Bacharach Germany boat ride

The advice above is the same that I would give. Take the roughly one hour boat ride to St. Goar, it's arguably the best piece of the river. Pick up your ticket next to the dock - no need to book ahead. (If it looks crowded, you may want to wait at the end of the dock. We missed a boat once because it was full - the boat before broke so it had two runs worth of passengers). At St. Goar, you will be about two blocks from the train station. If you have an idea when they run (I think once an hour) you can plan a liesurely wander around St. Goar before heading back to Bacharach. The Boat line is KD. The train is just a regional bahn - only the regional trains stop at St. Goar or Bacharach.

Paul, As the others have mentioned, the trip from Bacharach to St. Goar is one of the best parts of the river, and it's easy to do in a few hours. While in St. Goar you could have lunch and/or tour Rheinfells Castle. You can return to Bacharach either by boat or train. The KD Cruises (Köln-Düsseldorfer) ticket office and dock is just across the road from the town, so very easy to get to. Some of the KD fleet is more modern, but the Goethe also operates on that route, an elegant old paddlewheeler from a bygone era. There are plexiglass windows installed so that passengers can watch the workings of the paddlewheels. As I recall, the trip from Bacharach to St. Goar takes longer in one direction than the other due to the river currents, but I can never remember which direction takes longer. Happy travels!

There are most definitely boats that leave Bacharach and travel the Rhine. I don't know what the schedule is like in May but you can ride the boat to St. Goar (which is what we did), then catch the train back to Bacharach. If you just google Rhine boats, you will find the companies. There is no need to buy tickets before the day you want to ride. If you pick a day that is warm enough, sitting on the top deck is really lovely as you pass all the castles along the Rhine. RS covers this in his book on Germany also.

Hello I may the boats to St Goar run at 10:15, 11:15 and 12:15the return trip by boat from St Goar are 15:20 and 17:20-or as mentioned you can reutrn on the train The cost round trip is 15E each-30% senior discount availablegot to ask There is also a smaller boat line that's a little cheaper but has a more limited schedulethe ticket booths for both are about 100 yards apart so your can check out both We'll be doing the same trip in May hope this helps
Paul in Arkansas

Here is the site for the K-D schedules. Look under "KD scheduled cruises", "Rhein timetable". St. Goar to Bacharach is up the river, against the current, and takes 70 min. Bacharach to St. Goar, down river, takes 40 min.

Many thanks to all of you that responded with such excellent information! Regards! - Paul