Book Koblenz attraction tickets

Two of Europe's great rivers meet at Koblenz, and that geographical fact shapes everything about the city. The Deutsches Eck, the pointed spit of land where the Moselle flows into the Rhine, is one of the most recognisable confluences on the continent, marked by a monumental equestrian statue of Kaiser Wilhelm I that has become the city's defining image. Rhineland-Palatinate's second-largest city sits at the northern end of the Upper Middle Rhine Valley, a UNESCO World Heritage landscape of steep vineyard slopes, medieval fortresses, and river bends that have drawn travellers since the age of the Grand Tour.

The old town spreads back from the Rhine embankment in a compact grid of Baroque townhouses, with the Liebfrauenkirche and the Florinskirche anchoring two of its main squares. Much of the centre was rebuilt after significant wartime damage, but the bones of the medieval street plan survive, and the Jesuitenplatz and the Münzplatz retain genuine architectural character. Across the Rhine, reached by a gondola that rises steeply from the riverbank, the fortress of Ehrenbreitstein dominates the skyline from a basalt plateau some 118 metres above the water. It is one of the largest preserved fortresses in Europe, and the view from its ramparts across the confluence and the rooftops of the old town is the one most visitors carry away with them.