Visit the Rüdesheim Music Museum on a Lüftner Rhine River cruise

Standing in the Rüdesheim Music Museum, I felt the wonder and enchantment of a child. A colourful fairground organ started into life with breathy melodies and exotic moving figures.

Clearly the others who had joined this tour from our Rhine Cruise felt the same. We sang along to the scratchy gramophone record; “When I was just a little girl, I asked my mother, what would I be?”

Visiting the Rüdesheim Music Museum

The Rüdesheim Music Museum is housed in an attractive old manor house, the Brömserhof. This knight’s residence dates back to the 15th century, with a vintage car outside where we had our photo taken.

The museum was started by German collector, Siegfried Wendel who gathered together this collection of mechanical musical instruments. He opened his museum in the 1960s in Hochheim am Main, later moving it to the current home in Rüdesheim when the collection became too large.

I hope that you enjoy my video below from the Rüdesheim Music Museum

If you can’t see my video of the Rüdesheim Music Museum, view it on my blog here or on YouTube here

The museum houses about 350 self-playing musical instruments and can only be visited during a 45 minute guided tour. Our guide explained the history of many of the instruments and set them to play for us.

We saw how the old punch cards were fed into many of the instruments for each song, and learned how the gramophone needle had to be changed each time, or it would destroy the record.

Check out this Rhine River map – plus my 6-day Rhine River cruise itinerary

Fairground organs and pianos

Our tour included colourful fairground organs, a sophisticated mechanical piano topped with violins, a ghostly piano that played itself and tiny musical boxes containing a trilling bird. Reproductions of which were available in the museum shop for a mere €2000!

The museum opens between March and December 10am-6pm and you will need to join a tour to have the musical instruments explained and demonstrated. Cost (information from the website as ours was part of the cruise tour of Rüdesheim) is €10 adults, €5 children.

Afterwards, take a walk down the narrow Drosselgasse, a lane that is lined with inns and wine houses where you can try some of the local wines from the Rhine region. Or, enjoy a Rüdesheim coffee as we did, laced with Asbach brandy and topped with whipped cream.

For more information on the Rüdesheim music museum visit the Siegried’s Mechanical Music Cabinet website.

Read Next

A Rhine River map – plus our 6-day Rhine River cruise itinerary

More Tales from my Rhine River Cruise

All aboard the Amadeus Princess – what to expect from your river cruise ship
My Rhine River Cruise – a week of history, wine and music – podcast
From Riesling to Gewürztraminer – our wine tasting on the Alsace Wine Route

About Lüftner Cruises

Lüftner Cruises specialise in European river cruises on the Rhine, Danube, Rhône and other destinations in Europe, with personal service and Austrian hospitality. We travelled on the Amadeus Princess on a 7 day Classical Rhine Cruise which travelled from Basel to Amsterdam, although we disembarked at Cologne.

My thanks to Lüftner Cruises who hosted* our Rhine River Cruise.

* More info on my policies page

This article is originally published at Heatheronhertravels.com

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