Bacharach or St. Goar

Ed, if you PM me your email address, I will send you a couple of pictures.

One picture is of St. Goar, from Rheinfels, and it clearly shows the location of Gästehaus Kurz. Kurz sits up the hill from the railroad tracks and the station. There should be a good view of the river, but the view might be partially blocked by one of the towers of the old town wall, which is across the street.

The second picture is of the main street in Bacharach, taken about a block away from Pension Binz. The pension is on the side of the street facing the river, but I don't know how much you can see over the buildings across the street. Binz is almost as close to the railroad tracks as Kurz, but there are probably buildings between.

In either case there will probably be express and freight trains thru throughout the night, but they go quickly without much noise. The noise comes from the trains' brakes as they stop and from the engine as they start up. There are only two trains that stop in either town between 11 PM and 5 AM, and I think they are only on weekends.

Neither place is real close to the K-D dock, but both towns are small, so you won't have far to go. In either case, the trip from St. Goar to Bacharach takes 70 minutes upstream, against the current, while the trip from Bacharach to St. Goar takes 40 minutes. I went upstream, and I was pretty bored by the time we got to Bacharach.

The advantage of staying in St. Goar is that it is in the Rhein-Mosel transit district (Verkehrverbund-Rhein-Mosel, www.vrm-info.de), which covers the area around the Rhein from Oberwesel to Remagen and up the Mosel to Moselkern (Burg Eltz) and Cochem and beyond. For €20 you can buy a Minigruppenkarte (day ticket) which will allow up to five people unlimited use of buses and regional trains in the Verkehrverbund for the entire day. If you stay in Bacharach, you are outside the Verbund, and you would have to buy a Rheinland-Pfalz-Ticket to cover the same area for €26.

If you stay in St. Goar, you can take the train to Bacharach and, presumably, get a 20% discount on the boat back to St. Goar by showing your train ticket. You can do the same thing in reverse from Bacharach, but then you have to go up the river and it take 1/2 hour longer.

Ive stayed at Kurz and it is located on a hill overlooking the river.Parking is in front.We walked down to the river and back up without no problem.She is a very nice lady,helpful and a great breakfast.Her home is very nice.In Bacharach we stayed at Pension Lettie.It was excellent,well located, good rate and she is friendly and helpful.best regards jack in wisc.

St Goar--but I'm biased. After 2 days of rain we went to dinner at the R.fels castle and it finally cleared. The sunset was beautiful, the moonrise was magnificent and when I asked my then-boyfriend if the night could be anymore perfect, he proposed to me.

We also stayed at Pension Lettie and had no issues. It was simple, quiet, & Lettie could not be nicer.

Had a car, so we drove the river multiple times and we were fine with that.

Bacharach & St Goar are only a few minutes away & I would most likely stay in the later, next time. Not because Bacharach was not nice, but just for a change of pace.

Thanks for all the replies. We are reserved at the Kurz Pension in St. Goar.