Better than Burg Eltz

Nice suggestion. Thanks.

bookmarked

Excellent idea, thanks!

Another tip: not a castle but monastery Kloster Eberbach is not far from Frankfurt airport in wine region Rheingau. It was set facility for parts of film adaptation of the Umberto Eco classic "The Name of the Rose" in the mid-1980s with Sean Connery.

Key phrase “If you have a car “

Agree, KGC, but what Bigtyke says about a car. Most on here will be staying around Cochem or the Boppard/St Goar stretch. And isn't Burg Eltz Mr Rick's favourite castle?

Maria Laach and the pretty village of Monreal are also close to Schloss Bürresheim.

I fully support and appreciate the tip of KGC.

And isn't Burg Eltz Mr Rick's favourite castle?

Germany has around "25,000 castles, palaces and mansion". How many of them do Rick know? And of course Burg Eltz is a great and impressive destination but there are others as well.

Key phrase “If you have a car “

A link to or an app of Deutsche Bahn is enough: https://int.bahn.de/en/.

"How many of them do Rick know?" - About 24,999. Schloss Bürresheim is next on his list.

I have recommended Eberbach Monastery so many times on this forum and not sure how many people actually go there. This is the most stunning architecture on the Rhein IMO, and a must see if you are in this area. Easy to get to with public transportation.

Other, non-bombed castles in the Rhein-Main region? Ronneburg castle near Gelnhausen and Büdingen. Castle in Kronberg. Both have the rooms set up as they once were. Kronberg is one of the oldest as it is a Staufen castle with a small forest of Yew around it. Ronneburg has a lot of cool, medieval events, as well as a falconry show and hang-gliding.

I visited Schloss Bürresheim several years ago.

I got there easily enough without a car. Took the train to Mayen and a bus from there. So getting to Bürresheim is basically no different from getting to Eltz. How long it takes of course depends on how far away you are staying...

It is similar to Burg Eltz in that it has been a single-family residence for many centuries. Bürresheim has been occupied by nobles and archbishops and has undergone significant reconstruction and expansion from its original medieval-fortress form; There are numerous rooms, but just a small portion of the original interior is visible today.

Like Burg Eltz, Bürresheim requires a guided tour. I see no mention of language in KGC's post, but AFAIK, unlike Burg Eltz, there is no English-language tour / no English-language pamphlet available for tourists who don't understand German. My German-language tour was interesting, but you'd better have near-native competence to get anything out of it.

So I don't think I have ever recommended Bürresheim to others; I see it as a less-desirable option, basically for two reasons:

1) The language issue
2) The long travel distances from towns/cities where most visitors choose to stay (Cologne and the Middle-Rhine/Mosel towns like Bacharach, Rüdesheim, Cochem, etc.)

Marksburg Castle (true medieval castle near Koblenz) and Burg Eltz are much closer and much more accommodating castle options for most international visitors. As Gundersen points out...

"Most on here will be staying around Cochem or the Boppard/St Goar stretch."

That said... There is an appealing base town which might work well if you really want to see Bürresheim: REMAGEN, south of Bonn on the Rhine River... By public transport, Remagen is...

90 minutes from Bürresheim, 20 minutes from Bonn, 45-50 minutes from Cologne, 70 minutes from Bacharach, and 50 minutes from Braubach (home of Marksburg Castle.)

Remagen is a great town to explore on foot. See Remagen's highlights by leafing through the walking-tour photos which follow. Remagen is also home to the WW II "Peace Museum" at the site of the "Bridge at Remagen."

https://www.remagen.de/Tourismus-Veranstaltungen/Touristische-Highlights/Stadtrundgang/Remagen-Stadt/

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attractions-g642105-Activities-oa0-Remagen_Rhineland_Palatinate.html

I've heard of Burg Eltz but never this one. Adding it to the list.

As Russ notes, you can get to Schloss Burresheim via public transport. The bus stop is right by the garden gate. But what I laid out was a full days sightseeing, places where tourists from the USA rarely go, and all exceptional. It's true there are no tours in English, but they do have a very good guide in multiple languages, as does the Eifelmuseum in the schloss in Mayen. The tour guide spoke very good English and was quite willing to answer questions in that language.

What you won't find at Schloss Burresheim is crowds. There were 20 people in the tour I took, and that was everyone inside the castle grounds, including four children. There were more people on the cave tour I took afterwards (also in German). You also won't find a snack bar or a huge gift shop, if that's what you're looking for follow the tourist trail.