Beilstein has fewer than two hundred residents and looks like it has been waiting several centuries for visitors. The village clings to a steep bank of the Moselle, with narrow stepped lanes, half-timbered houses, a tiny market square and the ruins of Burg Metternich above it, and the whole thing is so compact you can walk it in twenty minutes without trying. Locals sometimes call it the Sleeping Beauty of the Moselle, and it does feel as though it escaped modernisation by being too awkward to reach.
The castle ruin, once the seat of a local lordship, was burned by French troops in the late seventeenth century and never rebuilt. The village below has a Baroque Carmelite monastery church, home to a famous black Madonna that draws pilgrims, and a medieval tower where the town's old fortifications survive. The steep slate vineyards around it produce excellent Riesling, much of it grown on slopes so steep that the work must still be done by hand, with winegrowers using ropes and small monorails. A glass of it at a table in the square is hard to beat.
The ride along the Moselle is calm and bendy. The road follows the river as it winds in great loops between steep vineyard slopes, passing villages with half-timbered houses and church spires. The surface is generally good, the corners are gentle and traffic is moderate, though weekends and the harvest season bring more cars, tractors and cyclists. Be alert for tourist traffic and narrow village streets, especially in Beilstein itself, where bikes are better parked at the edge of the village than ridden through the lanes.
Fuel is not available in the village. Cochem, about seven kilometres upstream, is the nearest sizeable town, with petrol stations, supermarkets and the large Reichsburg castle looking down from its hill. It is worth a stop on its own. In Beilstein, a handful of wine taverns and cafés offer light meals, often with local sausage, bread and cheese, and a glass or two of wine for those not riding on.
The best time is September and early October, when the vineyards turn gold and the grape harvest brings activity to the valley. The light is warm and mist drifts over the river in the morning.