this was our biggest problem. Most moorings are for the day cruise ships but most docks are unmarked.

In the German portion of the Moselle there are two types of cruise ships plying these waters. One is the hotel ship, up to 110 meters/325’ in length with 4 or 5 decks. People sit on the deck in the sun or under umbrellas. There are huge windows on the middle decks, and tiny portholes at water level. A week on one of these costs thousands. Then there are the day or dinner cruisers. These are much smaller. Thousands join both types every day in the season. This year, along with us they are enjoying the mostly sunny yet cool weather.

Visits and moorings

After departing the small town of Toul, France we visited Metz. There we faced a challenging docking. The wind was up. There are only small perpendicular finger peers. The only spot left in fact had no finger peer at all, just a space between two boats. As we backed in several other boaters came out to help us. They tied us to a pier on the other side of the boat to our left and the boat next to our right, plus the dock behind.

Walking through Metz’s medieval section, we found the its excellent history museum. It is built upon a Roman cistern discovered as the excavated for the museum. The cathedral is magnificent. Read more https://garyjkirkpatrick.com/metz-france-a-site-for-soar-eyes/

We moved on from Metz, mooring first in Uckange on the left bank, then in Bechkleinmacher where there is a small museum which is a visit of two medieval houses. Later we went to the winery up the hill which offers the local product. You pay for the tasting, which revealed wines that are drinkable if otherwise unremarkable.

Schengen is further along the river. You “melden” at the dock on the river. Then someone brought us to a spot along the entrance, but first making us wait for a barge to pass. He said barge wash can make boats hard to handle in the marina. I learned that you can get fresh baguettes from a machine near the marina office. Overcoming my skepticism, I bought one. It was very good!

Did you know Schengen is in Luxembourg? It is the where the Schengen zone treaty was negotiated. The treaty allows members of the 27 signatory countries to pass freely between borders. It has the only marina in the country. Fuel prices are low in Luxembourg. Uniquely in the country you can fill up at the dock. See HEREE

Public transport is free everywhere in Luxembourg. The word is that the government determined that the cost of collection fares was almost as much as the fare revenue. So they increased by transportation budget by 10% and made all public transport free throughout the country – that means trains and buses. We used the excellent and extensive system to visit Luxembourg (the capital) and the Musee Bataille Des Ardennes (Battle of the Bulge) located in the castle in Wiltz,on the other side of the country. As a base we used the moorings in Grevenmacher and Wasserbillig. From those two free moorings the bus and train connections are a short walk away. More on Luxembourg https://garyjkirkpatrick.com/luxembourg-so-fabulous-that-the-whole-city-is-a-world-heritage-site/

We spent several days shuttling between these two moorings. Both docks are shared with river cruise vessels. There is an electronic sign which advises when they will be there, normally about 20 minutes each time. To comply we had to leave Wassbillig. At Grevenmacher there is room for one boat along with a cruise ship. The small boat space is clearly designated. We docked while a ship was already in place. Someone from the ship watched to see we had room, as their line was tied to the dock just in front of our bow.

In the 8 days we were at these docks only two other boats shared the dock. One was communicative so for the first time since we left Toul we had someone else to talk to. The Danish couple is traveling in their de-masted sailboat. They have a place in Spain and have decided to move their boat there. However they can not get through the now closed French canals, which are plagued by lack of water and weed growth. We helped them by contacting some French marinas who might help with the arrangements. A week later they managed to find a trucker to transfer the boat in Saint-Jean-de-Losne and set it down into the Rhone.

With a heat wave nearly upon us, we moved on to Watersport Club Konz. We were welcomed by a woman who lives alone on her small modern power boat. She walked the dock to where she wanted us to moor as we proceeded on the ample fairway.

They have a clubhouse with a small bar and kitchen. The friendly club members meet for drinks and meals at seriously discounted prices. Some spoke English, at least one also spoke French. We had dinner one night with them. They served up sausage with potato salad, typical of the meals they serve. We ate that sausage dinner with several talkative folks, including the woman who guided us in. She later took me to the gas station nearby to fill up the fuel containers. She made our stay!

They told us about the lock ahead that was closed, damaged by a hotel boat, which we first learned about from our Dutch friend John, who was on his boat in Belgium at the time. We passed through that lock, having to wait an hour and a half due to the delicate condition of one of the gates.

The train station is very close by. The entrance isn’t marked so we encountered a bit of confusion, but if you look up as you reach the street you can see the track and navigate easily to it. To escape the imminent heatwave we took the train to Frankfurt the morning after our arrival. Given the heatwave we left the boat’s doors open. We returned to find that no one robbed us. The gates are kept locked and there are folks around 24/7. Read about Frankfurt https://garyjkirkpatrick.com/hot-dog-theyre-frankfurturers/

Once on the German Mosel, we had to deal with the difficulty of finding moorings,. Here is what we had to do to find the next one. Each time we saw a possibility we had to check it out without being able to tell from the river that it was for the general public, as they do not usually put signs on the river side. Schweich has a small dock just past the marina. It wasn’t marked as public so we called the city after we moored. They did not know anything about it and told us to call the marina. The woman at the marina said we could dock there but tried to sell us a night in the marina.

