3 Best Sights in Koblenz, The Rhineland

This pointed bit of land, jutting into the river like the prow of an early ironclad warship, is at the sharp intersection of the Rhine and Mosel rivers. In 1897, an equestrian statue of Kaiser Wilhelm I, first emperor of the newly united Germany, was erected here as one of the more effusive manifestations of German nationalism. It was destroyed at the end of World War II, and replaced for 40 years by a ponderous monument to Germany's unity, but a new statue of Wilhelm was placed here in 1993—and still stands today. It's accompanied by three pieces of the Berlin Wall on the Mosel side, a memorial to those who died as a result of the partitioning of the country.

This church stands on Roman foundations at the Old Town's highest point, where, on surrounding streets, war damage is evidenced by the blend of old buildings and modern store blocks. The bulk of the church is of Romanesque design, but its choir is one of the Rhineland's finest examples of 15th-century Gothic architecture, and the west front is graced with two 17th-century baroque towers.

It was in this sturdy Romanesque basilica, consecrated in 836, that plans were drawn for the Treaty of Verdun, which formalized the division of Charlemagne's great empire and led to the creation of Germany and France as separate states. Inside Koblenz's oldest church, compare the squat Romanesque columns in the nave with the intricate fan vaulting of the Gothic sections. The St. Kastor Fountain outside the church is an intriguing piece of historical one-upmanship. It was built by the occupying French to mark the beginning of Napoléon's ultimately disastrous Russian campaign of 1812.