Middle Rhine for a Week

In Boppard, be sure to take the chair lift. Walk to Vierseenblick ( Rhine looks like 4 lakes there ). Great views on the chair lift coming down.

St. Goar - If possible, go into the tunnels in the Rheinfels castle. Take a flashlight. 50 years ago, my brother and I did it without a light. Scary.

I think you are better off doing the cruise straight from Bingen to Boppard, then visit the towns by train.

In Oberwesel walk the town wall and visit the Liebfrauenkirche, the big red church near the strain station;

Pfalzgrafenstein castle - the one in the middle of the Rhine - makes a fun trip. Not a whole lot inside, but fun visting it.

I think you should be o.k with limited German. I almost just use German.

Several good Youtube German learming channels. Easy German - Learn German from the Streets is one I like. Lingoni German is also quite good.

Thanks Stephen. Excellent advice on all the topics. I will be Googling away on these as we get snowed in tomorrow in New Jersey.

I second the recommendation for Easy German - I've been studying German for the last 2 years and I watch those a lot. If you are a podcast user, they have podcasts that are enjoyable to listen to and good practice. They speak at a conversational level but depending on your podcast app, you can slow it down a bit. Google Podcast lets you lower it to .80 speed, which is a good speed. Apple only lets you drop it to .50, which is way too slow. You can also slow down the Easy German You Tube videos to .75.

There is also the Slow German podcasts, by Anikk Rubens (a pseudonym for a journalist in Munich). She talks about different things (history, stories, politics, etc.) but speaks slowly and deliberately. You can listen to her podcasts or listen online at https://slowgerman.com/.

Podcasts are nice because you can listen to them anytime - in the car or on a walk. They're great listening practice.

Days 2: KD Cruising - Boppard to Braubach (Marksburg Castle) and train back.

This 30-min. boat ride + the hour tour + the 50 - 55 min. train (change in Koblenz) back to Boppard won't require an entire day.

Here's the 2019 KD schedule (scroll way down) for reference to a normal year. (Be sure to check the REAL 2022 schedule closely when it finally comes out.)

In a normal year there are Braubach > Boppard return boats (50 minutes coming back, a little longer because of the current) at 15:05 and 19:10 which might interest you; the round trip adds only €2 to the approximately €10 one-way fare.

The important factor for planning your day if you do not understand spoken German well is the timing of the English-language tour at Marksburg - normally that's at 1 pm and 4 pm. So if you want to undertake something else that same day (like maybe the chairlift ride?) you might do that in the morning, then Marksburg in the afternoon. A 4 pm tour, with dinner in Braubach's old town right after, might leave you time to get to the dock for the 19:10 cruise boat to Boppard.

If you choose to use the train one way and the cruise boat the other, I don't think it really matters much which one comes first - have a look at what might work best for each of the tour times.

For LONGER cruises elsewhere on the Rhine, you'll want to cruise from south to north; otherwise, the cruise will use up a disproportionate amount of your time for the exact same stretch of river.

"Would a hop-on/hop-off strategy work?"

Usually, it doesn't. When you step off you are at the mercy of a skimpy boat schedule. In a normal year the peak schedule offers just 5 northbound boat departures. If you're cruising Bingen to St. Goar or Bingen to Boppard, I'd just stay on the boat and enjoy the cruise - the trains are far more frequent and will connect you from your town of deboarding to Boppard or to another town (and they're free from Oberwesel north with your VRM guest ticket.)

Starting out from Boppard, a good strategy is to take the train to Bingen to begin your cruise north. But you can visit St. Goar, Oberwesel, Bacharach, or any other town you like on the way to Bingen by hopping off the train and hopping back when it suits you. Northbound, there are afternoon KD boats from Bingen at 14:30 and 16:30, so as long as your train travel gets you to the Bingen Rhein Stadt station maybe 15-20 minutes before one of those cruises, you're in good shape to catch a cruise boat back north.

To-
Stephen and the ever-dependable Russ, thanks so much. I'm bookmarking this wonderful info for our Rhine Valley visit in [hopefully] April.
Safe travels to all!

Regarding Berg Elz, we took the train to the nearest stop, and just called a cab to get us up to the Castle. We were able to take the bus back down to the train station. This was pre-covid, and I'm not quite sure why we had to use the cab, but I know we didn't have the time or energy for the hike up. It is well worth the visit, especially since it is still lived in by the same family.
Safe travels!

I spent a week on the Rhine in September 2018 and purposefully planned it around one of the Rhein in Flammen events. The trip report: https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/a-week-on-the-rhine-rhein-rhein-in-flammen.

