Koblenz,”Castellum apud confluentes”

Day 5

Today was quite intense in the end! My neighbor Bruno came by with his son, not only to visit Koblenz and do some cycling but also to bring me a new stem for the handlebar of my bike. This new stem allows to adjust the height of the bar, which wasn’t possible before. Riding will now be more comfortable as I will now sit straighter! Thank you Bruno!

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Now, what about a brief lesson on the history of Koblenz?
The city lies at the confluence of the rivers Rhine and Moselle, the former coming from the Swiss Alps, the latter from the Vosges Mountains in France. The city itself boasts more than 2000 years of history. It all started with the Romans who named the castle they built here in 9 BC “castellum apud confluentes”, which from latin translates to the fort at the confluence.

​(Can you find my tent in the camping on the right?)

The “German Corner” you see on the picture, also known as “Deutsches Eck” offers an impressive 37 m high statue of the German Emperor Wilhelm I. It dates back from 1993. Wilhelm I, was the man who unified the German Empire and this impressive statue we are talking about had to be reconstructed as it had been destroyed during the second world war.

The origin of the cities name could have two different roots, which can be traced back to the latin origin as previously mentioned, or to a more recent one: the knights of the Teutonic order (an order formed to help Christians on their pilgrimages to the Holy Land), which had settled here in 1216.

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The fortress you see on the picture, is the Ehrenbreitstein fortress, the second largest fortress which has been well preserved in Europe! Its origin dates back a thousand years ago, but what you see here is clearly not that old; in fact its present form took 11 years to built and was constructed from 1817 to 1828… remember, Belgium did not exist yet when the castle was finished! The reconstuction itself isn’t that recent too after all.

Voilà, I hope it was interesting and that there was at least some truth in it, I wouldn’t want to disappoint my history teacher…

Tomorrow I’ll be heading to Wiesbaden, the first peaks of over 400 m are waiting for me, wish me luck 🙂