CHAPTER VIII.
Piesport.
From Trèves to Trittenheim the scenery of our river, although very pleasing, has not yet attained to its full beauty; the Moselle, woman as she has become, is still scarcely matured in beauty; many charms are hers already, but until approaching Neumagen her life does not reach the fulness of its summer glory. Then, indeed, the full enchantment of her beauty breaks upon us, as, often in life, we have been in the habit of seeing a lovely girl pass from childhood into the graces of early womanhood, we admire and love; but at some future day we suddenly perceive that the lovely girl has become a glorious woman, replete with every grace. The change seems to take place in a day, even in an hour: some incident, trifling perchance in itself, has awoke the spirit, and the lately shy and timid girl has become a woman in spirit as in name; losing none of the happy loveliness of her earlier years, she has acquired a dignity and nameless, indefinable grace, which completes her beauty and robs us of our hearts.
Such has our Moselle become when she winds among the mountains past Neumagen and Piesport.
The promontory at the back of Neumagen is divided into two parts by the little river Drohn. It is supposed by many that it was on the bank of this little stream that the celebrated Palace of the Thirty Towers stood. This palace, built by the Archbishop Nicetius of Trèves, is supposed to have been most beautiful, and formed entirely of marble, with pleasure-grounds sloping to the stream and river. The description given of these gardens by the poet, Venantius Fortunatus, reads more like an Eastern account of those gardens of Paradise sometimes for a moment unveiled to the wanderer in the Arabian desert. Bishofstein (lower down the stream) also claims the honour of being on the site of the Palace of the Thirty Towers, but it does not in any way answer the description. Whether the banks of the Drohn were the site of this marble palace or not, the beauty of the situation certainly gives it a claim to have been so, and the Archbishops did possess a country-house near Neumagen.
A few miles below Trèves we pass Pfalzel, which lies on the left bank; this little town is interesting, as it is said to be the site of the beautiful legend of Genoveva, handed down to us in so many different versions.