Best vineyard views details

Everything beautiful must come to an end. The Rheingau too. However, it stops much later than many think. At the end - or at the beginning, depending on the perspective - Lorch awaits. The wine village at the mouth of the Wisper lies in the Upper Middle Rhine Valley World Heritage area. From 1919 to 1923, this was the capital of the short-lived Free State of Flaschenhals. It was a quasi-state without legal rights, which on a map, was reminiscent of a bottleneck (Flaschenhals), hence its name. 75 years later, wine growers from Lorch and Kaub launched an initiative in memory of this, and since then, you can buy Free State memorabilia and bottles again.

The Nollig ruins above Lorch, are one of the 40 castles, palaces and ruins in the World Heritage Rhine Valley. Nowhere else is there such a concentration of castles in such a small area. From here, you can observe all the activities on the Rhine – cargo boats, cruise ships, tourists with their cameras pointed upwards, pleasure craft, surging currents and glistening sunbeams. This is the Romantic Rhine at its best.

The small rest area just below the ruins, is located directly on the Rheinsteig, a 320 km hiking trail hugging the river, that climbs through vineyards and woodlands from Wiesbaden-Biebrich to Bonn. From this vantage point, the Rheinsteig runs almost at the same level over to Lorchhausen and to the state border between Hessen and Rhineland-Pfalz in the Niedertal, to as far as the town of Kaub. This flatter section offers an easier stretch of the epic trail.

To get to the viewing area, you can climb steeply up from the Wisper Bridge in Lorch or take an easier more accessible route. The location of Lorch, pressed tightly between the banks of the river and the steep vineyards and cliffs rising above, make for a dramatic landscape.