There were small groups sitting on the nearby benches, otherwise we saw no one. All this calling around would not have been necessary if they had simply put a sign up on the dock that the boaters could see from the river side.

Berncastke-Kues is a picturesque village. There’s one dock for boats our size. We’d read that you could stay there for free if you had a meal at the restaurant in Cafe Hotel Risi. The dock is easily accessed, even offering a bit of shade which we welcomed in this hot weather. As usual the dock was unmarked so there would be no reason to think there would be a fee so we would not have known had we not run across this bit about the restaurant.

The mooring was quiet and safe. As usual with these free spots there are no services. There are grocery and other stores nearby. We enjoyed a lovely meal at the Cafe Hotel Risi, whose lovely traditional offerings run about €25-30 with wine.

Merl has a public dock on the right bank per our book and reports from friends. The outer position is long enough for us, but it was occupied. We motored over to the bank. There we could see that the inner piers are short and we were left uncertain about the depth, so we tried the wall clear on the other side of the river. There a helpful boater moored waved us in as we were leaving. There are small loops on the dock that you can not easily see from the boat, so we were not going to moor there, thinking there was no way to tie up.

Unfortunately just a few minutes after we were moored, assisted by the other boater, a barge came by, seriously rocking the boat. This was unlike anything we’d ever seen in 15 years of boating. We got up and left, in a huff.

Just down the river there was supposed to be another dock at a restaurant. We’d grown quite skeptical by this point, and were tired about many hours on the move, but then we saw someone standing on the dock as we approached. He did not wave us off right off the bat, and then waved us in, and he even tied our lines off. We could see he’d done this many times. It turned out that he is the owner. Normally his karaoke boat docks in this spot but it fits on the inside as well. He gave us a small ladder so I could reach the electricity. Finally, other than a bit of wash from a passing hotel boat, which he said always goes too fast, we just had mild wash. In the end it was another quiet night, not free but for an €18 payment.

Scenery along the German Mosel is even more magnificent. Sporting as much as a 65% incline, the hillsides are lined with row after row of mostly Riesling grape vineyards. Between the rows you can sometimes see mechanisms used to transport the harvest. Occasionally there is machinery or workers in the fields. Some areas are terraced, with stone tracery decorating the slopes. The trains run along the river’s edge below. It’s one magnificent scene after another for days and days, ending in Koblenz.

Bullay has a public dock just like the one in Merl. We translated the sign, which says you can “melden,” providing two phone numbers you used to comply. We called the weekday number. The person answering did not know anything, passing us to another who said the dock was new (the sign wasn’t!). The fee is €2 per meter per night we learned. There are no services. We were to pay by bank draft, but there was no rush, he said, and would send us their bank information and payment instructions. No bank information has arrived yet and it’s been a few weeks.

We stayed for three days, with no issues whatsoever. Since we are in the middle of the wine region we looked for places to taste the local wine. We found a small producer just two minutes away on foot. It’s a small, family run winery. When we entered, the whole family posed for us, wife, husband, and two young children who were holding the wine tasting tray. It was almost unbearably cute!

They produce an amazing number of wines for such a small operation. There are six whites plus two fizzy wines. In these there are no visible bubbles as in champagne, cava or prosecco, just a bit of carbonation. In addition there are 5 or 6 reds.

Their wines suffer from the common problem here – most are either sweet or, if not, they have somewhere between little and no character. We talked to the vintner/owner of this small winery and bar. He said he tries to make balanced wines. Unfortunately he balances the character right out of them. I believe that between the sugar added to the cheapest wines, allowed by law, and this balancing act, German wines are nothing to write home about. Fortunately you can get French, Italian and Spanish wines in the grocery stores. There’s an excellent grocery store up the hill, about a one kilometer walk.

To get to Alf, the town on the left bank, you take the ferry. The captain starts running at 0700h and ends at 1800h. The crossing takes about two minutes for a fare of €2 per person. He comes to the Bullay side when he sees someone waiting. His engine is tiny so he has to be cognizant of barge traffic. Strangely enough, although the ferry is no more than 20 feet long, there is a first class section, with tables and doilies on the windows.

Alf has neat old houses, a church and vineyards on the steep hillside. Throughout the area, tourist revenue adds to the economy of wine production, as you can tell by the number of hotels and ‘Zimmer frei’ signs.

Down the river further, Cochem is the mother of all tourist spots on the Moselle. There are at least a half dozen river cruisers who base there. On Friday and Saturday summer nights one of the ships hires a band which they connect to humongous speakers that can be heard for kilometers around. Mostly they played American songs from the late 60’s and 70’s such as Clearance Clearwater Revival, with an occasional German language pop song thrown in. The band did a decent job of it. There’s a dance floor and a few dozen heads bobbed up and down to the beat. The ship departed at 1900h, at full band blast, and returned around 2200h still on full blast. Before docking the captain spun the large ship around a few times just in front of us. And the band played on for another half hour at the dock.

