Cochem, Germany Hotels, Vacations, Tourism

The next town of any size beyond Traben-Trarbach is COCHEM , which lies 55km downstream and on the main Trier-Koblenz rail line. It's a place which has sold its soul to tourism and should be avoided like the plague in summer. The main attraction is the Reichsburg (daily: mid-March to Oct 9am–5pm; first two weeks of Nov 9am–3pm; DM7/€3.50), one of the Rhineland-Palatinate's most famous replica castles. If it weren't a Romantic-era fake (the eleventh- to fourteenth-century original went up in smoke in 1689, assisted by enthusiastic French soldiers), the castle, which dominates … more »