Help needed with France/Germany itinerary please

Consider shoulder season and not peak.
Your son will survive missing weeks of school in September.

Consider Paris - Dijon - Colmar - …

Here's what I've gleaned from your post:

2 nights in Paris
3 nights in Strasbourg
1 night on the Rhine ("to have time to do the cruise, explore some of the other Rhine towns, and tour Marksburg"
1 night in Heidelberg
1 night in Frankfurt (to fly out)

Comments:

• Your 3 nights in Germany aren't much and probably should probably be spent in one spot if possible. Your stated interests have nothing at all to do with Frankfurt itself, and a day trip from Frankfurt will not provide time for the things you have in mind for the Rhine Valley anyway, so I'd drop the idea of basing there.

• That leaves Heidelberg or a Rhine Valley town. Here's how I suggest you do it day by day with sample travel times.

1) Strasbourg > Heidelberg 9:08 - 10:51. Deposit bags in a train station locker. Spend 5 hours in town. H'berg should not demand all that much of your time. Reclaim your bags, travel Heidelberg > Boppard 16:24 - 18:39. Check in, have dinner at one of the waterfront restaurants.

2) Morning cruise from Boppard > Braubach (10:15 - 10:45) to tour Braubach, have lunch, and tour Marksburg Castle (1 pm English tour), in that order. Braubach is a fabulous town for strolling around:

https://delveintoeurope.com/braubach-germany/
https://stadtbild-deutschland.org/forum/index.php?thread/7322-braubach-am-rhein-und-marksburg-galerie/ (3 pages of photos.)

After your tour: train from Braubach to Rüdesheim (scenic ride, appr. 1 hour) for the afternoon Goethe ship Rhine Cruise (Tu- Su only) through he most scenic part of the river, all the way to Boppard (16:15 - 18:50.) Dinner in Boppard.

3) Leave bags at front desk at check out. Tour Boppard on foot if you haven't.
https://www.boppard-tourismus.de/media/was-ist-wo-broschu__re_en_190219.pdf

Take the Boppard chairlift ride in the morning for great views of the river You can hike around up top there for a while as well or have a drink/lunch at the Gedeonseck Terrace. In the afternoon, travel to Oberwesel by train (15 minutes) and to St Goar (on the way back to Boppard) for more sightseeing. The old town fortifications in Oberwesel make for an enjoyable and scenic walk. Then take a late afternoon/evening train to FRA airport (17:16 - 18:34) and stay at one of the hotels there prior to your flight out. (Alternatively spend the night in Mainz, which is on the way and just 20 minutes by train from FRA, which you could do the morning of your flight. This is how I do it as I don't like airport hotels all that much.)

I've suggested Boppard as your base because of its proximity to Marksburg, its wide variety of hotels (several right on the river,) and the Guest Ticket you will receive there for free outings by train to Braubach, Rüdesheim, Oberwesel and St Goar.

There are other ways you might do this, but I'm confident this will work well for you.

Hi, Candance, if you're going to be in the Rhine area, I think that you and especially your son would really enjoy Burg Eltz, in addition to Marksburg. It's a beautiful castle with a gorgeous view of the surrounding valley. It is still owned by a branch of the House of Eltz who have lived there since the 12th century.

You can get there by train and/or bus and then take a shuttle up to the castle, or you can enjoy a lovely 15-20 minute walk through a dense forest trail that hides the structure until the very last moment.

https://burg-eltz.de/en/homepage

That’s a fast trip! And a lot of ground to cover! Just a week or not much longer. How many nights can you spend in Germany? That might help with advice.

Might less be more? Skip Paris altogether - since you’ve been many times before - and take a train direct from CDG to Strasbourg or fly RT in and out of FRA? Can you cancel your hotel? 3 nights in Strasbourg as you plan and 5 nights for SW Germany?

