Bingen - Maeuseturm

The Rhine, seen from the hotel in Bingen. On the slope to the right Burg Ehrenfels, vinyards all around. On an little island the Maeuseturm (Mousetower). Similar to Kaub (about 20km downriver) this once was a toll-station, as just north of the Maeuseturm the "Binger Loch", a dangerous shallow blocked the channel. This rocky shallow was blasted with dynamite in the 19th century. The Maeuseturm was used as a beacon upto the 1970s.

A tower existed here in early medieval times. This tower got destroyed during the Nine Years' War (1689). Since the Congress of Vienna, the small island was part of Prussia. In 1856 (Rhine romanticism!) Frederick William IV of Prussia (Friedrich Wilhelm IV) had the tower rebuilt in neo-Gothic style. A legend tells, that inside the medieval tower Archbishop Hatto II of Trier (+ 980), who had showed his his heartlessness when the pious population died from hunger, was was eaten up by mice.

The right banks of the Rhine with Burg Ehrenfels belong to the state of Hesse, while the island and the left banks belong to the state of Rhineland-Palatinate.