Three nights Rhine River Gorge - advice welcomef

I am not sure of your reasons for picking Bacharach's castle-hostel specifically, but I would generally advise against it. While there are may be doubles available, German hostels are commonly populated by groups of school-age kids on week-long outings with their teacher (these outings take place as a routine part of public school curricula and are called "Klassenfahrten.") DJH, the official hostel association, actively markets to these and other groups (sports teams, etc.) and kids tend to be weakly supervised, undisciplined, noisy and fond of shenanigans at all hours of the day and night. Think holy hell in the hallways. Hostels are often manned by young unpaid staff members doing their "Bundesfreiwilligendienst" (volunteer service) or "Zivildienst" (civil service) who are apparently incapable of managing such situations in the way that hotel professionals or security personnel might. After more than a couple of these incidents during my hostel stays... in Augsburg, St. Goar, Cochem, and Saarburg, as I recall - I gave up the mistaken belief that they were isolated events. You might get lucky and be there at a time when no such groups are present. But you might not. If I'd written a review, it would sound like this person's of the Bacharach hostel:

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g580190-d289402-Reviews-Jugendherberge_Burg_Stahleck-Bacharach_Rhineland_Palatinate.html

There are several castle-hotels nearby which you might look into instead... Burg Reichenstein in Trechtingshausen is very close to Bacharach: https://www.booking.com/hotel/de/burg-reichenstein.en-gb.html

Burg Liebenstein is further north on the opposite riverbank.

Auf Schoenburg is in Oberwesel, just a few minutes from Bacharach.

For this area you'll need to work out which towns, castles, experiences you want prior to figuring out your best base town and your plan of attack. Below is a list of what are probably the area's most interesting options.

Mosel River:

Trier (Roman history)
Cochem / Beilstein (1 hr. by river cruise from Cochem)
Reichsburg Castle in Cochem
Burg Eltz Castle (near Moselkern)
Bernkastel

Rhine River

Marksburg Castle (Braubach)
Boppard (plus cable car ride)
Oberwesel
Bacharach
Rüdesheim (plus cable car ride)
Rheinfels Castle (St Goar)
Ehrenbreitstein fortress and cable car ride (Koblenz)
Eltville
Cologne (cathedral, museums)
WW II Museum (Remagen)

Boppard could be a good base town for you. Besides its convenient location for train trips to the Mosel and the Rhine towns, it offers free use of the trains during your stay within the VRM zone:

https://www.vrminfo.de/en/tickets/tickets/leisure-tickets/vrm-guest-tic

Once you've prioritized your destination options, you'll probably need some transportation advice and ticketing... feel free to return here with for that and with other specific questions.

We both are looking forward to a day cruise from Binger to Boppard or St Goar.

That's the right direction as cruises run faster south to north (which is going downstream) than vice versa. Trains down, boat back.

I would concur w/ Russ that Boppard would be a good compromise, especially if you want to explore the Mosel. That was my first choice for the region for my upcoming trip but decided on Rudesheim instead to shave off 30-40 minutes of driving when we head to Rothenberg afterwards. Plus Rudesheim makes for a good base for a boat cruise downstream (faster) to St. Goar.

Thank you Russ and Nixit17. We had the castle hostel penciled in as a possible location due to the cost and views. The feedback you provided Russ will certainly make us look at other options before making a final selection. We don’t want to feel rushed on this part of our journey so will limit our selections to just the Rhine. With that in mind do you feel that Boppard would be our best home base?

If you are interested in staying at the Bacharach hostel, try for reservations ASAP. If you can’t get a stay there or for the other 2 nights, I recommend staying at Irmgard Orth’s small 3 room inn. [email protected]. check out the reviews on tripadvisor ( several are by me ).

Eat at least one dinner at Cafe Bistro Noy. For a lunch or light dinner, eat across the street and have an excellent doner or pizza. All these recmmendations are budget friendly.

Burg Rheinfels above St. Goar is a nice ruined fortress that I love to visit. In Boppard take the chairlift ( sesselbahn ). The view coming back down is my favorite Rhine view. In Koblenz the cable car to the fortress is nice.

In Oberwesel you might walk some on the town wall. Visit the Liebfrauenkirche ( the big red church by thee train station ). A very intetesting, different church.

