up the river and through the woods

   


  
As the first part of my friend Ann's two-week visit from the U.S., she and Megan and I spent most of a weekend heading to Burg Eltz, a castle just off the Moselle River in Rhineland-Palatinate. We'd been drawn to Burg Eltz due to the fact that it's Rick Steves' self-proclaimed "favorite castle in all of Europe" (and you know what Megan's and my opinion is about Rick Steves' suggestions). It's especially hard to argue with Rick Steves when he gets all poetic. I mean, the man has serious feelings for this castle:

Lurking in a mysterious forest, it's been left intact for 700 years and is furnished throughout much as it was 500 years ago. Thanks to smart diplomacy and clever marriages, Burg Eltz was never destroyed. It's been in the Eltz family for 850 years.

So, understandably, our expectations were pretty high going in.

On a Friday we headed up to Koblenz, where we spent the (incredibly noisy and mostly sleepless) night before parking ourselves on a cruise boat with dozens of octogenarians and riding up the Moselle River in the glorious fall sunlight. We disembarked at Moselkern, where we paused for some fortifying Würste, fries, and beer before wandering through the town and into the forest, following the Elzach creek to Burg Eltz. I was a big fan of the walk, in spite of the mud and the fact that every guidebook and sign we ran across had a different estimate for how long the walk from Moselkern to the castle would take, ranging from 40-90 minutes (we came in right around the middle of the range: 70 going, 60 coming back). An important thing to know about getting to/from Burg Eltz is that you shouldn't let anyone fool you into thinking there's some kind of public transportation option if you get tired, because there is no such thing. You can get to Burg Eltz other ways (including within a kilometer of it by car), but I recommend the walk -- emerging from the trees and seeing the castle rise up in front of you is pretty excellent, even with cranes marring the view.

The castle itself was lovely but underwhelming. I was expecting some serious dazzle out of Rick Steves' favorite castle in all of Europe. And yet I kept thinking that there must be so many castles more excellent than this one -- maybe not so perfectly maintained, maybe not so immediately, obviously that American childhood vision of castle, but all the better for it. One of Rick Steves' other favorite castles, Burg Rheinfels, comes closer to this for me, but it's still not the absolute one for me. My favorite castle in all of Europe is still out there, lurking in the middle of some other mysterious forest. I'll keep on looking.