Marksburg Castle from Bacharach

Oddly, I just provided instructions for getting to Marksburg Castle (great choice) without a taxi in the thread below:

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/germany/three-night-rhine-itinerary-recommendations

I included details for a train trip to Braubach from Rüdesheim... To reach Braubach from Bacharach, the most straightforward option would also be to take the train (one change of train in Koblenz.)

For such a nice long stay I would recommend staying in Boppard instead. You'll won't have as much wasted train time on day trips from there as you would from a Bacharach base. Your day trip to Marksburg Castle would be 40 train minutes shorter if you start and end in Boppard rather than Bacharach.

Boppard's location is particularly advantageous if you have longer day trips in mind such as Cochem or Burg Eltz. And in Boppard you'll have a wider selection of accommodations and restaurants as well, including several with riverfront views on its developed promenade. This is also where the KD boats dock. Nothing in Bacharach is located near the river.

Thanks, Russ for your reply. At this point, I don't think we will change our hotel reservations. We went by the Rick Steves travel guide book which said that our hotel is right on the river. Also, the K-D boat is supposed to be right near the hotel. According to the guide book, boats leave from Bacharach. Is that correct? We are planning on taking some boat rides too.
Thank you.

The advice from Rick about taking a ship from Bacharach to St. Goar should be stricken from the book.
If you take this mini-cruise, you will miss 3/4ths of the castles you would see if you started in Bingen or Rüdesheim. You spent all this money to get to the Rhein to see castles, you should see them. Please rethink this plan.

yes, we plan to do that. Thanks for the info.

"We went by the Rick Steves travel guide book which said that our hotel is right on the river."

That really would shock me. A mis-read, perhaps? An exaggerative hotel advertisement? Which hotel is this? The Bacharach riverfront has the boat docks (of course,) some athletic fields and green areas, parking areas and a playground. The town's buildings are separated from this riverfront area buy the railway, the old town wall, and the main river road. Here's an overhead photo and a map of Bacharach:

https://www.nuernbergluftbild.de/images/2009110272.JPG
https://www.informagiovani-italia.com/mappa_bacharach_am_rhein2.jpg

If you're hoping for a room with a view of the river like the ones below, you should look into relocating in Boppard or St. Goar, IMHO.

View from Rheinhotel St. Goar (w/K-D cruise boat dock out front.) The Hotel Rheinfels next door is worth a look too.

Hotel (one of several) on Boppard's developed Rhine promenade with riverfront windows, balconies, etc. and boat docks out front.

Unfortunately for Rick, he's a human being... It takes a ton of chutzpah for one guy who speaks zero foreign tongues to cover all of Europe, and his books are going to miss a thing or two here and there. I am totally on board with Jo's comments on Rick's Rhine cruise advice. And I suggest consulting additional sources for the other Rhine-region tips as well. I know, it's not brain surgery, but a second or third opinion will give you a better perspective than Rick's alone.

I misspoke. The hotel is not "right on the Rhein" (even though the hotel website says that) . https://www.rhein-hotel-bacharach.de/

One additional plus for Boppard is the free "Guest Ticket" handed out to all hotel guests in this town. It provides free train and/or bus travel around the local area to Marksburg, to St. Goar (Rheinfels), to Oberwesel, to Rüdesheim, to Cochem and to Burg Eltz on the Mosel river, to Koblenz, and to other nearby destinations as well. It's not available in Bacharach:

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

Can’t help with the transportation part since we had a rental car and drove right up to the castle parking lot. We bought our tickets when we got there. If I remember correctly, the only English tour is at 1pm. You cannot wander around on your own; you must take the tour.

There were four Viking river cruise boat tour groups that had just finished their tour when we got there. Fortunately, they left before our tour. As we were leaving, another Viking bus came up the hill and we had to back up the one lane road a little bit so it could get by. Bottom line is, it can get busy.

We went to Marksburg in June. You do not need to purchase tickets in advance, but you do want to time your arrival for an English language tour.

If you want a hotel right on the river, look in Boppard. No hotels in Bacharach are right on the river, but many are RIGHT next to the railroad tracks.

