Help with Itinerary - Bremen and Beyond

Bacharach is indeed very nice and alltough i have only been there during the summer i can't see why it should'nt be worthwhlie in the spring as well. The stretch of the Rhine between Koblenz and Bingen is very scenic and most of the towns are very pretty. If you can't find a ferry to take you there, there are trains running on both sides of the river along that stretch, so you can still enjoy the views.

You should find regularly-scheduled Rhine cruises beginning Easter weekend; contact K-D for possible cruises prior to that as they will cruise if they have enough passengers.

"Ferries" are the boats that serve as bridges across the Rhine for cars and pedestrians where there are no bridges (there are no bridges in the Middle Rhine Valley in between Mainz and Koblenz, so 5 or 6 ferries do this job.) The boats you speak of that navigate north and south along the Rhine are actually day-cruise boats for sightseeing - even though Rick Steves persists in misnaming them "ferries" in his written materials. There are only a few per day, and they are quite slow, so while it's possible to board with your luggage, they don't make for good transport, generally speaking.

Unfortunately for travelers, Rick's travel materials may give the opposite impression. This article from his website makes Koblenz-to-Mainz cruise sound doable:

While the Rhine is over 800 miles long, the 36-mile stretch from Mainz to Koblenz is by far the most interesting. This is the Romantic Rhine, a powerful stretch of the river slashing a deep and scenic gorge. And the best way to see it is to cruise it.

But there's no mention of the fact that the 36 miles between Mainz and Koblenz - a 1-hour train trip - will take you nearly 6 hours by cruise boat - or that Koblenz-Mainz will require 8.5 hours.

There is some very good scenery a short distance south of Bacharach, like THIS SCENE near Bingen. So I suggest you start the cruise in Bingen. If you stay in Bacharach, you would take the train south to Bingen, board the cruise, float north to St. Goar (1.5 hours) or Boppard (2.3 hours) to take in the best scenery - then take the train back to Bacharach. (If you do the cruise only from Bacharach to St. Goar - as Rick Steves does on one day in the above article - you will miss some good scenery and you'll be on the boat for only 40 minutes. You can check this on the KD schedule for 2014.)

Staying in St. Goar (or Boppard) or in Bingen instead of Bacharach would allow you to do the cruise with just one train trip.

Bingen is closer to FRA, of course, than the other options. The NH Bingen hotel (white building in 1st photo below) there has a spectacular setting with a fab view of the river from its breakfast room:
NH Bingen Hotel
Breakfast room view

One additional advantage of staying in Bingen: the passenger FERRY that crosses over to Rüdesheim from Bingen's Rhine promenade (dock is a short walk from the NH Bingen hotel) makes visiting Rüdesheim a snap.

I co-led a study tour to Northwest Germany this past March. We were based in Vechta, which is south of Bremen and north of Osnabrueck. We took day trips to companies and farms, but also visited some cultural and historical sites, including the Bremen Old Town (very nice) and the Haake-Beck Brewery (do you and your mother like beer?); an open air museum in Cloppenburg, the town of Celle, with its 500 timbered homes and elegant Schloss, and the Bergen-Belsen Memorial, which is located just northwest of Celle. Since you will have a car, all of these sites are easily reached from Bremen. Lastly, if you are looking for a hotel outside of Bremen, we stayed at the Hotel am PferdeZentrum in Vechta, which was wonderful. The Orlandini's were very friendly and accommodating hosts, the rooms were clean, comfortable, and quiet, and the breakfast buffet was excellent. Mr. Orlandini is a trained chef, and our group had dinner at the hotel one evening and it was outstanding (beef rouladen, spaetzle, and red cabbage, with homemade Black Forest cake for dessert).