We covered all that you describe a year ago except Heidelberg (but plus the Black Forest and other sights in Baden Wurttenburg along on near the Neckar R.) as part of a month long journey to E France and SW. Germany, one year ago. So I understand how daunting planning might be. (My original thought for Rhein and Heidelberg evolved to Mosel R., Koblenz - with a one day cycle on the Rhein - and then a week to Mainz and elsewhere along the Neckar, other places yet and Black Forest)

With an 11 year old and with castles on your agenda, perhaps base in Koblenz and see Marksburg from there. We spent a lovely day cycling from Koblenz up the Rhein to Boppard, ferried across the Rhein, and cycled back to Koblenz via Marksburg. That might work well for your family. Burg Eltz is also possible as a day trip from Koblenz. And Koblenz itself, at the confluence of the two rivers is nice city with its own sights to enjoy including a surprisingly nice old town area that was well restored after WW2.

Further up the Mosel, there’s more to enjoy. Cochem for one. Trier and its Roman sights might be of interest.

Have you considered a cycle trip? With an 11 year old that might be a hit. A great way to see the countryside and small towns, even castle visits (despite the hills)

Our relevant TRs are at

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/sw-germany-e-france-alsace-burgundy-pt-3-of-4

And (for the Mosel & Rhein):

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/sw-germany-and-e-france-part-1-of-4

As other posters have pointed out, the entire Rhine + Mosel region is ripe with great places to see and things to do - if indeed you should end up with more time on your hands than expected. Burg Eltz, Trier, Cochem, and Bernkastel are all worth your time. Maybe with a week or so you could do some cycling too. Regarding the hike to Burg Eltz: not sure where mardee's hike begins, but the traditional hike from the nearest train station (Moselkern) is longer than 15 minutes... figure close to an hour one way.

Map of the Mosel Railway for your reference:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/96/Karte_der_Bahnstrecke_Koblenz%E2%80%93Trier.png

fred mentions the Black Forest... also a nice place and pretty dang close to Strasbourg as well. GENGENBACH is an outstanding travel base, quick and easy to reach from Strasbourg and located right on the scenic Black Forest Railway for any outings you might take. Leaf through some photos of this handsome old-world town here:

https://stadtbild-deutschland.org/forum/index.php?thread/10418-gengenbach-galerie/

Black Forest Railway: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4d/Verlaufskarte_Schwarzwaldbahn_%28Baden%29.png

So with maybe 5-7 days in Germany it would be possible to supplement the 3-day Rhine plan with elements from either the Mosel River or the Black Forest.

Thank you all for your help. I’ll talk to my husband about maybe shaving some time off France and adding it to Germany but if not we’ll follow Russ’ suggestion to go Strasbourg to Heidelberg to Boppard and use that see the base. We were considering renting bikes in Colmar and biking to a vineyard but I’ll look into adding cycling in other areas. For the KD cruise, I think the full cruise might be too long for my son since he’s not very interested in that but is going along for the ride because I want to do it. Which option is the shorter hour and a half ride that goes through the most scenic part of the river? There are so many options on the KD website it’s hard to tell.

Also, Russ, would you mind sharing the website you’re using to look up the train schedule? That was very helpful.

https://int.bahn.de/en

I provided sample journey times using the DB site's current schedule. There is no schedule available yet for June 2027, and no precise schedule can be found without your exact travel date anyway, not even for this coming week. But schedules tend to be very consistent from year to year, nonetheless, and the sample times should be adequate for the kind of general planning you are doing right now.

https://int.bahn.de/en/

There aren't fast boats and slow boats on the Rhine. The only time control you have is over the length of your cruise. The 16:15 boat from Rüdesheim that I mentioned is for this year (and probably next year too) and it stops in St Goar at 17:55 if you don't want to stay on it to Boppard. You'd catch the train from St Goar to Boppard after that, I guess.

Ok, thank you for clarifying.