Boats do leave from Bacharach, but the schedule is very limited. There is no hop-on-hop-off ticket, which we discovered. We stayed in Bacharach and wanted to go to St. Goar, tour the castle, then continue to Boppard by boat. We had to purchase two separate tickets. It would have been cheaper to go my boat to Boppard, take the train back to St. Goar, then another train to Bacharach.

A couple of comments on the topics travel4fun has addressed...

Pre-purchasing cruise tickets: You can do this, but it doesn't reserve you a seat. You have no advantage over the passenger who walks up and buys their ticket on the spot. Also, if arriving by train to your boarding point, you receive a 20% K-D cruise discount - just show your train ticket. This discount isn't available if you pre-purchase.

"No hotels in Bacharach are right on the river, but many are RIGHT next to the railroad tracks." TRUE... the Kranenturm is one of those.

"There is no hop-on-hop-off ticket." There is no ticket with that name. However, a normal ticket DOES offer hop-on-hop-off privileges. This paragraph (German) in the "AGB" rules promises this privilege:

Fahrtunterbrechung ist nach vorheriger Bescheinigung durch das
nautische Personal beliebig oft gestattet. Fährgäste, die an
Zwischenstationen ihre Fahrt unterbrechen möchten, müssen ihre
Absicht mindestens zehn Minuten vor Ankunft des Schiffes dem
nautischen Personal mitteilen.

Basically, all you have to do is tell ship personnel 10 minutes before arrival at your hop-off point that you want to hop off and reboard later. (They then mark your ticket for reboarding.)

If you've bought a ticket for Bingen > St. Goar and want to hop off in Oberwesel or in any other stop on the way to St. Goar, then reboard the next boat to St. Goar, NO PROBLEM, as long as you got your ticket marked.

If you've bought a ticket for Bingen > Boppard and want to hop off anywhere in between, then reboard later, again, NO PROBLEM with a marked ticket.

Ticket prices are not static - they vary according to the length of your cruise. Cruising Bingen > Boppard usually requires 2 boats, takes longer, and costs more than Bingen > St. Goar (one boat.)

Now, travel4fun got off in St. Goar because that's where the ship terminates. If he bought a ticket from Bingen > St. Goar only, then he has no right to board the St. Goar > Boppard boat. He now needs an additional ticket for that small stretch, and the total cost WILL be greater than the standard Bingen > St. Goar ticket, which is ONE TICKET covering both boats and is available at a standard price of €36 according to the K-D site.

Bought separately, the 2nd cruise costs €15, the first €25, for a total of €40.

If travel4fun originally bought a Bingen > Boppard ticket - and was not allowed to reboard in St. Goar (where they were not hopping off but instead forced off the boat by the schedule,) then there is no reasonable explanation for this circumstance. So I can only suspect that their cruise to St. Goar was made with a ticket for Bingen to St. Goar which expired when they got off in St. Goar.

I think if I were going to stay in a town on the Middle-Rhine gorge and go to Braubach, I would prefer to stay in St. Goar. Bacharach, St Goar, and Boppard are all on the opposite bank of the river from Braubach, so crossing the river is necessary. Although the trains cross at Koblenz, unless you just have a burning desire to see the Koblenz Hbf, going through Koblenz is just way out of the way. It takes almost an hour, with one change of trains in Koblenz, to get from Boppard to Braubach by rail - longer if you are coming from Bacharach.

One of the few ferries across the Rhein is at St Goar (to St Goarshausen or back). For a few minute ferry ride and a fare of 1,70€, and then 5 minutes walk from the ferry dock to the St Goarshausen Bhf, you'll cut 45 minutes off your travel time each way. It only takes 21 minutes by hourly train from St. Goarshausen to Braubach.

If you do chose to stay in Boppard, there is also a ferry, albeit smaller, that crosses the Rhine at Boppard. The right bank dock for this ferry is out in the middle of nowhere, but it is a not-unpleasant 1km, 10-15 minute walk on a paved pathway next to the highway into the town of Filsen to the Filsen Bhf. From Filsen Bhf it's only 8 minutes by train to Braubach Bhf. I went to Braubach that way from Boppard in 2004 and would do it that way again.

