Rhine River Cruise Info

Yes, Rick has the cruise strategy mostly wrong. Start in Bacharach and you miss half the best part!

Cruising from Bingen to St. Goar (where most boats terminate) is vastly better.

You can cruise further to Boppard if you like, also a very nice town to visit/dine/STAY. The last KD boat of the day from Bingen goes all the way. The other boats stop in St. Goar... Then another boat shows up later to get you to Boppard.

Scroll way down for schedules:
https://www.k-d.com/fileadmin/KD_Fahrplaene/KD_Fahrplan_2023_web.pdf

Map of Rhine, all the nice Rhine towns, train tracks, hiking, etc...
http://www.loreley-info.com/eng/rhein-rhine/walking-hiking.php

The Rhine is pretty far from Rothenburg. Much better altogether for a short visit than Rothenburg, however.

I am a fan of both the Rhine and Rothenburg. We like to spend a couple days in Rothenburg if it fits neatly into our schedule. If you are landing in Frankfurt or Amsterdam going on to France (your other post), I would say the Rhine is very scenic and handier.

Bingen or Ruedesheim is the best and closest place to pick up a Rhine day cruise. Then you can see the entire Rhine Gore and all the castles. Here is the boat schedule:
https://www.k-d.com/fileadmin/KD_Fahrplaene/KD_Fahrplan_intern_2023_final.pdf
Note that unless you take the late cruise, you will have to change boats to get all the way to Boppard.

It will take at least 4 hours to get to Bingen by train, so it would be a very long day, and pricey.

I would suggest a look at Google maps or Google Earth. Rothenberg odT is certainly a quaint town that is worthy of a night or so. However it is not near the Rhine. It's about 240 km and 2+ hours by car to Bingen. Likely over 5 hours by train. Again, a couple of days exploring the area of the Rhine between Bingen and Boppard is very scenic. But not doable as an excursion from Rothenberg.

The Rhine is not a day trip from Rothenburg.

Thank you all for the info. Will be checking into all this!