"Hotel was in Bingen. While Rick Steves surely recommends Bacharach... the hotel receptionist in Bingen said 'these river towns are very similar just enjoy the cruise.'"
Well, if I were an innkeeper on the Rhine, I might say the same exact thing to a guest who was in the process of checking into my hotel.
The Rhine River towns may be similar in that they're all on the river... but guests should know that there are significant differences in terms of character, sights and activities, and logistic advantages. Bingen has a very scenic location - with some hotels that take great advantage of the river scenery - and is very convenient if your priority is a fairly short and easy train trip from FRA airport... not a bad place to stay at all, especially if you only have part of a day for a Rhine cruise. Yet Bingen's old town cannot compete with the likes of Bacharach or Oberwesel just to the north. And sadly, Bacharach's attractive old-world buildings sometimes end up getting skipped by one-night guests in Bingen who can't figure out how to fit in a stop there. Yet in Bacharach, there are no hotels so nicely situated on the Rhine as that Bingen hotel in the photo above. If you need a base for outings, Boppard or St. Goar might work out better than either Bacharach or Bingen (depending on your destinations and mode of transport.) And for light sleepers, both Boppard and St. Goar inns tend to get fewer complaints about noise from passing trains than Bacharach does. There really is no one ideal spot for everyone, and Rick's affection for Bacharach blurs this truth.
"We boated from Bingen to St. Goar, climbed the hill to Rheinfels, and just round tripped back to Bingen."
"It was a lovely day for our get over jet lag day before GAS tour and I am glad we didn’t plan more for that single day."
Sometimes you just don't want to do much but sit on a boat and enjoy the views. Efg-pgh spent 4.25 hours on the boat that day - 1.5 hours to St. Goar, and 2.75 hours returning to Bingen - and saw the same stretch of river twice since it was a round-trip cruise. They had a lovely day. It's hard NOT to do that on the Rhine. But if efg_pgh had been in a more aggressive sightseeing mood - or had wished NOT to repeat the cruise segment - that 2.75 hours could have been spent returning to Bingen by train instead (a 25-minute train ride) with a 2-hour stopover in Bacharach to check out the town.
So it's a similar thing with the cruise... there's no absolute right way or wrong way, really, just a lot of choices you can make depending on your travel goals.
