At the end of the 18th century English travellers, painters and poets discovered the beauty of the river landscape along the Rhine, among them Goethe, Lord Byron, William Turner  and Victor Hugo.

One of the most well known poets of the Rhine Romanticism, Clemens Brentano, was born in the Koblenz district of Ehrenbreitstein. His Loreley Ballade, transformed later into poetic form by Heinrich Heine, still reflects the mental-literary climate of that time.

In 1746 Maria Magdalena Keverich was also born in Ehrenbreitstein. She was the mother of the most important composer in history of music, Ludwig von Beethoven. Her birth house is a must for every lover of classical music and it contains the world's largest private collection of Beethoven memorabilia.