Candice, here is a page with details on the VRM Guest Ticket, which is valid throughout your stay for local transportation, including the train journeys to Oberwesel, St Goar, Braubach and Rüdesheim which I've suggested. It is a perk offered to all guests who choose Boppard as their Rhine base town:

https://www.vrminfo.de/en/tickets/tickets/leisure-tickets/vrm-guest-ticket/

From Strasburg take the train to Gengenbach - just across the border. I just stayed 5 nights in an apartment, unfortunately it is not large enough for 3, but there are other apartments. Apartments are great value. Most transportation in the Black Forest is free if you stay in most of the towns

From there it is about 3 hours using ICE trains for most of the ride to the Middle Rhine. If you stay in Russ’s usual recommendation of Boppard, there is a free local transportation card.

If Heidelberg is a must, then I would go there from the Rhine, then to Frankfurt to fly home.

I would not spend time in Frankfurt over time in villages.

I think your son might prefer castle ruins instead of the intact castles mentioned. Burg Rheinfels in St. Goar is a very large ruin. take a tour that goes in the tunnels. When my brother and I went decades ago, we could go without a tour and we went without flashlights ! Or be real adventurous and hike to Burgruine Stahlberg, a ruin above the Bacharach suburb of Steeg. Last week Inwas there and there were just 3 others there.

At Boppard, the chairlift is one of my favorite activities with superb views of the Rhine on the way down

Thank you for the recommendations. Touring the tunnels of Burg Rheinfels sounds really interesting. Part of the reason we were going to Heidelberg was to see the castle ruins there since both Marksburg and the chateau we’re visiting in France are intact and we wanted to see something different. We’ve been to other castles in France, Ireland, and England and our son enjoys exploring them. Do you think Burg Rheinfels would be a better choice than Heidelberg? The message boards seem to have split opinions with some people saying they loved Heidelberg and others saying they would skip it if short on time. I suppose it would make picking a home base in Germany easier if we stayed a few nights in the Rhine and went to St Goar instead of Heidelberg but I don’t know when we’ll be in the area again and we didn’t want to miss seeing Heidelberg if it is really impressive.

The itinerary I first outlined would provide more than adequate stopover time for visiting the Heidelberg ruins on the day you depart Strasbourg; the station has 184 lockers of varying sizes which will watch over your bags while you do this, though I imagine you have only a few things to stow in them. The itinerary also provides time for St Goar, for the Rheinfels ruins if you wish, on the third day. Explore both and you won't have to worry about the online opinions of those who have gone before you.

booked 2 nights in Paris (we have been many times before and seen all
the usual tourist sites but just love to walk the city and eat the
food)

Strasbourg is beautiful and will have wonderful food. I would drop the two nights in Paris, head straight to Strasbourg and then add some additional time in Germany. I too enjoy walking the streets in Paris, but after a dozen plus visits, I feel no immediate need to go back.

Thanks to everyone for your advice. We decided to follow your advice and will skip Paris and spend 3 nights in Strasbourg and 5 nights in Germany to give ourselves plenty of time to see everything. We may even try to add a day in the Black Forest if possible since I would love to see that area as well.

If castles are of interest, consider the modern day equivalent 90 minutes north of Strasbourg - Maginot Line Fort Schoenenbourg.

Very well preserved, a virtual city underground, the scale of the fortification is just amazing.

Ok, we’ve adjusted our dates a bit and decided to cut out Paris in order to see more of Germany. We’d like to spend 3 days in Strasbourg, 2days in the Black Forest (possibly in Gengenbach as a base), 2 days in the Rhine Valley, 1 day in Mosel Valley (we want to visit Burg Eltz), and we will do as Russ said and visit Heidelberg for part of a day storing our luggage in the lockers at the train station but won’t spend the night there. What order would you recommend for this new itinerary and what towns do you recommend as a base? We will fly out of Frankfort but are ok not spending the night there or just getting in late and staying at an airport hotel to give more time to see the other areas. We will be traveling by train and understand it can be a 1 hour hike through the forest to get to Burg Eltz but we’re ok with that since we like to hike. We’re most interested in seeing the scenery, hiking, visiting castles, and going to one or two wineries if this helps. Sorry for the back and forth but we’re trying to adjust based on the feedback we’ve received.

