If I buy a round-trip train ticket Boppard to Bacharach, can I get off at St. Goar on the same day return, spend some time, and then resume the train journey to Boppard still using the same ticket?
Similar question on the KD boat trip, buying a one-way from Bingen to Boppard. Can I get off at Bacharach or St. Goar, spend some time and then catch a later boat on to Boppard still using the same ticket on the same day?
If you buy a Rheinland-Pfalz ticket, it is good on any regional train in the Land of Rheinland-Pfalz for the rest of the day. Must begin after 9 am M-F, anytime weekends and holidays. so it is hop-on hop-off and then some. I believe you can get a day pass for the K-D boats, and if you show your R-P ticket, you get a discount.
Cost of the R-P ticket is 24 EUR for the 1st person and 5 EUR for each additional person up to 5 riding together. If it is just your self, you might find it cheaper to just buy point-to-point tickets out of the station vending machines.
Can I get off at Bacharach or St. Goar, spend some time and then catch a later boat
on to Boppard still using the same ticket on the same day?
According to the AGB, (Conditions of Carriage), §4.5,
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
I translate this as saying that you can take a break in your journey as often as you like, but you must inform the crew at least 10 minutes before your break and get their approval.
In actuality, there are only a few boats each way on a given day, so you can't, for example, get off at every town on the way. If you get on the 9:30 boat at Bingen, off at Bacharach at 10:15, back on at 11:15, off in St. Goar at 11:55, then back on at 12:55, you'll get off in Boppard at 13:50. There will be only two more boats that day, arriving at Boppard at 16:50 and 18:50. If you wait until 10:30 to get on in Bingen, you'll have to spend three hours at your second stop.
Nowhere on the K-D website do I see anything about a day pass. If you are using a rail pass (Eurail or German Rail), and you have validated it for that date, it should be valid for unlimited travel on the boats.
If I buy a round-trip train ticket Boppard to Bacharach, can I get off
at St. Goar on the same day return, spend some time, and then resume
the train journey to Boppard still using the same ticket?
Yes. You could get off and back on repeatedly on a standard DB fare (€7 each way - therefore €14 for 1 or €28 for 2.) So the Rheinland-Pfalz ticket at €29/2 adults saves you nothing unless you travel further by train that day - and it constrains your departure to after 9:00 am if you travel on a weekday - so the standard DB fare from a ticket machine (valid at any hour all day long) could be a better choice; only if you are 3 or more paying passengers would the R-P ticket make financial sense.
The R-P ticket, if pre-purchased, is not normally refundable. Just buy it at a ticket machine on the day of travel if that's your choice. There's no advantage to pre-purchasing the DB ticket for that short stretch either. I'd just buy that at the station as well.
KDRhine pass: this is sold for around €32 by an online travel agency but it's of no value to you for a one-way Bingen-Boppard cruise... your price will be lower if you buy at the dock - €28.20 standard cruise fare - €5.60 discount by showing your train ticket = €22.60.
You can hop off the boat and back on. Tell the boat personnel your plans, and they will mark your ticket accordingly. Be aware of the boat schedule when you hop off though - there are only 5 boats per day, so the next boat may or may not coincide with your desired time of moving on. (If your day begins in Boppard and you have to take the train to Bingen to start your cruise... then because trains are hourly or better, it's often a lot easier to hop off and back on by train on your way to Bingen.)
Question for Lee: In your reply you said,
" If you are using a rail pass (Eurail or German Rail), and you have validated it for that date, it should be valid for unlimited travel on the boats."
Is travel on the KD boat trip free with Eurail passes? I did this many years ago and I seem to think it was?
Jumping on this thread to confirm something about the Rheinland-Pfalz tickets-children under 15 travel for free on this, is that correct? I know the 2 adults are 29 Euro. Would it be the same price to add my kids? I think this will be the most economical way for us to get from Bacharach to Bingen and then back to Bacharach after Marksburg, with KD cruise in between. Thanks!
That's correct, ferrin. The R-P ticket covers all your trains as well as the St. Goar - St. Goarshausen ferry crossing for the trip back to Bacharach (which you might use instead of taking the train-only route via Koblenz.)
Marksburg has English tours at 13:00 and 16:00. Were you planning to cruise all the way to Braubach from Bingen? If so, take a careful look at the boat schedules - only 3 per day travel as far north as Braubach. Only ONE of those - the first boat of the day at 9:30 - will arrive in time for a tour of the castle. You can however cruise to St. Goarshausen (5 boats per day, 3 separate morning cruises) and reach Braubach by direct train (20 minutes or so from St. G'hausen, train follows the river bank the whole way, no additional cost with the R-P Ticket day pass - and the shorter cruise saves €'s.) The Bingen - St. Goarshausen cruise is enormously scenic but takes less than 2 hours.
Note also that on weekdays, the R-P ticket is not usable prior to 9:00; the 9:06 train gets to Bingen Rhein Stadt (closest Bingen station for the cruise) at 9:26 but you will not make the 9:30 boat. I don't think it's necessary to cruise all the way to Braubach - but if you really want to, you'll want to schedule the cruise for Sat or Sun if possible, and leave Bacharach at 8:00. To leave Bacharach at 8:00 on a weekday is of course possible - but you'll pay additionally for RNN tickets between Bacharach and Bingen (€14.40 for your family, buy at station.)
