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> Deutsche Weinstrasse (German Wine Road)
Subchapters in this travelogue:
[ Southern Wine Road ] [ Trifelsland ] [ St. Martin ] [ Landau ] [ Neustadt ] [ Bad Duerkheim ] [ Leiningerland ] Also See: Feature on the Dürkheimer
Wurstfest, the largest annual wine festival in Germany
| As luck would have it, I posted the June 2003 list of Great
German Excursions about two days before I encountered the best weekend
jaunt I've ever taken -- a two-day trek across a hundred kilometers and
twenty-something towns on the Deutsche Weinstrasse... the German Wine
Road. Cutting through the foothills of the Palatinate Forest off the west
bank of the Rhein River, the German Wine Road encompasses some of Germany's best
wine country and prettiest scenery. Given the time, I could easily have
made lengthy stops at nearly every town, as each one had something special and
unique about it -- an old castle here, a canal there, a monastery around the
corner. But what makes this road so special is the scenery, the embrace of huge
vineyards over rolling hills at the foothills of densely forested mountains with
pleasant little towns following the terrain beautifully. It really is one
of the prettiest drives you will ever take.
Several of the towns were incredible enough that they'd ordinarily warrant a
page of their own. If I was to pick a Top 5, they probably would be (in
alphabetical order):
 | Bad Dürkheim -- Probably the best-known city on the Weinstrasse, and
easily deserving of its own page. |
| Deidesheim -- With a beautiful palace and garden in the center of downtown
and one of the neatest town halls around. |
| Dörrenbach -- One of the prettiest of the small towns, with a unique
church and intricate half-timbered houses. |
| Freinsheim -- An old fortress town with a lovely downtown and much of its
old city wall intact. |
| Neuleiningen -- A wonderful hilltop castle town overlooking the northern
stetches of the Wine Road. |
You don't have to drive the
entire route as I did, just chewing off a section of twenty miles and taking it
leisurely may be sufficient, particularly if you make a stop for lunch or dinner
at one of the many wonderful family weinstubes (wine shops) you'll see.
You can also try staying overnight at the hundreds of pensions (many officially
marked and sealed as a sanctioned Weinstrasse Guesthouse). You may also
try checking the web for festival dates for one or more of the towns --
September is
a popular month for wine festivals, for example, and these little towns do put
on a show!
The chapters in this travelogue have been broken down geographically as shown
on this map. Not all seven chapters are posted as of yet, and there is a
chunk in the center that I bypassed on this trip that I'll try to hit in the
future. The chapters will be posted in order south to north, some of which
will be done in standard text format (4-5 pictures with prose), while others
will be posted in gallery format (9 pictures with simple captions). Click
on the colored regions on this map to access a subchapter.
Subchapters in this travelogue:
[ Southern Wine Road ] [ Trifelsland ] [ St. Martin ] [ Landau ] [ Neustadt ] [ Bad Duerkheim ] [ Leiningerland ]
Trips taken 7-8 and 15 June 2003 -- Page last
updated 01 September 2006 --
(C) 2002 Tom Galvin
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