Hi! My husband and I will be stopping off in Frankfurt on our way home from Africa for 2.5 days (three nights) in early July. We are both in our late 50's and fairly active. We are trying to decide whether to rent a car or use the train and boat system to go see the middle Rhine Valley and the Mosel Valley. We will be able to start out early on a Monday and thought we'd visit the Rhine first. Our plan is to get up to Bacharach (via train or car) and perhaps take a boat cruise (or drive around?) up to Boppard or even Braubach, stopping off to see the sights in Oberwesel, St. Goar and other places along the way. We'd like to see Rheinfels and Marksburg castles. One thought is to continue on up to Koblenz on the train, stop to visit the area for a couple of hours and then take the train down to Cochem, with a stop to see Burg Eltz along the way. We'd spend the night in Cochem. We contemplated going to Braubach and then back to Boppard for the night instead. If we had a car, we could then drive over to see Burg Eltz from Boppard, skirting Koblenz and then down to Cochem and other parts of the Mosel Valley to see the towns, taste some wine, maybe take some walks. (While we'd like to go to Tier, we don't know if there would be time. We have seen Roman ruins in other European areas, so perhaps it isn't worth the time?) We thought we'd leave Tuesday evening and most of the day Wednesday to explore Frankfurt. So, here are our questions:
1. Should we rent a car so we won't have to wait for boats and trains to go where we want to go? (It does seem like the trains and boats will take us to see most of what we'd like to see.)
2. Realizing that this will be more of a "highlights of the areas" kind of trip, are we trying to fit too much in?
3. What would we be missing if we took the train in the Mosel Valley since it doesn't go by the river much as we head south?
4. Would there be time to visit Mainz (for St. Martins and St. Stephens) on the way back to Frankfurt?
5. If we do take the train, what can we do with our luggage when we get off to see the sights? (We'd probably have a suitcase and a backpack since we will be coming from another trip.)
Many thanks to all of you who have answered many others' questions and given great suggestions as to what we might be able to do.
Posted by
Paradise
6633 posts
Hmm, wonder why no responses to this post until Trinitony's. Probably because all of the Rhine stuff is complicated.
I will try to sort out only the boat business for you for now.
"1. Should we rent a car so we won't have to wait for boats..."
You cannot cruise in anything but a boat. If you don't want to cruise, then you don't need to wait for any boats - the boats are all for sightseeing, not for transportation. But since the cruise is a highlight for most, let's assume you want one...
Trinitony writes, "We have only done the Koblenz south to St. Goar but a boat cruise..."
This part is OK but pretty unscenic near Koblenz, and it's actually the part that can be skipped by boat. The truly scenic part that you would want to see by boat is the part with the most boats per day - where the greatest demand is - and that's between Bingen (or Rüdesheim on the other bank) and St. Goar.
Page 7 of this KD cruise flyer shows the boat schedule. It's difficult to read. But once you get it, you'll see that Trinitony spend 3.3 hours southbound between Koblenz and St. Goar. If he'd cruised from St. Goar to Koblenz, he'd have spent 2.25 hours cruising. So the first lesson is to cruise from south to north if possible (with the current.). Obviously, cruising round trip is not a great idea - it wastes a lot of time seeing what you just saw again. So shoot for a one-way cruise from Bingen to St. Goar to see the best part most efficiently.
So even car-fans will need to use the train to do a cruise; starting from a Rhine base town...
- If you stay in Bacharach: train to Bingen, cruise north to St. Goar, train back to Bacharach
- If you stay in St. Goar: train to Bingen, cruise back to St. Goar
- If you stay in Boppard: train to Bingen, cruise back to Boppard (or to St. Goar + train back to Boppard)
Now, it's also possible to do a cruise on Monday morning ON YOUR WAY to your base town.
- Train to Bingen, walk to dock (w/bags,) cruise to St. Goar, stay there (or +train trip to Boppard or Bacharach and stay there.)
- If you drive, you park in Bingen, cruise north, train all the way back to Bingen, then drive north to your base town.
"...stopping off to see the sights in Oberwesel, St. Goar and other places along the way." Doing this is difficult by boat because of the small number of boats per day. It is easiest to stay on the boat to St. Goar and to visit the other towns between St. Goar and Bingen by train (on the train ride you have to take to Bingen, or some other time. It's only 5 minutes by train from St. Goar to Oberwesel, and only 5 more to Bacharach.)
Hope this helps.
Posted by
OP
2 posts
Thank you, Russ. Your response was very helpful.