Ahrweiler-Bad Neuenahr Day 1

Ahrweiler-Bad Neuenahr (30 May 08)

Last weekend we decided to take a drive to Germany to visit the Ahr valley. The Ahr valley is the main red wine producing area in Germany and its vineyards are said to have a micro-Mediterranean climate. Most of the vineyards are located on terraced slops along the Ahr river.

It normally takes around 3.5 hours to cover the 330 km from the Hague to Ahrweiler-Badneuenahr (capital of the Ahr valley), but on that day there were some roadworks along the way and it took us 4 hours instead. We arrived at our hotel in Bad-Neuenahr around 3pm on Friday.

After settling down, we decided to take a walk and explore the town before dinner. The hotel that we're staying in - Gastehaus Mietz, is very centrally located and is just around the corner from the Ahr river. It is also within 5 mins walk to the main attractions of the town - the shops, spas and casino.

Bad-Neuenahr is a very pleasant town with tree-lined walkways along the river, parks, elegant shops, spas, clinics and casino. It seems to be a place for wealthy retirees and i found out later that more than 70% of its inhabitants are rich, older women.



****walking paths along the river


****view of the casino on the left bank

****the thermal spa

We decided to go to a restaurant just around the corner from the hotel for dinner. The restaurant's speciality is foot-long sausages with beer but since we already had some sausage snacks earlier, we decided to try other items on the menu.

I opted for veal with mushroom sauce, and it was quite good. The veal was cut into strips and there were generous portions of it with mushrooms. It came with salad and some fried potatos.

****veal with mushroom sauce

Another dish that we ordered was fried pork knuckle which came with some dumplings and salad. Again the portion was generous but the meat was a bit tough and dry.

****fried pork knuckle with dumplings

After dinner, we wanted to take a walk to the town square where there was a party going on with live band and stalls selling beer and food. Unfortunately it started to drizzle and we had to take refuge back at the hotel. It was a good decision after all - the hotel reception area was very cosy and we were joined by the hotel owner Roelof who was very chatty and gave us a a lot of suggestions on places to visit in the town and nearby.


****the lovely reception / lounge area at the hotel

Roelof also recommended a bottle of wine from the Dornfelder grape variety. It was very nice - light and fruity with a plummy flavour. It did'nt take long for the 4 of us to finish the bottle of wine.

****Dornfelder 2005 from the Ahr valley