Candace

For trip planning, it is sometimes confusing to speak of days. On the forum, folks often consider nights.

For example, three nights is Strasbourg means two full days in Strasbourg, plus your arrival day … that won’t be much of anything since you are flying into Paris or FRA and then taking a train to Strasbourg, and your departure day, which could easily be all morning plus three hours in the early afternoon if you choose to arrive in Gengenbach between 4 and 6. The train journey from Strasbourg to Gengenbach is not very long.

With 3 nights in Strasbourg, you could do a day trip to Colmar, a day trip to Haut Koenigsburg plus a village such as Obernai or Ribeauville, have one, two or three dinners in Strasbourg, plus a morning and early afternoon in Strasbourg to see Notre Dame Cathedral and more and still swing through the Petite France district on your way to the train.

If you’re still operating with an 8 night plan, 3 in Strasbourg plus 2 in Gengenbach leaves just 3 more.

If your heart is set on Heidelberg, that plus the Rhine might be what you should do … and scratch the Mosel. If the Mosel and Rhine are singing to you, maybe scrap Heidelberg.

LATE NOTE. looks like the train from Gengenbach to Heidelberg is 2-1/2 hours or so and then from Heidelberg to Boppard, for example, is another 2-1/2+ hours. So that’s 5 hours, which would mean breakfast and hotel check out in the morning, arrive Heidelberg close to noon. 2 or 2-1/2 hours in Heidelberg, then train to Boppard, check into hotel and dinner. Not much time for lunch and seeing Heidelberg. May or may not be worth it.

Consider a single base for those three nights?

Sorry for the confusion. We aren’t sure exactly how many nights to spend in each town which is why I wrote how many days we wanted to spend in each place. We arrive in Strasbourg May 30 and leave from Frankfurt June 8 so we have a total of 9 nights to work with.

We’d like to spend 3 days in Strasbourg

You said you are dropping Paris. So I guess this means you'll be taking a direct TGV from CDG Airport to Strasbourg (2 hours??) immediately after arrival. This is always tricky because flight schedules can be fickle. It once took me 3 days to get from California to CDG thanks to a flight cancellation. But a flight that is even a couple of hours late can cause you to miss a rail connection. You might be wise to build in a time cushion of a few hours between scheduled arrival at CDG and departure by train for Strasbourg. Just plan to have an airport lunch or something?

2days in the Black Forest (possibly in Gengenbach as a base), 2 days
in the Rhine Valley, 1 day in Mosel Valley (we want to visit Burg
Eltz), and we will do as Russ said and visit Heidelberg for part of a
day storing our luggage in the lockers at the train station but won’t
spend the night there.

June 30: Travel to & sleep in Strasbourg. Maybe a little sightseeing in Strasbourg this day, maybe none.

July 1, 2: Day trips to Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg and Colmar

July 3: Sightseeing in Strasbourg. Sleep in Strasbourg.

At this point I do not thing it is feasible in the remaining time to pay a serious visit to all the rest of the places you have piled up... the Black Forest, Heidelberg, the Rhine Valley, and the Mosel Valley + Burg Eltz. So here's what I'd suggest for a slightly compromised itinerary.

Jul 4 morning: Drop Gengenbach and the Black Forest. Travel Strasbourg > Heidelberg (5+ hours there) > Middle Rhine Valley town (Boppard) as previously suggested. Sleep in Boppard 3 nights (July 4-7.) I've spent a lot of time in the Black Forest and on the Middle Rhine, and as fond as I am of the Black Forest, there is significant duplication of experience with doing both the BF and the MRV (attractive towns, cobblestones, half-timbered houses, lovely scenery) and dropping the time-consuming Black Forest really is your best strategy.