The cruise: No matter you stay, consider doing the cruise immediately upon arrival in the Rhine Gorge.

The scenery begins in Bingen - or in Rüdesheim, which is right across the river. You can catch a train (or trains) to either town from FRA airport. You will have bags with you, of course, but K-D cruises is ok with typical hand luggage. The Bingen Rhein Stadt train station puts you just a few minutes walk with your bags to the K-D kiosk and dock. (The walk is significantly longer if you arrive in Rüdesheim. You might want to drop bags at your hotel there prior to boarding.)

Boats leave Bingen and take you through the essential Rhine scenery for their final destination of St. Goar at 9:15 (arrives 10:55) and 11:15 (arrives 12:55.) If St Goar is your base town, you are home when you step off the boat. If your base will be Boppard, you can catch a boat a boat from St Goar at 11:30 (arrives 12:30) or a 14:30 boat (arrives 15:30.) Alternatively, you can take the TRAIN to Boppard (which leaves St. Goar every hour on the hour.) This train trip takes only 12 minutes...

If you bought the less expensive cruise (€13 less each) only to St. Goar with arrival at 10:55 (or 12:55) you may not make the 11:00 train. So it will be a very short walk with your bags from the dock to the station ("St Goar Bf" on the map) where you'll board the train to Boppard.

https://www.rheingucken.de/goar/stadtplan-st-goar.html

St Goar is a very small town. If you stop for food/drinks in St Goar, there should be restaurant options right there on the Marktplatz (market square) right in between the dock and the station. Or you can port your bags down Heerstrasse a little ways where there will be a few more places.

If you choose a different base town, it should work much the same. Cruise boat to St. Goar, then train to your base town.

will limit our selections to just the Rhine. With that in mind do you feel that Boppard would be our best home base?

Boppard offers the largest selection of rooms/apartments and restaurants of the Rhine towns on this riverbank (Bacharach, St Goar, Oberwesel, Bingen and the others) including hotel rooms with river views. From there you will be 12 minutes from St. Goar (Rheinfels Castle) and 15 minutes from Koblenz. Braubach's Marksburg Castle (the only intact, never-destroyed Rhine castle you can tour in this area) can be reached by changing trains in Koblenz... the train to Braubach (small, but one of those magical towns you mention, peruse these photos) takes just 11 minutes. Wine is prominent in Boppard itself. So I don't think the base-logistics for the things you wish to do get much better than Boppard's. And of course the train rides from there will be free of charge.

I do recommend that you visit Bacharach, even if you don't stay there. Spend a couple hours wandering the attractive town on the same day you visit St. Goar and Rheinfels. The train ride is only 10 minutes beyond St. Goar.

Boppard's chairlift - which takes you to Gedeonseck overlook - is great too. Gedeonseck is rougly a 5-10-minute walk from the top of the lift.

St Goar is another good base town, maybe a close second to Boppard all things considered. Riverfront hotel rooms there as well with spectacular river views. Bacharach is set back too far from the river to compete with Boppard and St Goar in this regard.

Bacharach hostel: a most challenging climb, especially with bags. If you stayed there, you'd likely want to arrange a taxi ride from the station or from the boat dock. I've stayed at this hostel and hiked to it 3 times (went with others who wanted to walk up), once with bags. The views from the top are nice. But it was otherwise not worth the trouble, all things considered.

If you like a good hike (without bags) you will enjoy the walk up to Marksburg Castle from Braubach. It's about 25 minutes, not as steep as the Bacharach hostel hike. But the castle exhibits and the views are both much more rewarding. There's a little cafe with a terrace up there for refreshments.

With that in mind do you feel that Boppard would be our best home base?

When researching Bacharach vs. Boppard, I chose Boppard based on reader feedback: more lively scene and train noise can be an issue for some Bacharach hotels. Only pivoted to Rudesheim based on next travel stop.

Everything Russ says corresponds to all the other good advice I read about the region and Bacharach. While I won't stay in Bacharach, I 100% plan to stop there, as Russ also recommends. I don't plan to go north of St. Goar, but if I had 3 nights like you do and were staying in Boppard, I would definitely spend one day going north to Marksburg Castle then to Koblenz then follow the Mosel to Cochem.

