Historical Infrastructure in Koblenz
Last week, a group of friends and I took a day trip to Koblenz. We had a great time exploring, sightseeing, and getting familiar with the city. During our trip, we were able to see some pretty amazing landmarks like St. Castor’s Basilica, the Deutsches Eck Monument, and the Ehrenbreitstein Fortress on a hill looking over the Rhine.
The Basilica had outstanding architecture and provided nice photo opportunities, both on the exterior and the interior. It’s a towering structure built between 817 and 836, which makes it full of history and an impressive feat of engineering. It was built in a Romanesque style, with lots of stone arches featured all over the church. It has a mostly symmetrical design with two big towers in the front and a rotunda at the back. The church was built in the area of an ancient Roman settlement, which was constructed between 27 BCE and 14 CE. There is also a cemetery near the church, which was used from about 600 CE to around 1100 CE. When the church was first built, Koblenz held a Frankish royal court.
After the Basilica, we walked along the Rhine, which looked as if it was starting to overflow onto the sidewalks and street next to it. Steps led straight into the water and benches were partially submerged. We weren’t exactly sure if this was due to weather or insufficient water control infrastructure. As we were walking, we saw a huge government building looking over the Rhine. Across the river, we saw a huge hill with a fortress perched on top. We decided that we would make our way over to it.
Before we made our way across, we stopped at the Deutsches Eck Monument, a stone structure with a towering bronze statue of Kaiser Wilhelm on top. The statue was constructed in 1891 as a memorial to Kaiser Wilhelm to celebrate his bringing about the unification of Germany. The monument had several stone pillars holding up the statue, and underneath there was an area that we could climb up to where we had a pretty impressive view of the fortress. “Deutsches Eck” translates to “German Corner,” which describes how the monument juts out to form the joint between the Moselle and Rhine rivers. The statue was destroyed during an Allied bombing in WW2. Before the official reunification of Germany, the ruins of the statue were commemorated as a memorial to German unity. The statue was reconstructed 3 years after the reunification of Germany.
We made our way up the hill of Ehrenbreitstein Fortress on foot. There were several steep staircases and a few interior spaces we needed to climb through. When we made it to the top we could walk through some parts of the fortress and we had a great view over the city from the top of the hill. We noticed a gondola track that led to the bottom of the mountain, which we took instead of walking all the way back down. The fortress was built around the year 1000. During the 30 Years War, in 1799, the French claimed and destroyed the fortress after a siege. The territory was transferred to the Kingdom of Prussia in 1815, which expanded Koblenz into a fortified city.
Our trip to Koblenz was a unique experience and I would recommend it as a destination on anyone’s checklist. It’s full of significant historical landmarks that have impressive examples of engineering and infrastructure.
Ben Peterson
Sources:
https://www.romantischer-rhein.de/en/a-deutsches-eck-with-emperors-monument
https://www.visit-koblenz.de/en/sights/ehrenbreitstein-fortress
