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Best Options For 2 Days on Rhine

Posted by (Salt Lake City, UT) on

When booking my flight, it was not originally the plan to visit the Rhine but we now want that to be the focus of our nearly 2 days in Frankfurt. We arrive in Frankfurt at 9am on Sunday and fly back out Tuesday early.

My intended itinerary is to stash luggage at airport and get on a train from the airport to Mainz. Short stop there to perhaps see the G. Bible. Back on and spend the day with intended stops in St Goar, Boppard, and Koblenz. Would like to get to Bonn or Cologne with enough time to spend the evening. Then train back to catch the KD boat and cruise back south with an extended visit to Bacharach.

My biggest questions are: will we have enough time to get to Cologne (or even Bonn)? Would it even be possible to get over to Burg Eltz?

I am hoping to return to Frankfurt for dinner and perhaps check in at the airport before going to our hotel for a reasonable (but a little late) check in.

Some thoughts and advise are much appreciated. Also, I saw on a thread here, which I can no longer find, about the best train ticket to buy for a day of hop on, hop off as well as getting to, potentially, Cologne. What would be the best ticket and can I purchase at the air port or will my Frankfurt to Mainz be a separate journey to the Rhine ticket?

Thanks in advance.

Garrett

Posted by
14 posts

Rick Steves has some excellent suggestions about how to visit the Rhine, day trips and how to get there. When I visited there it was a day trip out of Frankfurt that worked very well.

Posted by
8945 posts

After a trans-Atlantic flight I think you are going to find yourselves exhausted half-way through your first day. A bit sad that you are ignoring Frankfurt which has more history than you can shake a stick at, but you are also ignoring Mainz. Yes, we know that Rick thinks Mainz isn't worth visiting, but my guess is that he hasn't bothered to really take a look at this city. The Mainz Dom is for me, far more impressive than the Kölner Dom. For one, it is centuries older. If Rick would go see St. Stephens with its' beautiful Chagall windows, he would be amazed. St. Augustines is worth some time too. Visit the Isis Temple ruins that the Romans built.

You haven't allowed near enough time for anything on the Rhine. Visiting castles, riding chair lifts, having lunch or a glass of wine, waiting on trains and boats all take time.

Bring your luggage with you, train to Bingen, get on your boat and ride it to Bacharach. Stay overnight. Next day, use the train to visit St. Goar or ride across the river on the ferry and visit Marksburg. Ride back by train to either Mainz or Frankfurt, have a late dinner and the next morning take your train to the airport for your flight. Trains from Frankfurt start running at 04:15, take 11 min. to get to the airport, and there is a train every 15 min. Unless you are at one of the real airport hotels (Sheraton or the 2 Hiltons) you will spend twice that amount of time getting from your "airport hotel".

Posted by
103 posts

Knowing that I don't have as much time to fully appreciate the Rhine and hoping for a longer return visit, our desire is to get a taste. Probably visit each towns main attraction. That said, is 1-1.5 hours enough time in St. Goar and Boppard? I am then planning to have 2+ hours in Koblenz and 2 hours in Bacharach on the return visit. Is this even possible and if not, what is a reasonable amount of time to spend in these towns?

The Bonn and Cologne stops are not essential. Wanted to briefly visit University of Bonn and see the Cologne cathedral (both for personal reasons and not typical tourist reasons) but can visit these later in life if we don't make it.

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