The castle perched above Cochem is the defining image of the Mosel valley. Originally built around the year 1000, it passed through royal hands — King Adolf of Nassau once pawned it to pay for his coronation — before the archbishops of Trier held it for nearly five centuries. The rebuilt interior is surprisingly well-furnished, with a collection of period pieces that gives a real sense of how a wealthy 19th-century German imagined the medieval past. Guided tours run daily April through October; the climb up from the old town takes about 15 minutes.
Reichsburg Cochem
Neo-Gothic castle towering over the Mosel valley
A story
The castle was almost entirely destroyed by French troops in 1689 and lay in ruins for nearly two centuries. In 1868 a Berlin businessman named Louis Ravené bought the ruins and rebuilt the castle in the neo-Gothic style, carefully furnishing it with Renaissance and Baroque pieces he collected across Europe. The town has owned it since 1978.