Germany travel

My 13yo daughter and I liked Marksburg castle better than Burg Elz, fwiw. I would buy tickets there, individual train tickets. You can buy them in advance and it would cost less, but that confines you to a strict schedule. In our case, we took the train from AMS to Bacharach, stayed a full day (2 nights) then took the train to Cochem. It was very easy.

You could buy tickets now for a direct ICE train from Amsterdam to Duesseldorf for March 29 for 39.80 EUR for your whole family. Trains at this price are at 8:08 am, 10:38 am, and 12:38 pm, so take your pick of of departure times. Takes 2 hours and 8 minutes. Buy print-at-home tickets (or tickets loaded on your smart phone) at www.bahn.com.

You can use regional day tickets for the rest of your journeys.

In case you have not used them before, note that a regional day ticket can cover more than one person, making them very economical. A Bavaria ticket, for instance, would be €32 for 2 adults and 2 children free.

- March 29 to April 3–Düsseldorf (husband’a conference...kids and I will explore Düsseldorf and take day trips to Cologne)
- April 4 to 5– Explore Middle Rhine one day and Burg Eltz the next day
- April 6-Leave in the morning for Rothenberg and spend the night there

One day is probably inadequate for "the Middle Rhine Valley" once you start looking at the many options there. So... I suggest that you take one day trip with the kids to the MRV during your 5-night stay in Düsseldorf. This day trip could hit the northern end of the MRV:

• Train to Boppard; see the town, take the chairlift ride to the Vierseenblick (lookout) and Gedeonseck.
• Train to Braubach for 1 or 4 pm English tour of Marksburg Castle (good suggestion, Jessica.) Marksburg has a more genuine medieval atmosphere than fancy Burg Eltz. There are trains around the clock every day to Braubach, which is just 10 minutes from Koblenz - then it's an uphill walk to the castle.
• Train back to D'dorf.

April 4: Now you actually have time to do a cruise and visit the west bank towns south of Boppard - Bacharach, Oberwesel, and/or St. Goar. St. Goar is your best base town by train and the most convenient for a cruise - and the town has excellent river scenery. That morning you can...

• ...catch a train south to Bingen, stopping off on the way in Bacharach or Oberwesel for a couple of hours

• ...board the northbound cruise in Bingen back to St. Goar. If you can catch the 14:30 cruise from Bingen, you could stop in whichever town you missed for a couple hours and board the next boat from Bingen (which departs at 16:30) and ends up in St. Goar at 17:55.

You asked about rooms: the Rheinhotel St. Goar was terrific. What a view - make sure your room has one. The nearby Hotel Rheinfels gets good marks too. There are several hotels that offer river-view rooms in St. Goar.

April 5: Burg Eltz is not in a town or near a train station but way out in the woods about 1 hr's walk from the town of Moselkern (which does have a station.) You might want to take the weekend bus. To do so, catch the train to Hatzenport station and the bus from there. DB site has the train + bus schedules: Enter "St Goar" (no period) as your "from" station and "Burg Eltz, Wierschem" as your "to" station - then you will find possible train + bus journeys:

https://www.marksburg.de/en/

It is possible to visit Cochem by train after your visit to Burg Eltz and to return home to St. Goar in the evening. That's what I'd suggest on this day.

April 6: Spell Rothenburg correctly or you will get a train schedule to some other town. "Rothenburg ob der Tauber" is the full name.

Any specific hotels or Airbnb you recommend for these specific destinations that you’ve had good experience with?

I've spent a lot of nights in Germany, usually in places I found using the town website, and I have never had a complaint about any of them. It seems the German have high standards. Any place I have stayed, no matter how small or inexpensive has been clean, well maintained, and I have felt safe.

I can recommend two places, specifically, where you are going.

St Goar:

In St Goar we stayed at Hotel am Markt. It's right on the Market square, just yards from the K-D boat dock and just down the hill from the Bahnhof. Some of the rooms face the river, if that's what you want. It has a fine restaurant.

Rothenburg ob der Tauber:

I have stayed inside the walls, but this time, due to my partner's mobility challenge, I chose to stay near the train station and walk into town hands free. We stayed at Hotel-Gasthof Post. Post is only 200 yds from the Bahnhof and a short walk into town to the Market square. Although the restaurant was closed for the season when we were there, they did have a very good breakfast buffet. They have a little porch on the north side of the building (2nd floor) with a wine dispensing refrigerator just inside for a nice alfresco break after touring the town.

As for Airbnbs, I find that they are mostly vacation apartments, which aren't really appropriate for short stays and don't usually include breakfast. I've also found them to be more expensive than other similar places in towns, maybe because of the fees they have to pay to the website.

For the Rhine, I have stayed 4 times ( 22 days ) since 2011 at the small ( 3 room ) ‘private gaestezimmer’ of Irmgard Orth in Bacharach. Obviously I can recommend it.

To find a place to stay in Germany, I first look at the town website, usually the town name .de. In Bacharach’s case, www.bacharach.de