Touring

A blog by Kel…

Cochem is a small village on the Mosel River in Germany – a pretty little spot known for its wine. The banks of the river are covered in grape vines and up on the hill there’s a 1,000-year-old castle overlooking the town. It’s like a scene from Beauty and the Beast.

This was one of the first places we booked over 12 months ago, but little did we know then that our dates coincided with Cochem’s annual wine festival. Must have been my German blood giving us a sign!

We arrived by train (well, actually 5 trains in total) from Amsterdam and knew we were in for a good weekend when we found the town square decked out in full festival mode with live music, free entertainment and, of course, local wineries (known as “wineguts” in German) all selling their best wines, mostly Rieslings. Spent a very happy afternoon tasting Cochem’s best, listening to the band and soaking up the party atmosphere.

The festival fun continued on Sunday with the “highlight” of the festival – a parade through the streets of Cochem. It started with cannons from the castle and continued with German marching bands and kids in their traditional German dirndel and lederhosen outfits – super cute! The weirdest part of the festival is that each village names a “wine princess” to represent them in the parade – a bit like a beauty pageant? – and they walk the streets dressed in their finest ball gowns and a glass of wine in hand! There’s even wine princesses from years gone by so the old girls get to strut their stuff again too. Such a cultural quirk and wonderful to see this authentic celebration.

Even the girls got into the spirit! Full disclosure… this is non-alcoholic grape juice, I promise!

We finished the weekend with a sunny boat trip down the Mosel. Cochem was such a lovely way to start our German part of the trip and definitely a highlight for me.