Car and Boat on the Rhine

If you drive from the Rhine to Heidelberg, there are plenty of castles around Heidelberg, all of which you can visit. Some, of course, are better than others. Marksburg is pretty cool, but they only offer two English-language tours per day. But I have to give it a bonus for one nice feature- its one of the few non-ruined castles or palaces that allowed my dog to accompany me on the tour.

I've never noticed anything like a car ferry going up and down the river. There are bridges essentially at each end of the gorge (Koblenz and Bingen). There are also a couple of ferries that just shoot across the river (at St Goar and Kaub). The drive from Boppard to Bingen is about an hour on the left bank, a bit faster on the right. That should give you all the fexibility you'd need.

I know of no such barge/ferry operation. There are car ferries that CROSS the Rhine; the west or "left" side towns appear first: Bingen - Rüdesheim Niederheimbach - Lorch Oberwesel - Kaub St. Goar - St. Goarshausen Bad Salzig - Kamp-Bornhofen
Boppard - Filsen Are you going to Füssen on Day 1? Füssen is a terribly long drive to include with your Rhine visit, especially after a flight from SFO. I fly SFO into FRA a lot and am usually pretty drowsy and always less than 100% alert. I suggest you drive no further than Bacharach on Day 1 and just relax a little and see a few things in that area the next day or two before moving on. Although you might still want to drive to Füssen later, did you know there are REAL medieval castles just a few miles north of Bacharach? Marksburg in Braubach is amazing and offers year-round tours: http://www.marksburg.de

Thank you for all the useful information. I am planning on flying into Frankfurt for a couple of days before driving. Leave early morning. It would have been great if I could take a boat up and drive back down, but if that isn't possible, then maybe I should drive up to St. Goarshausen and cross to St. Goar and drive back down, stopping at one or two castles...then on the Fussen. Maybe stay overnight in Heidelburg. Any thoughts? Thanks.

If you're driving as far as St. Goar/St. Goarshausen, the castles you can visit in between there and Frankfurt are limited and they each have their own limitations - most are ruins and/or not accessible to the public, or they've been converted into modern hotels, or into hostels (Bacharach) or they're quite small (like Rheinstein) or have very little stuff to see. It is worth the few extra miles to continue to Braubach for a tour of Marksburg, the only never-destroyed castle on the Middle Rhine, really the only one that will give you a perspective on life in centuries past. Braubach has an attractive old-world old town area just below the castle as well. If you can make it to Rothenburg that night instead of Heidelberg, you'll be in a touristy but amazingly well-preserved old town instead of a city of 150,000.

Why not park the car at the boat landing at the beginning, take the boat, when you get off, take the train back to the boat landing / train station. Simples. That's what I've done. Easy parking, nice boat ride, short cheap train trip. Or, of course, depending on the timetable and direction of current, park, train, boat - in that order. Also simples.

I just did a combined Mosel + Rhine drive today, departing from Frankfurt 8am and arriving in Trier on the evening. Stopped in a handful of cities. It was a bit extenuating, but worthwhile (I had already visited the area, so it was more like a sightseeing/native place tour than anything else). I do recommend doing the tour on car, and not on boat, because a car makes it easier to branch off the river bank and go to some awesome spots on the slope where you can get 'bird's eye' views from the river itself.

Thank you everyone for all the great information. Wish I had the luxuary to do all that everyone suggested. I am getting more excited just hearing the suggestions. Due to time, I think driving will be best for the group right now. Other suggestions are still welcome.

One of my favorite things to do is just take the Regional train up one side of the Rhein to Koblenz and then come back down the other side. You can get off of the train where ever you like, explore for a bit and then jump on the next train coming through. You get to see all 40 castles along the river, as the train runs right along the river bank. It is cheap too. For a group of 5, you could do a Happy Weekend ticket on Sat. or Sun. for 39 euro total. Weekdays, I would do a group ticket to Mainz from the airport for 14.40 euro and add on a Rheinland Pfalz ticket for 31 euro that will be valid for a group of 5 people all day long on the Regional trains. Driving a car long distances after a trans-Atlantic flight is not one of the best ideas. Save it for the next day after you have had a good nights sleep. Studies show that driving while tired is often as dangerous as driving drunk. Add in the fact you are in a different country, with different driving rules, and it becomes even more dangerous. The bridge across the Rhein is where Mainz and Wiesbaden are located and the next one is at Koblenz.

Hey Andre, we may have passed each other- I was showing family around yesterday on both sides of the Rhine.

The suggestion to train back to your car when you get off the boat is a good one. The distance between Bacharach and St. Goar is 14km. The boat ride going upstream is about an hour, going downstream is about 40 minutes (depends on the strength of the current when you're there). The train ride is about 15 minutes (about the same to drive between the two), trains leave about once an hour. A Laender pass (Lander, means state, with two dots over the a) is around 30 euro for up to five people, a point to point ticket can't be very much (I've never bought a ticket for just that leg). Train stations in St. Goar and Bacharach are walking distance to both boat docks (about three or four blocks). If walking is an issue for some of your group, one person could catch the train back to Bacharach and pick up the car while the others had lunch (check the train schedule so you don't spend an hour waiting for the next train) - or you could drop people off in Bacharach for lunch, drive to St. Goar and be back (assuming you time the train correctly) before they finish.