Germany (Lonely Planet, 6th Edition) - Andrea Schulte-Peevers [433]
To avoid parking fees, you can leave your vehicle at a Park & Ride lot – options include Sporthalle-Stadion Oberwerth, 2.5km south of the Hauptbahnhof next to the stadium, from where bus 1 goes to the city centre.
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BRAUBACH
02627 / pop 3200
Framed by forested hillsides, vineyards and Rhine-side rose gardens, the 1300-year-old town of Braubach, about 8km south of Koblenz on the right bank, is centred on the small, half-timbered Marktplatz. High above are the dramatic towers, turrets and crenellations of the 700-year-old Marksburg ( 206; www.marksburg.de; adult/student/6-18yr €5/4.50/3.50; 10am-5pm Easter-Oct, 11am-4pm Nov-Easter), one of the area’s most interesting castles because, unique among the Rhine fastnesses, it was never destroyed. The tour takes in the citadel, the Gothic hall and the large kitchen, plus a grisly torture chamber, with its hair-raising assortment of pain-inflicting nasties.
Bus 570 links Koblenz’ Hauptbahnhof with Braubach (€3.50, 35 minutes, half-hourly Monday to Saturday, hourly Sunday and holidays), from where the castle is a 20-minute uphill walk (up the Fussweg from Hahnweg) or a short drive.
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BOPPARD
06742 / pop 16,000
Thanks to its historic sites and scenic location on a horseshoe bend in the river, Boppard, about 20km south of Koblenz, makes a particularly atmospheric stop. A gateway to lots of great hikes in the Hunsrück, it’s also a real town complete with a small cinema and travel agencies – where locals can book flights to where you’re from. Be sure to sample the excellent riesling from grapes grown near here in some of the Rhine’s steepest vineyards.
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Information
ATMs On the parking-permitted part of the Marktplatz behind the tourist office.
Call-Shop (Oberstrasse 99; per hr €2; 11am-9pm Mon-Sat, 9am-5pm Sun) Has internet access.
Post office (Heerstrasse 177)
Tourist office ( 3888; www.boppard-tourismus.de; Marktplatz; 8am-6.30pm Mon-Fri, 10am-2pm Sat May-Sep, 9am-5pm Mon-Fri Oct-Apr) Inside the Altes Rathaus. Sells walking and cycling maps. Lists of hotels and cultural events and a map are posted outside.
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Sights
Just off Boppard’s main commercial street, the pedestrianised, east–west oriented Oberstrasse, is the ancient Marktplatz, whose modern fountain is a favourite local hang-out. Still home to a weekly food market ( 9am-1pm Fri), it’s dominated by the pointy twin towers of the late Romanesque Severuskirche ( 8am-6pm), an elegant 13th-century church built on the site of Roman military baths. Inside are polychrome wall paintings, a hanging cross from 1225 and spiderweb-like vaulted ceilings.
Half a block east of the church, the cutest of Boppard’s half-timbered buildings, built in 1519, now houses a tearoom called Teehäusje ( 5798; Untere Marktstrasse 10; 9.30am-6pm Mon-Fri, 10am-3pm Sat).
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CLASSIC, MODERN & TIMELESS
Faced with fickle fashion trends, few furniture styles retain their freshness and popularity for long. A rare exception is bentwood furniture, invented by a Boppard-born cabinetmaker named Michael Thonet (1796–1871).
Whether in modern-day Paris-style cafes or Toulouse-Lautrec paintings of real fin de siècle Paris cafes, we’ve all seen Thonet’s minimalist Chair Number 14 looking curvaceous, elegant and sturdy. The secret of this model – of which tens of millions have been produced – and all other bentwood pieces, lies in a production process that involves stacking strips of veneer, soaking them in hot glue so they become pliable, and then drying them in the desired shape in metal moulds. Thonet began his experiments in his Boppard shop in about 1830, but it was the 1851 Great Exhibition in London’s Crystal Palace that catapulted him and his Vienna-based firm, soon to be known as Gebrüder Thonet, into prominence.
Exquisite bentwood furniture produced by Thonet during the 19th century can be seen in the Museum der Stadt Boppard (below). Gebrüder Thonet (www.thonet.de) is now run by its founders’ great-great-grandchildren.