ELTZ CASTLE

Afi-Treis 50 km





June 1, 2011

After breakfast we headed out under gray skies. Our goal for the day is to find lodging for the holiday weekend, hopefully with internet. We have not had internet since we left France.
The ride along the Mosel continues to be pleasant, with very good bike path, excellent markings and directional signs and nicely paved. The locks have been under repair, so water traffic has been limited for much of our ride, but now they must be open again because we are seeing huge, long barges moving upriver.

The weather started out gray and cloudily, but by the afternoon the sun was out and weather was warm.


We arrived in Karden where Don found a tourist information center. The very helpful lady, who spoke good English, arranged a nice apartment for us for the 4 day weekend. The downside of the apartment is it is up a steep hill.
We crossed the bridge and rode up the hill part of the way, and then pushed the rest of the way, until we arrived at the very nice house of Agnes Kaufmann. There we were shown to our spacious apartment, with two bedrooms, large living room, dining area and kitchen. All this for e45 a night!

Agnes Kaufmann
Forststr. 53
56253 Treis-Karden

We put our bikes in the garage, carried our bags upstairs to the room, and took our showers before heading down to the grocery store for some supplies.

On the way home we stopped for dinner and ordered the special, although we didn’t know what it might be. It turned out to be 5 very large ravioli and they were served very hot. I ate about half and snuck the other half into a baggie I had in my daypack. Salad bar and dessert were also included in the price of e6.90, a good value.

The next day we took the bike bus up the hill on the other side of the river to visit the castle Burg Eltz. We were surprised as we traveled along in the bus, to find the top of the hill to be almost like a mesa, with lots of flat or gently rolling terrain covered in wheat fields.

The castle is nestled into a canyon and is in pretty good condition. Of course there was a big crane and scaffolding marring the view. These things seem to be in a constant state of repair.

We wheeled or bikes down to the castle entrance, parked and locked them, paid our entry fee and began to explore. The first room we visited was the treasury and the collection is extensive. There were armaments, sabers, suits of armor, etc., and fancy china and glassware, some jeweled belts and adornments, lots of reliquaries and boxes.

Next we took a guided tour of the castle. The presentation was in English. We learned that the castle is still owned by the founding family, so it has been continuously owned by the same family for 850 years. The family resemblance was quite obvious as we looked at the portraits of the Dukes from the first, a relative of Maria Theresa or Austria, of course, right on to the family photo of the current Duke. All of the men looked very much alike.

On our tour we saw dining halls and bedrooms and the kitchen. I liked that the rooms were furnished with original pieces, some 1000 years old.

After the castle visit the idea was to ride back down the hill on our bikes, but we couldn’t seem to get to any designated bike trail. Don’s guide book said there was a bike route, but we ended up lugging our bikes down several sets of stairs, over a bridge and then a hiking trail. The trail could possibly be ridden with a mountain bike, but I didn’t feel secure enough to ride it on my Bike Friday. Besides, being a holiday, there were lots of hikers on the trail. So we walked our bikes until we hit the road. The hike was quite nice, in shade and along a brook.

When we came out onto the road we were able to ride back down the hill, over the bridge and made a stop at the supermarket before crunching our way up the hill to our apartment.