July 5: Day trip up the Mosel River to Burg Eltz and Cochem. Train + bus to Burg Eltz (8:23 - 10:38.) The walk from Moselkern is pretty, but you will have a lot of walking around this day already and it's quicker if you just use the available public transport. After your tour, bus + train to Cochem (trip = 52 minutes, departures at 0:22 after every hour from the Burg Eltz bus stop.) Stay into the evening in Cochem. Return to Boppard from Cochem by train... Sample schedule, 19:18 - 20:24. All train + bus is covered by your Guest Ticket from your Boppard hotel.

July 6: Day trip by KD Cruise boat or train (via Koblenz) to Braubach (tour town and Marksburg, lunch) then train to Rüdesheim; Rhine cruise back to Boppard (or to St Goar + train to Boppard.)

July 7: Leave bags at front desk after breakfast. Use train on west bank to visit St Goar (Rheinfels) and to Bacharach (or other town???) Then as a finale, return to Boppard and take the chairlift ride for some awesome views. Leave Boppard whenever you are ready for FRA airport (maybe the direct 17:16 - 18:34 Regional Express train?) Sleep at FRA airport hotel. (Alternatively, travel only to Mainz, sleep there, and train in the morning to the airport.)

Russ. You shorted OP one night …

We arrive in Strasbourg May 30 and leave from Frankfurt June 8 so we have a total of 9 nights to work with.

Your suggested schedule, Russ, is a month off and skips the 31st … of May.

You’ve been to this corner of Germany many times. We’ve just been there once - and we both greatly benefitted from your advice and we rejected some of your advice. One can never do it all.

So I’ll let you take the lead on advice re: skipping the BF vs. one more day in the Rhine or Mosel vs. including or skipping Heidelberg. But the extra night (and day) makes a difference! OP and family will have 6 nights, rather than 5 nights, in SW Germany.

Of course, ultimately, it’s for Candice, her husband, and maybe the kid to decide what to see and what to skip … at least for this trip.

Yes - the first day is MAY 30 not June 30, so you have one additional night to play with. My error. Thanks for the heads up.

You might want to consider spending a single night in Heidelberg instead of just making the stopover. Heidelberg was on your original wish list... A stopover like the one I suggested is a measure of expediency.

I'm sure there are other ways to carve up your time. This one looks doable to me.

I read a lot of forum post related the travelling in Europe and I just don’t understand why travelers and commentors are so against renting cars vs using trains to travel everywhere.

We recently were in Germany this past summer for two weeks. We arrived in FRA, then went to Hamburg, then to Nuremburg, then to Munich (which we flew out of). For us, car rental was a no brainer. We were not set to rail schedules for travel, could take detours to parts public transportation would not go if we wanted to or didn’t have to worry about finding a place to store luggage.

I am not saying we didn’t rely only on the rental car, for the two week trip, we had 3 locations we based out of and used public transportation around those locations when it made sense.

My thought is people don’t want to rent vehicles because they are trying to save money. I think that is a bad trade-off. If you only go to Europe once a decade, you need to make the most of your trip and not waste time on using trains to go from base to base (or even day trips).

When I was planning our trip, I was first thinking of only going for 10 days. But the more I thought about it, as air travel is a huge chunk of time and money from any trip from the US to Europe, it just made sense to add 4 more days onto our trip for minimal additional cost.

Something else to think about. Need to plan a “down-day” to rest.

Remember the old saying “Time is Money”. Try to make the most of your time and if it cost more money to increase what you see, it is worth it.

I just don’t understand why travelers and commentors are so against
renting cars vs using trains to travel everywhere.

This would be an interesting thread topic, DKW. I am against ME renting cars and could explain my reasons over several paragraphs, as you've just done. Others could chime in too.

On this thread, driving was ruled out from the beginning, and the OP requested help specifically with train details.

Russ,

I agree that renting a car isn't for everyone in every situation and people need to weight the options carefully but i think people's first inclination is to NOT rent cars and therefore discount all the benefits that they can provide.

