I would like advice on our plan on part of our first European trip. Two of are traveling by train from Luxembourg to Bingen this fall. In Bingen we plan to take a ferry to St. Goar, then travel via train the same day to Mainz. We will stay in Mainz 1.5 days and then travel to the Frankfurt airport and fly to Prague. Does this make logistical sense. We already have a 3:00 PM flight booked to Prague from Frankfort. We have flexibility as to which town to take the train to from Luxembourg. We want to take a ferry ride for part of the day. Thoughts?
Posted by
Sydney, Australia
382 posts
I do have a few thoughts for you. You say you will be travelling by train, and obviously I don't know the time of day, but many of the routes I could find on Google Maps send you by Flixbus from Luxembourg to Wiesbaden, and then backtracking by rail to Bingen. The other route - and this is one I have done - is by slow train from Luxembourg to Koblenz, and then down either side of the Rhine. I have travelled down the right bank myself as I was heading for Wiesbaden. So a few points: Luxembourg is not well connected to anywhere, just a fact. Even the approach from Brussels takes 3 hours by train. Secondly, if you take the train to Koblenz, it might make better sense to go to Sankt Goar first by train, and then a ferry to Bingen, and then by train to Mainz and on to Frankfurt airport when the time comes. That would avoid the backtracking between Wiesbaden, Mainz and Bingen. However, a train will take between 3-5 hours to do that journey from Luxembourg to Sankt Goar so it will be a long day and if you have to skip somewhere, let it be Bingen.
Good luck, hope you enjoy Luxembourg!
Lavandula
Posted by
436 posts
oh dear, this is getting very messy.
To start with, there is no "ferry" between Bingen and St. Goar. They are excursion ships with limited sailings - and from what I can see no service after mid October. And not to be confused with the grander cruise ships.
Second, from Luxembourg to Bingen by train you would pass through St Goar - and from St. Goar to Mainz you would pass through Bingen! So you would pay twice for travelling between St Goar and Bingen by train - plus the ship fare for the opposite direction, which makes three trips along the same section of valley within a few hours! Are you sure this is what you want? I would catch the 08:33 train from Luxembourg to Koblenz, then go to St Goar arriving about noon and there is usually a ship to Bingen about 13:15 arring around 16:00 - so plenty of time to continue to Mainz
And then we get to the reply. It's inaccurate due to not understanding Google Maps, time zones and Flixbus. The question was posted a few minutes before midnight in Central Europe and the reply is about 45 minutes later - which presumably means that the Google Maps enquiry was made not long after midnight. If you aren't in the time zone of the journey you must set a departure time because if you click "Leave Now" it will look for options in the near future - and there are no trains running on this journey at 01:00. But there is Flixbus - who are a long distance operator. Their departures from Luxembourg at that time of night will have come from somwhere further away, such as Paris or even London! And they could be going much further east, like Berlin or Prague. Yes they will sell you a short ticket in the middle of that long run but the schedule will be aspirational, so you can't plan real local transport connections after it. And a key point to note with Flixbus is that they are not classed as local public transport, which means that they are not free as far as the german border - but trains in Luxembourg are! The problem of "Leave Now" and timezones can even affect people planning to drive , I've read a lot of americans who think the drive from Munich to Slazburg will take about 90 minutes, because they ask in the very quiet hours of the night - in reality it's likely to take at least an hour longer.
Posted by
OP
2 posts
Clearly we are not all familiar with all of these travel options. As I noted this is our first European trip so I very much appreciate learning from all of you.
Bottom line is we will be traveling via train from Luxembourg. Friends suggested we take a “ferry” ride on the Rhine to experience that for a few hours. They mentioned to arrive in Klobens and take a “ferry” from there. We thought to end in Mainz and explore that city for a 1.5 days because it is a short distance to Frankfurt where we will fly out of to get to Prague for the last 5 days of our trip.
Not having been to the region we are open to suggestions that make sense. We simply want to explore a trip on the Rhine. We will be traveling from Luxembourg and we need to get to Frankfurt airport. We plan to be in Luxembourg late on 09/27. We can depart Luxembourg either on 09/30 or 10/01.
We are open to best suggestions for exploring and making the best use of our time in the area. Thanks much!’