Cochem Castle: knights and adventure for all ages

Discovering Cochem Castle

If you fancy something to eat before or after a castle tour, the Burgschänke is well worth a visit. It serves a wide choice of tasty hot and cold dishes. Soups, stews, Ritterbrot topped bread or schnitzel – whatever you order, the castle sets great store by quality and fresh preparation. More of a sweet tooth? Then the Burgschänke has a generous selection of cakes and gateaux for you, along with a range of coffee specialities.

As well as coffee, you can have regional wines served by the glass and enjoy them on the covered terrace, with the view over the Moselle valley, the vineyards and Cochem.

Cochem Castle stands right on the Moselle and puts a smile on the face of anyone with a soft spot for knights. Guided tours take in all the interiors: the knights’ hall, the dining hall, the hunting room and more. Especially popular with visitors are the rustic knights’ banquets, the “Rittergasterey”. Cochem Castle also brings old aristocratic customs to life and stages knightly games. Do you love a medieval atmosphere? Then this castle really is a must.

The castle is generally thought to have been built around the year 1000 by Count Palatine Ezzo. The first documentary mention dates from 1051. Under the Hohenstaufen emperors, Cochem Castle rose to the rank of an imperial castle, a Reichsburg, and played an important part in administering imperial property.

Louis Ravené, a Berlin businessman, restored the castle in the 19th century and remodelled it in the neo-Gothic style.

Guided tours run at the castle regularly, every day and in several languages, because people from all over the world love to visit. The high point of the year is the medieval castle festival, usually held on the first weekend in August. The courtyards then fill with colour and bustle, and you feel carried far back in time. There are all kinds of traditional crafts to admire, and hearty, tasty food to keep you going.

Good wine and mead are of course part of it all, and where better to enjoy such a delicious drink than in a place with this much history? The Moselle valley with its steep slopes is, after all, one of the most remarkable wine-growing regions in the world. Nowhere else are there slopes this steep on which such a refreshing, heady drink is grown.

As well as the castle festival, a beautiful Christmas market is held in the castle grounds at Christmas time: the Cochemer Burgweihnacht. Here the Christmas story becomes tangible, brought back to life in the castle courtyard by actors in period costume and real animals. Join Mary, Joseph and the shepherds in their search for shelter and, combined with a tour of the castle, this wonderful setting will give you moments you will not forget. The castle has belonged to the town of Cochem since 1978 and is run today as Reichsburg GmbH.

A fairy-tale setting for your wedding

If you are planning to marry your partner before long, the former castle chapel offers you a fairy-tale setting for the ceremony. The chapel is decorated for the occasion and the civil ceremony is arranged for you professionally.

The castle lies very close to the geo nature park of the Eifel. Here you can experience nature at first hand thanks to beautiful walking trails and Traumpfade. Walk up the Hohe Acht, the highest mountain in the Eifel, and enjoy the glorious view from its viewing tower — in fine weather you can even make out Cologne Cathedral from there. The Laacher See with its famous Romanesque monastery, Maria Laach Abbey, is another trip worth making. Immerse yourself in past centuries, discover that the Laacher See volcano is not extinct but merely sleeping, and admire the many bubbling springs in the lake.

The nature park is also excellent for cycling if walking is not your thing. And if you would like to spend your holiday by one of the lakes, Waldsee Rieden is one of the first places to look. Easy though it is to reach, the lake feels wonderfully idyllic. This is a place to find some inner calm and unwind properly. Ready for a bit of action after all that rest? No problem: the world-famous Nürburgring racing circuit is 15 to 30 minutes away by car. The Rhine and the towns of Mayen, Bernkastel-Kues, Trier, Monreal and Koblenz are all half an hour away at most as well. Besides Cochem Castle, the Eifel has other well-known castles and palaces that are absolutely worth the journey. They include Eltz Castle, Nideggen Castle, Reifferscheid Castle, the fairy-tale Bürresheim Castle and Ehrenbreitstein Fortress, and many more.

Tips for families with children

If you are travelling as a family, we recommend Tollipark in Mayen – a combination of indoor and outdoor play paradise. If you enjoy wildlife parks, try Klotten Wildlife and Adventure Park, Neuwied Zoo or Daun Wildlife Park. The Teufelsschlucht dinosaur park and its exhibits offer a fantastic look back into prehistory.

You cannot drive right up to the site, because the access roads do not allow it. Shuttle buses run regularly from Cochem.

The Hollywood production “Out of Control” brought the Chinese action star Lucy Lin to the castle.

Reichsburg GmbH does not publish exact visitor numbers. Even so, given how popular the castle is, tens of thousands of visitors a year can be assumed