Thank you Russ-I appreciate the reply. I was going to follow some of your previous advice to cruise to St Goarshousen and train to Braubach for the 16:00 english tour. I do think we will be cruising on Sunday, so in theory we could get the RP ticket and use it to make the 9:30 KD departure from Bingen, if we take the 8:06 train. But that is rather early, so we may take the 9:06 or 9:36 and just go with the 10:30 KD departure. May I ask what is the best way for us to return to Bacharach after the tour, I am thinking it is a train via Koblentz. Looks like there is a 17:54 departure from Braubach that arrives in Bacharach at 19:05. Is that enough time for the tour? I suppose we could also have dinner afterwards and take a later train back. Or we can stop somewhere else on the way since we will have the RP pass. Thanks so much in advance.
we may take the 9:06 or 9:36 and just go with the 10:30 KD departure.
That puts you in St. Goarshausen at 12:05; 12:32 train to Braubach arriving 12:53 - that seems a bit early for the 16:00 tour (unless you're having a long and leisurely meal in Braubach.) Your boat gets to St. Goar at 11:55, so if you wish, you could have some time there first - then catch the ferry across the river to St. Goarshausen later, and the 14:32 train from there to Braubach (arrive 14:53.)
May I ask what is the best way for us to return to Bacharach after the tour, I am thinking it is a train via Koblentz. Looks like there is a 17:54 departure from Braubach that arrives in Bacharach at 19:05. Is that enough time for the tour?
It should be enough for the tour and to walk back to the station - the tour is a bit under one hour long, the walk down maybe 30 minutes.
You can either travel as you suggest via Koblenz, or you could catch the 18:06 train from Braubach to St. Goarshausen (18:25), cross the river by ferry (18:40), and catch the train from St. Goar to Bacharach at 18:56 (arriving same time, 19:05.) Either method is fine, neither better than the other, really. If you travel via Koblenz, you will catch a view of the Marksburg across the river as you proceed by train between Koblenz and Bacharach.
I suppose we could also have dinner afterwards and take a later train back.
Braubach's Market Square (Marktplatz) is a nice spot for that: https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4143/4751924826_36d7071291_b.jpg
The route via Koblenz features a 25-minute layover in Koblenz station. But it would be a way to stop in Boppard for dinner on the way back.
The route via the St. Goar ferry bypasses Boppard - dinner choices would be St. Goar, Oberwesel or Bacharach (the route via Koblenz would allow dinner in these places as well.)
The Rheinland-Pfalz ticket is valid for the morning train to Bingen, the train from St. Goarshausen to Braubach, the trains from Braubach to Bacharach (with stopover for dinner somewhere), and for the ferry between St. Goar and St. Goarshausen.
Thank you Russ-
This is so helpful!
Looks like we have a lot of options.
That puts you in St. Goarshausen at 12:05; 12:32 train to Braubach arriving 12:53 - that seems a bit early for the 16:00 tour (unless you're having a long and leisurely meal in Braubach.) Your boat gets to St. Goar at 11:55, so if you wish, you could have some time there first - then catch the ferry across the river to St. Goarshausen later, and the 14:32 train from there to Braubach (arrive 14:53.)
Is that enough time to see/tour Rheinfels? Looks like it might be trying to fit in too much. Maybe we can just look around the town for a while. How often does the ferry to St Goarshausen run? TY.
Rheinfels... If after your tour you're back down in town for the 14:10 ferry, do the crossing, and then walk straight to the station, you will catch the 14:32 train to Braubach (no time required for ticket purchases since you already have the R-P ticket in hand.) So that's 2 hrs. 15 minutes between stepping off the cruise and re-boarding onto the ferry. The Rheinfels homepage in German says it's a 20-minute walk up. (I'd guess closer to 15 for most people, slightly less coming down.) But let's just say it takes 40 minutes walking up to the castle and back... that leaves you 1:35 for Rheinfels. It's a self-guided tour so you just go through the ruins and the museum at your own pace. I like Rheinfels. Some people love it and would tell you you need longer but as I remember I spent about an hour plus a few minutes there, and that included a peek in the Treasury room. Then I hung out and enjoyed the view for a few minutes. So yeh, I think it's doable if you want - I'd want to have packed a sandwich since there's not time for lunch. Or you could just bang around town instead and find a table in the old town.
Ferry schedule: "ab St. Goar" means from St. Goar - scroll down to see schedule: http://www.faehre-loreley.de/fs_fahrplan.html
BTW - when you arrive in St. Goarshausen and step off the ferry, walk NORTH (downstream) to the train station. This map of St. G'hausen shows the ferry location (Fähre) and to the left, the station (black train symbol just left of the blue telephone symbol:
http://www.loreley-touristik.de/fileadmin/user_upload/HR_St_goarshausen_A5_Schierle.pdf
St. Goar is very small. Here's a zoomable map that shows the streets and paths:
Oh - I neglected to tell you that ferry schedule is for weekdays. On weekends it's a looser schedule based on how many faces, bikes and cars are waiting on the other side.
Thanks Russ-It sounds like if we hustle, we can do it. We tend to be quick with most self-guided tours. Thank you for all the detailed information, it is so appreciated!