Thank you Russ, Stephen and Nixit71, your suggestions yesterday are very much appreciated by my wife and myself. For better or worse (hopefully better) we tweaked our travel plans and now plan to come to the Rhine River Gorge on October 6 for three nights not the 7th. It looks like our destination on the 9th will be Stuttgart.

Do you have any recommendations: suggestions for accommodations in Boppard or St Goar? I may of been using the wrong search sites last evening but I didn’t see many choices. Ideally water view and walking distance to train stations and places to eat.
Thanks in advance.al

ST. GOAR

Hotel Rheinfels (select the Union Jack Flag near the bottom of this page for English) and the Rheinhotel St Goar are next to each other a few steps from the river and right in front of the KD dock. Good reviews for both. Below is the view from the Rheinhotel:

https://dynamic-media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-o/18/9e/0f/df/rheinhotel-st-goar.jpg?w=1400&h=-1&s=1

(I have not stayed at Hotel Rheinfels. Here is a page with a few pics and comments, a couple of the St Goar station as well.)

(The Rheinhotel room has a couple of rooms with balconies... we spent some, time chilling on ours, a nice splurge; breakfast there in the windowed room downstairs was yummy and the view of the river mesmerizing.)

I should mention here the Hotel zur Loreley also. It is currently THE ONLY St. Goar hotel which offers the VRM Guest Ticket for free train travel to its customers. I have never stayed there, but the location is excellent and it receives good reviews. You won't have river views from your room here. But there is a room with a small balcony that offers a view of Rheinfels Castle and overlooks the pedestrians-only shopping/dining road (Heerstrasse.)

BOPPARD (where all hotels offer the VRM Guest Ticket)

There are several riverfront hotels here. Look into the Bellevue (top-end) and the Ebertor (budget, on booking.com, good reviews from RS forum members.) I have stayed at 3 other hotels in Boppard away from the waterfront and liked them all, but never on the waterfront.

Wine Fest in Boppard: October 6 is the final day of the 2-weekend event. There may still be some wine stands in operation and some visitors in town by the time you arrive.

Thanks for all the new information. We had not seen the wine festival mentioned in our early research so this is a very pleasant surprise. Which hotels in Boppard have you tried and enjoyed Russ?

Two in recent years... the Sonnenhof and the Hubertus. In both cases I was on a solo trip and had a single. Both were smallish operations near the Marktplatz; the singles were tiny rooms with private bath, very quiet. Management was friendly and the breakfasts were terrific, although the Hubertus seemed a bit weird. The lobby area had a lovely "smokers only" aroma, which mercifully did not impact the breakfast room. I think it was a mother-daughter management team and I noticed some verbal squabbles, and I later heard rumor that the hotel is closed. Oh, and the Hubertus, being so close to the cathedral, provided a church-bell wake-up to shake you out of bed after a long night of beer-swilling. But I found it kind of charming and enjoy rising early anyway.

The third place I honestly do not remember much about, not even the name. I think it was a private B&B, actually, but it was more than 30 years ago.

I’ll vouch for every good thing Russ says about Boppard. I was planning a Rhine Valley trip back in 2018 and was unsure where to base. I had never heard of Boppard before but on 2/19/18 I read Russ’ response to a poster inquiring about towns to stay. Russ supplied a lot of good information and recommended Boppard. The information was great and on 2/23/18 he responded with more great info. I booked Boppard in May 2018; it was a great town to base in with good transportation options, lots of restaurants, a room on the Rhine and the Rhine promenade, a friendly helpful TI and one can walk to the chairlift.

I went back in 2023 and I’m going again in July 2024. Both of my prior trips and this trip I have chosen to stay at Hotel Garni Gunther (hotelguenther.de) The hotel website is available in English and offers a lot of information. The hotel is right next to the Bellevue and has at least 10 rooms with balconies on the Rhine (unobstructed). There is no bar or restaurant but they do serve a full breakfast in what used to be the restaurant. However, just walk out the front door and there are lots of options for eating/drinking.

The VRM transportation card is included with your stay. One can go as far south to Oberwesel, I’ve also used it for Koblenz and Cochem. Yes, I do like Boppard.

Thank you very much Ray. I visited their site and it seems absolutely perfect. I’ve sent them an email checking on availability and am so hoping that it’s a go. Appreciate your feedback.