A 890-metre cable car runs from the riverside in central Koblenz over the Rhine to Ehrenbreitstein fortress. Built temporarily for the 2011 Federal Garden Show and given a permanent extension after public pressure, it is now the most ridden cable car in Germany — five million passengers in its first three years.
Each gondola holds 35 people, the trip takes six minutes, and the cabins clear the water by over a hundred metres at the mid-span. The combined cable car and fortress ticket is much cheaper than the two separately. Avoid mid-morning and early afternoon in summer when river-cruise passengers swamp the lower station.