Castles on the Rhine, Mosel - where to stay?

Rheinfels and the Marksburg are just above their towns and not that long a walk up the hill to the castle, and there are shuttles from the town to the castle. Burg Eltz is a mile or more walk through the forest to the castle, although there are some shuttle buses on weekends. Braubach is right below the Marksburg and would be a good base for seeing all three, as would Boppard.

As for Stahleck, it is on top of a hill. I don't know if there are taxis in Bacharach to take you to Stahleck, but the direct route is a dirt path (not good for rolling suitcases) and the paved route is a long way around. Anyway, Stahleck is not an authentic castle. It was destroyed and rebuilt on the same site using many of the same rocks, but really just a new building made to look like an old castle, compared to Burg Eltz and the Marksburg, which really are castles.

If planning to stay at the hostel above Bacharach, know that it fills up WAY IN ADVANCE.

We've stayed twice at Irmgard Orth's Zimmer in Bacharach. I would also consider staying in St. Goar. Let the kids stay as long as they want exploring Burg Rheinfels. (Be sure to take flashlights!). Trains easy to use and inexpensive with various transit association passes.

Stahleck in Bacharach involves 500 stairsteps up the cliff from town. It's also very hard to get a room there.

A direct train to FRA on your final morning is a good idea - no way to miss a connection, no need to hurry with bags to catch it. From Bacharach, there is ONE direct train on Friday mornings - at 6:54 - arrive 8:06 at FRA. You might look instead at Bingen as a base. From there the direct trains are more numerous and you can reach FRA more quickly - catch that same train at 7:08. Or leave at 7:47 and get to FRA at 8:34. I heartily recommend the NH Bingen hotel - marvelous setting right on the river , good prices, terrific breakfast buffet with a great view of the Rhine, and not too far to walk to the train station. (The above times are from the Bingen Hbf station, downstream from the hotel.)

NH Bingen Breakfast room

If you arrive in Bingen from Rothenburg, you could drop bags and then catch another train north to visit Rheinfels in St. Goar that same afternoon. Trains to St. Goar take 20 minutes and run hourly or better. Then train back to Bingen, perhaps with a stop in Bacharach (5 train minutes south of St. Goar.)

Next morning, board a cruise boat in Bingen for Braubach (opposite side of the river, cruise is about 3 hours.) Tour Marksburg. Braubach is a nice town for a traditional meal:

Braubach old town center

Return to Bingen that pm by taking the train south to Rüdesheim (about 45 min., €23,60 for your family) for a look around there. Ferry boats from R'heim run all day long over to Bingen. Ferry is €2 each - €1 for kids under 15.

Not clear if you have a railpass or require ticketing advice for your train trip to Bingen (and St. Goar) and for Bingen - FRA.

I suppose you could do a trip to Burg Eltz instead on the 2nd day, but it involves a lot more train travel (about 2 hours each way from Bingen to Moselkern) and roughly 2 hours of walking round trip from Moselkern station.

Just back from the area and did the Bingen to Braubach (Marksburg) cruise, then train back to Rüdesheim route mentioned above and it was a fantastic day trip. It didn't hurt that the weather was great, but we enjoyed lunch in the restaurant on the boat (they also had a Subway shop!) and were able to make it up the hill to Marksburg in time for the 1pm English language tour - it was close though.

We also greatly enjoyed dinner, music and dancing at a 'Schlager' location in Rüdesheim - just watch out for the Bachlorette parties, those girls get crazy :-) - then took the ferry across to Bingen and the train back to our hotel in Bacharach. One trick - there is a Bingen/Rüdesheim car+people ferry and a second people only ferry, and they leave from different locations in Rüdesheim - we walked the wrong direction and took the car+people ferry which ended up dropping us off a long way from the train station. You want the people only ferry...

Trains run regularly on both sides of the river and were convenient - we had a rental car (for those days when we moved from the Rhine to the Rothenburg area for example), but for getting around day to day we used the trains and they were great.

We really enjoyed staying in Bacharach (Bacharacher Hof) - but it is a small town - I'm sure Bingen gets a lot more trains (especially long distance) and when we took the train to Bingen to start our cruise it took maybe 10 minutes? So visiting Bacharach or St Goar from Bingen would be quick and easy by train.

Bingen does get more regional trains, but less than one long distance train per hour. But then, Bacharach only gets the milk run MRBs, not even REs.

Thanks, all.