FYI-
There are many steps front the parking lot to the Castle, and uneven footing inside the Castle. From the train station, the Castle is a 30 minute hike uphill, switchbacks and all. The RS guide said the locals run a cheap private car service to take folks up, but on the Sunday we were there May, 2022, thee wasn't a soul in sight, and the town was pretty closed up.
Enjoy the Middle Rhine, it's a fascinating area to explore. Safe travels!

Some notes about reaching Marksburg Castle...

From the castle parking lot: There are TWO alternatives, according to the castle website. A staircase approach of 120 steps (see Pat's post) or... a walk of 5-7 minutes up a gentle slope with switchbacks:

Von hier aus laufen Sie auf dem Serpentinenweg (leichte Steigung) in 5
bis 7 Minuten zum Burgtor oder Sie nehmen die Treppe (120 Stufen).

From the train station: There are two options here too.

- The 30-minute uphill walk Pat mentions - the castle website estimates 20-30 minutes - on part of the "Burgenlehrpfad," a trail with educational signage, or...

- A 3-minute bus ride from the station to the Johannis Cemetery (Johannisfriedhof) stop on bus #540, plus a shorter walk of just 11 minutes. This is a normal public bus with multiple runs per day, fewer on weekends. Bus #540 is timed to leave the station shortly after the arrival of both northbound trains and southbound trains.

Bus #540 schedule

Not that you need the schedule... the DB Railways site, as always, will provide the necessary train + bus + 11-min. walking connections to Marksburg Castle, no matter whether you are starting from St. Goar, Boppard, or wherever. Just use the following as your destination:

Braubach, Marksburg (Tourismus)

Pat wrote,

The RS guide said the locals run a cheap private car service to take
folks up, but on the Sunday we were there May, 2022, thee wasn't a
soul in sight, and the town was pretty closed up.

I don't know WHAT Rick refers to here. Perhaps it's the Marksburgbahn, which is run by a local bus/tour company called Rückes-Reisen and runs a little choo-choo on wheels between town and the castle: https://www.ruckes-reisen.de/marksburgbahn/

The problem is that if you just show up, it might not be there. It keeps no regular schedule, running only when a sufficient number of persons has contacted the business in advance to book, or when someone (or usually a group) guarantees a ride with a minimum of €44. So if it looks interesting, you should give them a call.

There is also FUNK-TAXI, which you can call in advance with your train's arrival time in Braubach.

http://www.funktaxi-braubach.de/impressum/index.html

Just to follow up on my experience with the boat portion of my post. We went to the kiosk at Bacharach to purchase a ticket a few minutes before the boat arrived. I told the cashier I wanted to go to Boppard, but I wanted to stop at St. Goar. The next boat arriving in Bacharach was terminating in St. Goar. He would not sell me a ticket all the way to Boppard. He told me “not possible.” He wanted to sell me a separate ticket from St. Goar to Boppard, but wanted me to choose a specific time. I did not know how long we would be in St. Goar since we were visiting the castle and having lunch. So I didn’t buy that ticket until we wanted to leave St. Goar.

Liz and Pat, if you do decide to stay in Boppard, I highly recommend the Bellevue Rheinhotel. It actually is right on the river, and about 25 feet from the KD-Cruise dock. Lovely hotel with wonderful food and rooms, and close to the center of town. It is a short walk to the train station. I was there for 3 nights and really enjoyed my stay.

https://www.bellevue-boppard.de/en/

Thanks for detailing all that, travel4fun.

The K-D schedule/fare document shows that passengers can buy cruise tickets between any two towns they choose; the Bacharach > Boppard journey is listed on their fare chart and should have been offered to you (with the layover in St. Goar of course) as a "G" fare priced at €25.

The "not possible" response you got, if it referred to buying a Bacharach > Boppard ticket, is beyond my understanding. I suspect there might have been some communication error on the part of the ticket agent, or perhaps it was necessary to pin down the time for boarding in St. Goar - and even though you could choose whatever later boat you wished, you were being told it's "not possible" to get the €25 fare without that commitment to a specific boarding time.