So does anyone have any suggestions for a “castle” hotel to stay in on the Rhine when doing the traditional Rhine river Boat day trip?
Ideally that has parking and won’t require hundreds of steps to get up to the castle from the parking spot?
Posted by
Wyckoff, NJ, USA
7324 posts
https://search.ricksteves.com/?button=&filter=Travel+Forum&query=rhine+castle+hotel&utf8=%E2%9C%93
Note that this has some very old results. You might want to click on the "2-Years and better" filter and see if you get what you need from that.
Posted by
Paradise
6651 posts
The Rhine cruise and a castle stay are slightly at odds with each other. The ideal cruise segment is Bingen (or Rüdesheim across the river) > St. Goar or Boppard. So staying in one of these towns at a hotel somewhere near the boat dock rather than on the clifftop, where most castles are, would probably be ideal.
Rheinfels Castle has a hotel in an older villa next door, but it's not a castle; the true castle-hotels are in other towns (Burg Reichenstein in Trechtingshausen... Auf Schoenburg/Oberwesel... Burg Liebenstein/Kamp-Bornhofen... Of these, it would be easiest to walk down from Burg Reichenstein to the train station and the ride to Bingen (or Rüdesheim) to begin your cruise. From Schoenburg, you'll need a taxi, I think. Liebenstein may have a shuttle - not sure. After the cruise, you'll need to either catch another train back to your castle-hotel town, or CRUISE back whenever the next southbound cruise option appears on the schedule.
Auf Schoenburg in Oberwesel is the cream of the crop, but expect room prices to put you in a daze. From there, you could drive to St. Goar, park, and take the train to Bingen (€8.70.) The 20% cruise discount you get at the KD dock for showing your train ticket nearly pays for the train trip this way. But you're still going to have to pay for parking, probably.
A suggestion... Castle-hotels aren't easy on the pocket book - and they aren't really castles anymore once they get cut up into hotel rooms and fancified. Stay instead in Bingen, St. Goar or Boppard at one of the riverfront hotels, enjoy the view and treat yourselves to the finest meal in town. Drive to Marksburg Castle or Burg Eltz and tour a real castle. You'll likely be Euros ahead.
Posted by
OP
Michigan
739 posts
The current plan is a hotel in Boppard. close to the dock.
But i was asked by my sister if there any any castles we can stay in. So just doing my due diligence.
that being said nice hotels convenient to the River tour that i can park my car at would be nice also,
(we are going places that driving is required so i will have a car)
I try and have two options when possible to offer usually low and high. Yiu want to save mony or time. or do you want to save money or have a nice view, that kind of thing. This time i am looking to compare a hotel near the boat to a (presumably more expensive) Castle Hotel. and being as I know we will go past some on the boat i figured i better cover my tail feathers. So if find that they are a pita to get to or from the boat to them and the cost a lot that is fine. But if i don't investigate i will surly be asked about them..
Posted by
Paradise
6651 posts
My comments referred to castle-hotels. There are castle-hostels in Germany too which accommodate families quite readily.
Bacharach's Stahleck castle-HOSTEL is an option that might be more economical. Like the castle-hotels, you can drive to Stahleck, but you'll still have similar taxi/train moves to make for the cruise. Rick's video includes the castle-hostel at 10:20:
https://www.ricksteves.com/watch-read-listen/video/tv-show/germanys-romantic-rhine-and-rothenburg
Note: I mentioned cruising back as an option. One-way Bingen > St. Goar takes 1.5 - 1.75 hrs. Cruising back to Bingen takes 2.75 hours (strong river current.) So no matter what castle you might stay in,for the cruise you could drive round trip to Bingen since you eventually show up by boat back in Bingen later... and thus avoid getting a train from St. Goar back to Bingen for the car. It's simpler, for sure. But doing it this way will mean an additional 2.75 hrs. on the boat seeing the same cruise territory over again. That's a chunk of time when you might be doing something else instead. Sample KD cruise schedule for you:
11:15 - 13:00 Bingen > St. Goar
13:15 - 16:00 St. Goar > Bingen
https://www.k-d.com/fileadmin/KD_Fahrplaene/KD_Fahrplan_intern_2023_final.pdf