There really are many trip options that you can consider as a family to suit your needs. Apart from Russ’ recommendation …

• 3 or even 4 nights Strasbourg. Train to Trier on Mosel (4-1/2 hours) for 1 or 2 nights (Trier has multiple Roman ruins and sites, a lovely market square, and an impressive archaeological museum), then Cochem (2 nights for its castle, the town itself, and a day trip to Burg Eltz … you’re now at 7 nights). Boppard (1 night) and final night in Mainz (in just a few hours in the afternoon there, you can see the Gutenberg museum and St. Stephen’s Church with its magical Chagall stained glass windows) or FRA. (LATE EDIT - Mainz is pretty close by train to FRA)

• Strasbourg (3 nights), Gengenbach (2 nights; day trip by train into BF), Boppard or Koblenz (3 nights; one day to Marksburg and one day to Burg Eltz, perhaps Cochem, too), Mainz or FRA (1)

• RT Air to FRA; skip France altogether. 6 or 7 or even an 8 night self-guided bike trip from Trier to Koblenz on Mosel and perhaps up to Boppard on the Rhine. You can find a company that books hotels, arranges luggage transfers and provides bikes. A shorter bike trip would allow you time to include Heidelberg. (The bike trail along the Mosel is protected from the highway.)

[We are in our 70s; last year, we biked Trier to Koblenz in 5 days (6 nights), spent about 5 hours in Trier in the morning for sightseeing before we got on the bikes, added another day cycling to Boppard, Marksburg castle and back to Koblenz for a second night there. Total of 7 nights. We used E-bikes, but the only two places where we truly needed that power assist was to go up the hill to Landshut (castle) from Bernkastel and up to Reichsburg (castle) in Cochem.]

So, you have lots to play with to make this the trip that the three of you will all enjoy. You’ve been to Paris many times. You, your husband and your 11-year old will be back. You’ve mentioned castles, Heidelberg, the Black Forest, hikes and Strasbourg/Alsace. More is more. Less is more.

Whatever you finally choose, have a great time.

Russ & Fred, thank you for your detailed replies! Fred, as a side note, we used to live in Seattle and still love to visit whenever we can. We're actually going to Seattle and Leavenworth later in summer so I guess we'll get a little more German influence then, even if it's not as authentic. Your cycling trip through Germany sounds amazing but I'm not sure we'd last that long on bikes. We've combed through all the responses on this thread and have made a tentative itinerary detailed below. Can you all let me know if you think this is doable including the necessary train travel? We decided to cut out the Mosel and Burg Eltz even though it looks lovely since we'll be visiting other castles and my husband wants to see the Black Forest area more. We're considering Boppard or Bacharach as a base in the Rhine Valley since they both seem to have an easy train route to FRA to fly home. We'd prefer to rent an apartment through AirBnB for the extra space rather than stay in a hotel so which town we choose will be based on the rental availability. It doesn't matter to us if it's located on the water or not.

May 30 - Land at CDG around 1pm. Have lunch and take the train to Strasbourg. Overnight in Strasbourg.
June 1 - Explore Strasbourg. Overnight in Strasbourg.
June 2 - Take the direct TER train and then shuttle bus to Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg, Overnight in Strasbourg
June 3 - Morning train to Gengenbach. Explore the town - St Marion, Benedictine Abbey, cloistered gardens, walk through Engelgasse and Höllengasse streets, Overnight in Gengenbach
June 4 - Black Forest Railroad - Train from Gengenbach to Triberg - Triberg falls, hiking, cuckoo clocks, Overnight in Gengenbach
June 5 - Morning train to Heidelberg, Store luggage in lockers at the train station and explore Heidelberg Castle & Old Town. Evening train to Rhine. Overnight in Rhine
June 6 - Marksburg Castle - 1 pm English tour, KD River Cruise, Overnight in Rhine
June 7 - Explore Bacharach, Braubach, St Goar -Burg Rheinfels - tour the tunnels. Evening train to FRA
June 8 - Fly home from FRA

We are unsure if it would be best to go Gengenbach to Heidelberg to Rhine to FRA or Gengenbach to Rhine to Heidelberg to FRA.

