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Cochem, Germany

We had planned to leave early to allow extra time in Cochem – a new strategy of leaving early on days when we are moving but we ended up having great chats with Dave and Pam and Leslie. Se la vie – with fond farewells, exchanged emails and French mwah mwah on each cheek we departed for the short walk through the lovely neighbourhood to the train station.

Colmar was another place I was a little sad to move on from as I felt quite comfortable and happy in the area. The food of course was terrific and it would have been nice to spend another day or two exploring the small picturesque villages amongst the vineyards and seeing one of those storks!

I went to the information desk to find out our options for the trip and Vernon went over the road to the money machine to get some cash for the tickets. I found there was a train in 10 minutes to Strasbourg – our main connector and hoped Vern would be quick as the next option was in an hour. The nice lady at the counter was able to connect me through with tickets – French to German rail and Vern was not back. Panicking I made the decision to get them and lucky I had my Visa as he had both cash cards – I could see him in the distance but there was only 5 minutes till the train by now and a queue behind me so I couldn’t step aside and start again.

He did make it and lucky our platform was the first through the door as we only had minutes to spare. Our route did not take us through Luxembourg as I had originally mapped out as it would have arrived a lot later and was a lot more expensive. Instead we would travel up through Alsace – France and change in Germany at Saarbrucken, arriving in Cochem at 16:58 for a total of 70 euro each.

Unlike the last few days of very warm and pleasant weather, it was a bit overcast and as the trip progressed gentle rain started, so it was quite good to have a travel day and not a tour day! The scenery was fairly similar on the French side but on the German we started to follow the Moselle river and saw more hills and a lot more trees. The river level was quite high and I did spare a thought for the flooding victims further east.

We had a total of two train changes, once at Strasbourg and then finally at Saarbrucken. The train at Strasbourg was the smallest we have been on, being a one carriage diesel powered with the driver at the front. I wondered about the 2 hour part of the trip on that especially as the French trains are very comfortable and this one was not so appointed, but it did honk along very quietly.

An odd thing happened when we changed stations at Saarbrucken – our first German soil. We had half an hour break so we put some more clothes on as it was quite cool and headed to the cafe area of the station. We smelt bread as we got closer and to our delight there in front of us was a cafe with lovely cakes, breads and rolls with lots of temptation! We decided to share a Rhubarb torte but the cake was still whole not in slices and I was unsure if it could be cut or not – as there were also signs for whole cakes and then it happened – without thinking at all I started to speak German – asking if I could just have a piece.

It may not seem strange to some readers that know me, as of course I know SOME German but have not really spoken it or listened to it since my Omi was alive some 23 years ago, and then it was pidgin German anyhow. What was odd to me was that I did not consciously translate in my head first, nor did I consciously think “oh I am in Germany – I must speak German”. It just blurted out. Weird.

I can’t have been too far out as I was presented with a slice and next a fast flow of German came out from the lady regarding whether I wanted take out or not and coffees etc. Whoah, I did have to ask for it to be slowed down a bit and did revert to a little mixed German and English but we got there pretty well.

In the Alsace a couple of times we were both mistaken for Germans with the French speaking to us in German which I thought interesting, and here in Germany people do take me for German speaking first before English. Having said that I have not seen anyone who looks like me so not sure why?

So in summary I am surprised at how instantaneous or intrinsic my recall and response to spoken German language and signs are. I did find it very odd to see all the German names on houses and streets and towns in the Alsace yet French spoken – kind of confusing.

By the way the cake was very good and the cost of that plus two hot drinks and a bread roll with Fleish Kase and salad (for the next leg of course) was only 7 euro. Very cheap indeed.

Arriving in Cochem was a little bit of a let down I am sad to say. RS and the videos and reseach showed the town to be very pretty – one of the jewels of the Moselle and it is very popular with Germans as a holiday destination. I was expecting something like I saw in Switzerland and France; gardens spilling over with flowers with neat and tidy German Village houses. The train station is small, a bit unclean, stale smoke stink and in need of refurbishment, and the town itself is does not have many flowers, is somewhat run of the mill compared to our last three stops and surprisingly emits a feeling of lack of sense of pride in the place. In its favour it does have a spectacular renovated castle overlooking it.

Our advertised 500m walk to the hotel was in fact about 1km (in the rain) but no worries as it is a really nice, super clean, super comfortable family run small hotel. The family are very friendly and nothing is too much trouble.

We walked over the bridge into town for dinner – a pleasant 10 minute walk (sun out now) and found a restaurant that was highly rated on Trip Advisor. It was terrible, very limited menu which was quite plain and very retro – like pork escalope with a pineapple ring and cheese melted on top, decorated with a grape and served with salad and frozen pom frets. I got a goulash soup which was a gluggy tinned base with a few extras and some poor excuse for maultashen with a stodgy breaded filling. Blah – didn’t even eat it all.

I really wanted to criticise it and had Vernon ready to back me up but the waitress was so grumpy and scary I couldn’t be bothered with a fight. She walked up to take the plates and asked “Schmecked?” and we both responded “ja” quickly. What *******! I must say I did have a most excellent local Rose – maybe thats what weakened me! Needless to say I have promptly added my review to tripadvisor 🙂

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