An ancient castle looks over the town, remodeled into the fairyland architectual style called German Romanticism, sort of neo-Gothic. The most famous such castle is Neuchweinstein Castle, built by the mad king Ludwig II. The magnificent one in Cochem was done up by a wealthy man in the mid 1800’s. It’s about a half hour walk up the steep streets. I did the walk. I can attest to its steepness. I went without having to stop. An overweight woman was stuck about half way. There is a bus to take you there if you are not into the hike. The views from the top are lovely.

The town is chock full of half-timber buildings. The lower floors contain restaurants, bars, fast food shops and tourist trap stuff. You can take a chair lift to a fine overlook and enjoy an over-priced beverage and meal. We shared a table with a young woman with two young children. She spoke to us after a bit. She’s Dutch, we learned, so her English is very good. They come here camping in summers. The campgrounds are crowded, she says. We had already noticed many along the river, most jam-packed.

We had lunch at a schnitzel house. There were a half dozen or so sauces you can choose from. Mushroom, curry and others came with either fries or potato salad. You could select a regular portion or a seniors/child. The latter is plenty for most people. You can also just get a sausage, less than half the price of a schnitzel, with only bread and mustard. Their dry white wine isn’t dry nor is it particularly cheap at around €7 for a good pour. I had a small beer for €4.

The public marina’s dock is covered with goose poop so we decided to risk getting knocked around a bit, so we moored on the outside wall. Over the four days we were on the wall, aside from a small boat going too fast, we were only rocked once from a passing barge,

A few others moored by us, including two or three small boats, an old-fashioned hotel barge with a smoke stack from the steam engine era, and another luxurious small hotel barge operated by an American. He docked just in front of us in early evening, then came by to visit after our dinner guests, a mid-40’s couple, left for their campsite.

The American hotel barge owner bought this early 2000’s barge four years ago. He was looking for things to do now that he’d retired. He had been looking to buy an estate that included a nearby fixer upper, first in Italy and then in France. After losing out on a deal in the Dordogne, he happened upon the idea of buying and operating a hotel barge in Europe after noticing how much waterway there is over here. He found this purpose built barge, redone in 2018: new engines, generator, complete interior refit except the Escher teak floor. By way of experience, he captained a salmon fishing vessel in his youth. A year of those waves was enough for him. He then became an engineer and architect, along the way gaining some experience in the hospitality industry.

He and his wife set up what he says is one of the two most luxurious hotel barges on the European waterways. They have a Dutch pilot as required since the owner does not have his full license yet. There are chefs, maids and I think someone who drives a chase vehicle. Captain and spouse do not have to be on the ship for it to operate.

They stop here in Cochem coming from the Netherlands on a regular basis, on their way to their Alsace cruise. A separate pilot is required on the Rhine portions. The Alsace is his favorite cruising region. The home port of the Nouvelle Etoile is Zartsluis. He can do a lot of the work himself, with his background in electricity, plumbing and so on. Their ship has the only on-board elevator on any European river hotel barge. It connects to a fully handicap accessible suite, which like the others has a king size bed, bathroom with shower and other upscale amenities including air conditioning.

You need to plunk down about a €1000 a night per person to pay for all this, which includes super quiet 24/7 generators and suppressed engine exhaust noise.

As for the Dutch couple who joined us for dinner, they are both teachers. We met them at a weinstube (wine bar) at Schlossstrasse 6, a charming ‘skellar’ (cellar) dug out of the rock. We tried a bunch of too sweet and characterless wines, but with the large pours, we found it easy to talk to the two in the next table, and invited ourselves over.

She teaches immigrants level one skills. At that level the students’ ability with Dutch is minimal to non-existent. Most of the students are from the Middle East. He teaches level four groups landscaping skills so they can find work. She has three children from a previous marriage to someone with whom she enjoys a good relationship. She found she could just not live with hypochondria. He has two children he cares every other weekend. They have been together for two years. They have a mini-van they use for camping. Right now it is just the two of them. They have time together without kids, who are all teenagers, on what I gathered to be a fairly regular basis. For dinner I threw together a pesto dish, a bit of zucchini with onion, garlic and tomato paste, and a salad. The lady guest had no trouble keeping the conversation going, one-sided and repetitive as it largely was.

The wind was up and the rain falling as we tried to dock in Koblenz. Facing into the wind got us under control. There are just clubs in Koblenz, so they open in the late afternoon. Someone finally showed up and we paid the €2 per meter charge, all inclusive. The next morning we made our way to a shopping center using the public buses. This was a bit of a challenge, as there is no information in English. We had to change buses. The first bus driver was very helpful. He took us to the stop where we had to change, as we could tell from the bus system’s app. The next driver was no help at all, but per the app we just needed to go one stop. It’s just a short walk from the bus stop back to our mooring.

We are ready to enter the Rhine, going south six kilometers to the Lahn river, with some 60 kilometers of quiet cruising and small towns. The navigable Lahn ends after 75 kilometers at Limburg.