I thought the hike to Burg Eltz was great. We encountered fit and unfit 60-somethings on the trail. No one seemed particularly taxed. One must climb a fair number of steps to ascend to the castle entrance on arrival, but, again, nothing a fit 60-something should not be able to do.

A fair amount of English is spoken on the Rhine. If I recall correctly, the narrative on the boat was given in German and in English. The castles have English tours -- just be sure to check schedules ahead of time. A little preschool-level German (subject-verb-object) is helpful, but not really required. I follow my greeting with "Mein Deutsch ist schlecht" (to which the native speakers often jokingly reply, "Mein auch") to set a low-bar for my understanding.

German learning?

• Deutsche Welle has free online German courses with much video content: https://www.dw.com/en/german-courses/s-2547
• The Goethe Institut has a poorly-organized free website for German learning called Deutsch für Dich: https://www.goethe.de/prj/dfd/de/home.cfm
• A personal favorite YouTube site is Tom und das Erdbeermarmeladebrot mit Honig which has tales of Tom's adventures as he searches for Erdbeermarmaladebrot mit Honig (from a German kids' tv series, I believe): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwola02TTa8
• I also like lessons on the italki.com platform but there is a cost. I think, however, there is nothing like having immediate feedback from a native speaker as you work on your German. There are "community tutors" (often students) who will just talk to you and help with conversational skills for a reasonably low fee.

I knew I would get excellent advice!
Mardee - I will be looking into both German language suggestions. My efforts on Duolingo provided some speaking skills but listening was a whole other ball game.
Russ - Your input was greatly anticipated. I don't know if saying you have earned a reputation as a "sage" when it comes to providing detailed Rhine River touring information is appropriate but from my view you certainly appear to be the "go to guy ". Didn't a previous thread post request you as a guide?
The info on the English tours of Marksburg and ideas about how to plan that day are great as are your explanation for rail travel over river cruising to visit towns due to the flexible nature of the scheduling.
Pat - Your Burg Eltz description sets my mind at ease. I have an arthritic lower back that is aging me faster than I'd like so those 60 somethings managing the walk to the castle makes this part of the trip very "doable" for me

Dave - I appreciate your trip report about Rhine in Flames (and preferring not to cook on vacation). Our preliminary plans have us being on the Rhine in August (this would be the Koblenz festival time) and there are roundtrip cruises from Boppard that might be nice. I would prefer that balcony view you describe though.

Lastly, our trip plans may coincidence with the Rhine in Flames festival in August.

The river boats for the RiF event that I attended looked to be quite tightly packed from my spot on the riverbank, where I hung out for the show. Maybe you get a better view of the fireworks from the center of the river, I can't say, but it was still very enjoyable on the waterfront, where wine and food stands abounded, music was played, and a large crowd in a festive but civilized mood was gathered. I remember feeling that I was glad to be on land rather on a boat. I can't say where the best spot/town for viewing might be if it turns out you don't go the boat route, but I do know that wherever you are, there's a late train leaving Koblenz at around 23:00 that stops in Rhens, Spay and Boppard on its way south.

Besides Burg Eltz and Marksburg Castles... I'm not sure which "historic places" you'd find interesting or what your travel radius might be, but here are a few options for research which I found worthwhile.

This Open-Air museum in Bad Sobernheim (reachable by train to B-S + a reasonable, mostly flat walk from station) was surprisingly interesting. Knowing some German, as you do, will be valuable.

Cochem's Bundesbank Bunker

Reichsburg Cochem

Remagen: a walk through the historic old town

WW II "Peace Museum", Remagen

Oberwesel: walk the fortified old town wall

TRIER is pretty tight with sights as well.

I will be researching your suggestions Russ. I am not sure of our travel radius at this time. Our one time in Europe in 2019 showed my wife and I what kind of travel we were comfortable with, namely that our travel radius widened each day of our stay in a particular place. Key to this was knowing about places to go. I did a great deal of research via this Forum, RS guidebooks and his shows, etc.

Your comments on RiF are insightful and will be taken into account as we plan for 2024. Thanks again.

If you go back from Braubach to Boppard by train, you don't have to go the long way through Koblenz. There is an hourly, 7 minute train connection from Braubach to the town of Filsen, which is across the river from Boppard. From the Filsen Bhf, it's a 1 km, 12 min walk to the little ferry that goes across the river to Boppard. You'll have to walk along the shoulder of the highway about half the way.

I did it both directions in 2004, because it was too early in the season for the K-D boats.

Here's another reason to stay in St Goar vs Boppard. From Filsen it's another 3 stops, 14 more minutes on the same train to the station in St Goarshausen. From there it is a much shorter walk to the ferry across to St Goar.

Thanks Lee. This is just the kind of detailed info to help our trip planning!