From my research, it appears the Family Europass 24hour would cover our train tickets from Strasbourg to Gengenbach. Would the Deutschland train pass and Konus Karte be enough to cover the rest or would we need to purchase additional tickets?

We'd like to do some simple hiking in the Black Forest along the train route. If you have any suggestions other than Triberg Falls please let me know.

Candace.

Looks good. BUT, like Russ, you’ve glossed over May 31.

So you have one more day to play with.

LATE NOTES - check the train ticket prices from Strasbourg to Gengenbach to see if the pass you mention is cheaper or pricier than just getting the tix directly from SNCF and/or DB on the day of travel or in advance. It’s a pretty short haul.

AND you’ll have great hiking around Leavenworth in the Cascades.

Oops, I did actually account May 31 but was copying and pasting here from my spreadsheet and accidentally left it off. We will explore Colmar that day and possibly bike to a nearby vineyard.

Yes, the main reason for the visit to Leavenworth is enjoying the outdoors 😁

June 7 - Explore Bacharach, Braubach, St Goar -Burg Rheinfels - tour
the tunnels. Evening train to FRA

• Travel to Bacharach isn't covered by Boppard's Guest Ticket. Separate tickets are required for the Oberwesel > Bacharach > Oberwesel train segments.

• Don't try to see Braubach on the same day with these other places - see it on the 6th when you see Marksburg, which is in Braubach:

https://braubach.welterbe-mittelrheintal.de/stadtpolitik/ortsplan

June 6 - Marksburg Castle - 1 pm English tour, KD River Cruise, Overnight in Rhine

The best cruise segment lies between Rüdesheim/Bingen in the south and in the north, St Goar and St Goarshausen:

https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2117/2235929460_e474b112d4_b.jpg

Marksburg tours last nearly an hour. The 2026 train schedule shows a 14:05 from Braubach (which you won't make) to Rüdesheim and a 15:05 from Braubach arriving 15:52 in Rüdesheim... which is too close for comfort in terms of catching the 14:15 ship in R'heim as the dock is a somewhat long walk from the station.

Options:

• After Marksburg, take the 15:05 train only to St Goarshausen (15:27) and plan on boarding the 16:00 cruise to Bingen (18:50) and catch the train back to Boppard (Extra train tickets required for Bingen > Oberwesel segment... Guest ticket kicks in from O'wesel onward.) The cruise takes longer in this direction because of the strong river current.

• Catch an early train (7:44 - 8:26) from Boppard to BINGEN (extra tickets for Oberwesel > Bingen required) to catch the first cruise of the day at 9:15 to St. Goarshausen (10:45.) Then take the train north to Braubach and Marksburg for the 1 pm tour.

• Reconfigure your sightseeing so that you a) see Marksburg/Braubach + St. Goar/Rheinfels on one day, then b) Bacharach + the Rhine cruise (Bingen > St Goar) on the other day. With a) the St. Goar ferry is a convenient way to cross the river between those two destinations.

OH... Just saw you mention the Deutschland-Ticket, or at least intended to. (It's a pass, but for clear communications, call it by its real name, as there are other passes that are valid for Deutschland too.) If you each have one of those, then all your train rides on the Rhine are covered by them and the Guest Ticket is of no consequence.

From my research, it appears the Family Europass 24hour would cover
our train tickets from Strasbourg to Gengenbach. Would the Deutschland
train pass and Konus Karte be enough to cover the rest or would we
need to purchase additional tickets?

You do not need the full Europass family 24h ticket if you have the Deutschland-Ticket, which will get you from the border through Germany to Gengenbach. All you need is the Europass Family 24h mini, which is cheaper at €12.80, which will be valid for the France part from Strasbourg as far as the German border town of Kehl. The Konus Card is also of no value if you have Deutschland-Tickets, though it may offer some discounts at local attractions.

We are unsure if it would be best to go Gengenbach to Heidelberg to Rhine to FRA or Gengenbach to Rhine to Heidelberg to FRA.

"Gengenbach to Rhine to Heidelberg to FRA" would be backtracking.