Bernkastel-Kues, Germany

The twin town of BERNKASTEL-KUES nestles by a serpentine bend in the Mosel. With this scenic backdrop, Bernkastel-Kues is a half-timbered gem. Predictably, it's rather touristy, but with some of the wonkiest houses you'll ever see and wall-to-wall with wine taverns to help distort their dimensions even more, it's a place that shouldn't be passed up. There's always a cheerful buzz about town, and things are liveliest in the first weekend in September when gallons of the local Bernkastelr Doctor wine are downed with spirited results – even the fountain in the middle of the Marktplatz flows with wine.

Easily the more attractive part of town, tiny Bernkastel, on the east bank of the Mosel, gathers behind the Pfarrkirche St Michael, a fourteenth-century church that once formed part of the town's defence. A short way behind, the tiny focal Marktplatz is surrounded by half-timbered houses with decorative gables and is so well preserved that if it weren't for the other visitors and souvenir shops, you'd think you'd walked into a medieval street scene – even a ring on the Rathaus which miscreants were chained to is intact. Just uphill from here is the faintly absurd Spitzhäuschen, a tiny, precarious-looking, top-heavy house that's Bernkastel at its most extreme.

From Bernkastel's Marktplatz, the main Mandatstrasse brings you to the back of town and becomes Burgstrasse as far as the signed start of a 3km hiking trail to Burg Landshut (open access), the ruined eleventh- to thirteenth-century castle that surveys this stretch of the Mosel. It served the archbishops of Trier and is worth the hike for tremendous valley views of cascading hillsides streaked by vineyard greens. The hike takes about 45 minutes and climbs steeply on easy woodland paths, but if you don't fancy that you can hop aboard a shuttle bus (April– Oct hourly 10am–6pm; € 3.50) from tourist information instead.

In comparison to Bernkastel, the far larger town of Kues is rather workaday, though it does have one sight that makes crossing the river worthwhile: the St-Nikolaus Hospital, Cusanusstrasse 2 (Sun– Fri 9am–6pm, Sat 9am–3pm; free; Tel:06531/22 60), a poorhouse founded in 1458 by theologian Nikolaus Cusanus who was born in the town and rose to great ecclesiastical heights as a cardinal in Rome. There's a Gothic chapel and cloister to explore and its library is also of interest for Cusanus's extraordinary collection of thousand-year-old manuscripts though it's only accessible on a guided tour (April– Oct Tues 10.30am, Fri 3pm; € 4). Also here, in the cellars, is the Mosel-Weinmuseum (daily: mid-April to Oct 10am–5pm; Nov to mid-April 2–5pm; € 2; Tel:06531/41 41), which has a wine bar where you can taste as many of the local wines as you like for € 9.