Your Traben-Trarbach city experience

The former Julius Kayser & Co winery provides a unique setting for the Buddha Museum in many respects – not only architecturally and aesthetically, but also because the Art Nouveau movement drew inspiration from elements of Far Eastern art. Spanning 4,000 square metres, you can see Buddha figures from India, Burma, China, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and other countries. The collection covers all the philosophical schools that have emerged from Theravada Buddhism and offers you unique insights into Buddhist iconography.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the Prussian King Frederick William IV and the French poet Apollinaire have all been guests here. This magnificent patrician house was built around 1750 by the wealthy merchant and provincial treasurer Johann Adolf Böcking and still showcases the lifestyle of a prosperous patrician family from the 18th and 19th centuries. Particularly impressive is the music room with its exquisite hand-painted wallpaper and an unusual fortepiano.

 Nicolas Villeroy, one of the two founders of the long-established company Villeroy & Boch, completed his commercial apprenticeship at the Böcking firm. He fell in love with the family’s daughter and married her in 1786. The fortune she brought into the marriage laid an important foundation for building the globally successful ceramics company.

If you’d like to find out more about Goethe’s visit to the Böcking family home, read the article by the museum director, Dr Christoph Krieger, entitled ‘The Böcking Baroque Villa’.

You can gain an insight into this network of historic wine cellars beneath the town – some of which are underground, multi-storey and over 100 metres long – on an underground tour, which naturally also includes a wine tasting.

You walk from the Brückentor along the historic Brandweg through the vineyards to the war memorial. From there, the so-called ‘lower French Staircase’, with its 100 steps, leads steeply up to Grevenburg Castle, where you can catch your breath. You then continue up a steel spiral staircase with 50 steps to the “Himmelspforte”. A magnificent panoramic view of the Grevenburg castle ruins, the town of Traben-Trarbach and the Moselle loop awaits you.

Of course, a town like Traben-Trarbach and the surrounding villages are home to many excellent wineries, and you’ll have no trouble finding the right places to visit. When it comes to ‘cuisine’, Traben-Trarbach also has some excellent places to eat to offer.

You’ll find the Louis Klein Winery on the banks of the Moselle in Trarbach. The striking three-storey main building, with its single-storey slate-clad cellar wing in the Neo-Renaissance style, will immediately catch your eye. You can sample the wines in the winery’s stylish, modern wine bar.

The Mosel Vinothek & Winebar is a regional wine shop and wine bar housed in a listed wine merchant’s villa dating from 1890, situated right on the banks of the Moselle in Traben-Trarbach. In this gem, not only do you have the whole of the Mosel in your glass, but you can also feel as though you’re standing ‘on’ the Mosel itself in the lovingly and uniquely designed dining area.

The Belle Epoque restaurant at the Romantik Jugendstilhotel Bellevue is, of course, a ‘must’ for all Art Nouveau enthusiasts. But it is not just the ambience that is highly recommended – the cuisine is too: Head chef Matthias Meurer is one of the finest chefs on the Moselle and has previously worked in various top-class restaurants, including at Helmut Thieltges’ Waldhotel Sonnora and at Harald Wohlfahrt’s renowned Schwarzwaldstube in Baiersbronn. His cuisine is classically modern and influenced by French cooking.