EHRENFELS ON THE RHINE
A volume would not catalog the legends and superstitions of the Rhine Gorge. At least the Captain so declares and adds that he knows a strange story of the Rhine that an old German once told him in Bingen. At our solicitation he repeats it as we glide slowly along the river road and I have thought it worth recasting for my book. There will be no harm done if it is skipped by the reader who has no taste for such things. It is a little after the style of several German legends of ancient gentry, who sold themselves to the Evil One to gain some greatly desired point—though I always thought these stories reflected on the business sagacity of the Devil in making him pay for something he was bound to get in the end without cost. The story, I find, is long enough to require a chapter of itself and it may appropriately follow this.
There are endless small towns along the road, but they are quite free from the untoward conditions I have described in the more retired villages off the track of tourist travel. Boppard, St. Goar Oberwesel and Bornhofen are among the number and each has its storied ruin. Near the last-named are the twin castles of The Brothers, with their legend of love and war which the painstaking Baedeker duly chronicles. Above St. Goar towers the vast straggling ruin of Rheinfels, said to be the most extensive in Germany, which has stood in decay since its capture by the French in 1797. It crowns a barren and almost inaccessible rock which rises nearly four hundred feet above the river. Near Boppard is Marxburg, the only old-time castle which has never been in ruin. It has passed through many vicissitudes and at present serves as a museum of ancient weapons and warlike costumes.
As we approach Coblenz we come in sight of the battlemented towers of Stolzenfels rising above the dense forests that cover the great hill on which it stands. The castle is three hundred and ten feet above the river, but the plain square tower rises one hundred and ten feet higher, affording a magnificent outlook. The present structure is modern, having been built in 1842 by the crown prince on the site of an old castle destroyed by the French. It now belongs to the emperor, who opens it to visitors when he is not in residence. It is a splendid edifice and gives some idea of the former magnificence of the ruins we have seen to-day.
RUINS OF CASTLE RHEINFELS
Coblenz, at the junction of the Moselle and Rhine, appeals to us as a stopping-place and we turn in at the Monopol—just why I do not know. There are certainly much better hotels in Coblenz than this old-fashioned and rather slack place, though it has the redeeming feature of very moderate charges. The Captain is in very ill humor; he has quarreled with an employee at the garage and as nearly as I can learn, tried to drive the car over him. I feared the outraged Teuton might drop a wrench in our gear-box as a revenge for the rating the Captain gave him—though, fortunately, we experience no such misfortune.
Coblenz has about fifty thousand people and while it is a very old city—its name indicating Roman origin—it has little to detain the tourist. An hour’s drive about the place will suffice and we especially remember the colossal bronze statue of Emperor William I., which stands on the point of land where the two rivers join—a memorial which Baedeker declares “one of the most impressive personal monuments in the world.” The equestrian figure is forty-six feet high and dominates the landscape in all directions, being especially imposing when seen from the river. Just opposite Coblenz is the fortress of Ehrenbreitstein, about four hundred feet above the river. A finely engineered road leads to the fort, where a large garrison of soldiers is stationed. Visitors are admitted provided they can satisfy the officials that they are not foreign military men who might spy out the defenses.
Our route as planned by the Royal Automobile Club was to take us from Coblenz to Treves by way of the Moselle Valley, but our desire to see the cathedral leads us to follow the Rhine road to Cologne. Mr. Maroney of the Club afterwards told me that we made a mistake, since the scenery and storied ruins of Moselle Valley are quite equal to the Rhine Gorge itself. Cologne one can see any time, but the chance to follow the Moselle by motor does not come every day. We are disappointed in the trip to Cologne, since there is little of the picturesqueness and romantic charm that delighted us on the previous day. The castle of Drachenfels, on a mighty hill rising a thousand feet above the river, is the most famous ruin, but we do not undertake the rather difficult ascent. The far-reaching view from the summit was celebrated by Byron in “Childe Harold.”