Since the long-waiting 9 Euro ticket has been launched, and we have a must-do task in Frankfurt, we’ve decided to go to Koblenz and Rüdesheim for a short trip. In this post I will blog about how we enjoyed this German old city–Koblenz.
9 Euro, 3 months, travelling the whole Germany
This 9 Euro ticket campaign is launched to encourage people using less cars, less gas to tackle the “Russia may cut gas” problem. In June, July, August 3 months, anybody can use this 9 Euro ticket, by train, tram and bus, to travel around the whole Germany (9 Euro per month). However, you can’t use fast train, i.e. ICE, EC, Flixtrain, Flixbus. Since there is a must-do task happened in Frankfurt, and we want to fully utilised this valuable ticket, our travel plan became like this:
Düsseldorf → Koblenz → Frankfurt(overnight)→ Mainz → Rüdesheim(overnight) → Koblenz → Düsseldorf
You may ask, Koblenz is so nice that we have to go 2 times? Actually, it’s simply because the Deutsches Eck was closed in the first time, and anyway the train will stop by Koblenz, so we’ve decided to visit again and have dinner there.
Koblenz: a nice city to stop by
From Düsseldorf to Koblenz by direct RE train, it takes around 1.45 hours. We traveled on Sunday, naively thinking there would be less people, somehow we were totally wrong. The whole train was packed until the last stop Koblenz Hbf (main station). We guess many people transit there and go on their journey.
Instead of Koblenz Hbf(main station), we escaped from the sardined train and got off at Koblenz Stadtmittel (city centre). it’s just 10 mins walk until you reach the river.
Koblenz History Column
Walking through the Altstadt (old town), we spotted the famous Koblenz History Column which was created and completed by Jürgen Weber in 2000.
There are 10 scenes on this sculpture, representing 10 important time in human history in 2000 years, including French Revolution, persecution of witches, World War II etc.
Temporary Exhibition in Koblenz: Alltagsmenschen
Wandering around in Koblenz, we found many different human size sculptures. At first I couldn’t find any info on Koblenz official tourism website, then I googled the pictures, finally realised they are created by artists Christel & Laura Lechner (mother and daughter), the exhibition is called Alltagsmenschen (everyday people).
This exhibition in Koblenz is happening from 27 Mar to 3 Jul, 2022. We are very lucky to have a chance to see it. There are around 40 sculptures located in 13 different locations in Koblenz. If you have taken some pictures of these, you can also send them to the artists, they might show them on their website!
Enjoy the stunning view oversees the UNESCO site Ehrenbreitstein Fortress
Frankly speaking, we didn’t visit the fortress, just because fortress maybe is not our type. We simply thought inside the fortress won’t have much to offer (not like palace, you can enjoy the decoration and paintings), that’s why we rather enjoyed its outlook from the other side, also enjoyed seeing the cable car come and go, people watching and day dreaming.
Also, there are many boat tours going on too. For example, KD is one of the oldest boat tour operating companies. Just hop-off each beautiful city, enjoy 2-3 hours there, then again hop-on and see another city, kind of nice isn’t it?
Deutsches Eck (German Corner)
Walking along the river, you will find the world-famous Deutsches Eck (German Corner).
Why this corner is so famous? According to the official site:
The establishment of the Teutonic Order at the confluence of the Rhine and Moselle in 1216 gave this historic site its name, the “Deutsches Eck” (“German Corner”). Koblenz also owes its name to the meeting point of the Rhine and the Moselle – from “Castellum apud Confluentes”, Latin for “fort at the confluence”, which over time became the current name of Koblenz.
Behind this corner is the Kaiser Wilhelm memorial, who brought unification of Germany in the late 19 century.
Well, I would say just like others spacious squares in most of the European countries, it’s a place to take some photos and rest, then move on to the next sightseeing spot. Sometimes there will be events going on here, like the first time we visited.
Food in Koblenz
We tried Vietnamese food and Thai food here. And, Thai food is better!
Lunch@Thailand Restaurant Chaopraya
Usually Thai food is quite spicy. But I could find quite a lot of non-spicy Thai food here which is a pleasant surprise!
They will first serve you a bowl of shrimp crackers with 2 different kinds of sauce. This offers a good first impression. Also, they have some dishes I’ve never seen before, for example the 2 dishes we tried: Larn-Nah Gung, broad noodles with king prawns, bak choi and special sauce, and Gai-Tord Satee, deep fried chicken with spinach, peanuts sauce, with rice.
Both are very tasty and have rich flavour. Quantity are also quite big. Service is nice with smile. Beware that some customers can’t get served from 2:00pm, since they have afternoon break from 2:30pm.
Dinner@Restaurant Hanoi
This Vietnamese restaurant also has good rating, similar to the Thai one.
We tried the mixed starter for 2 persons, which has 8 different kinds of appetisers with 3 sauces. Although most of them are fried food, you can try many varieties of food which I think is great.
For the main course, I ate Pho Bo (beef noodles in soup) and Curry Boy ate Bun Cha (pork skewers with rice noodles and fish sauce). I would say both are ok tasty but not outstanding. For example the pho soup was lack of deep flavour, which is a key point in pho. However, quantity were big enough and service was good too.
Compare to Düsseldorf, Koblenz is a much smaller city but able to attract a lot of tourists. I guess it’s because of the UNESCO site? And combine with its location and offers you a ride of cable car which is quite touristic enough, the hotel price here also not cheap. It’s also one of the reasons we didn’t stay here overnight.
Next blog I will write about Rüdesheim am Rhein. A lovely small town which Curry Boy and I both fell in love with. 🙂
