Located at the confluence of the Rhine and Moselle Rivers, it's not hard to guess that the name Koblenz derives from the Latin word confluentes, meaning "at the merging of the rivers."
By extension, we can also easily surmise that the Romans, whose official government language was Latin, provided this logical name when they established a military camp there in 8 B.C.
As with this entire region, the Romans planted the steep hillsides with grapes from which delicious wines could be made.
Archaeologists can determine the size of the Roman planned community when they find an arena or hospital, because the cities were built based on how large the population would be for that city, whether in Pompei, Ephesus or Trier.
The actual idea for master-planned cities began in Miletus in 442 BC, when after losing a war the Miletians re-built their city on a grid that was the brainchild of Hippodamus of Militus. Like the United States centuries later, Romans were always ready to adopt the best methods available at the time, and many of the programs Romans developed had their roots in Greek philosophies, like the concept of master-planned communities.
Named after a Holy Land fortified city (in what is now modern day Syria) which this German nobleman had failed to capture in a siege, his Thurant Castle was ironically seized by the Archbishop of Cologne within 20 years of construction.
Another 30 years later, a war between Koblenz and Cologne resulted in Archbishops of those two cities reaching a unique agreement to split the castle, which is why there's a tower on each end of the castle.
Our guide told us that when King Louis XIV's French military was destroying all of the cities along the Rhine that refused to accept French rule, someone had the bright idea to set a fire in Thurant Castle so that the French would think it had already been destroyed and leave it alone.
The fire did not raze it entirely, but it basically was in ruins from that point forward. Over the last century, private ownership has restored it to some extent, and now it is an interesting tourist attraction.
The tour ended with a pretzel and local wine, which made all of us happy, even if we could have as much gourmet food and wine as we wanted once aboard the River Queen again.
Walking down from the castle brought us through the vineyards and into the ancient village of Alken on our way to our bus, which took us back to our floating home for lunch.
I think this might have been the day that finally featured German sausages and sauerkraut, along with delicious locally produced Hefeweisen, which made several of us rejoice. A well-prepared knackwurst or bratwurst with good beer can hold its own against the finest haute cuisine, although I don't believe any wars have been fought to prove that.
After lunch, we could have joined the optional tour to Marksburg Castle (for a reasonable shore excursion fee), which purportedly looks like a fairy tale castle, but as you may guess, we were already redlining our ability to take in everything we were seeing.
One of our fellow passengers, a Malaysian woman named Ming, said she was taking this cruise for the fourth time, and based on how much there is appreciate and understand, I'm not sure that would be enough to take it all in.
Julie and I walked around Koblenz, which is now more a small city than village. Koblenz has lots of churches, and below you'll find a few uncaptioned photos from our walk in no particular order.
And here are some more photos from our morning visit to Burg Thurant:
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