Please sign in to post.

Germany's Rhine Itinerary

Posted by (Littleton, CO, USA) on

I'm actually planning for a trip next year in late October, but am using the train and boat schedule of this year to base my plans on.

Tuesday
We’re planning on leaving Munich by train up to Rothenburg. We’d like to visit at least one town on the way to experience a little of the Romantic Road (and have some lunch), but need to arrive in Rothenburg in time to walk around before we partake in the night watchman’s tour at 8. What towns along the way do you recommend?

Wednesday
On this day we’d like to travel to Mainz or Bingen to take the KD Rhine cruise. If we take the train to Mainz, we arrive at 10:17 and if take the train to Bingen, we arrive at 11:04. Looking at the KD schedule, the first and only boat listed leaves Mainz at 9:45 and the first boat after our train arrives in Bingen leaves at 11:30. I know some stops leave about every hour, and was wondering if Mainz has boats that leave every hour. If Mainz does, then we can take the boat from Mainz, but if a boat doesn’t leave Mainz every hour, we could then travel to Bingen.

We don’t really care where we stay the night in the valley, but we’ll probably only have time to get as far as the St. Goar – Koblenz stretch of the river. What places would you recommend?

Thursday
We’d like to visit the Burg Eltz castle, but looking at the KD website, it seems that the Moselle line doesn’t run at this time. Does it sound doable to take a train to this castle from any of the towns along the Rhine before taking a train to Amsterdam? Or if we go to the castle in St. Goar on Wednesday, is it better to then skip this castle and go straight to Amsterdam? Basically, will we get castled out?

Posted by
19238 posts

If I had to pick one town on the Romantic Road to stop at, it would be Noerdlingen (Nördlingen). I was there in 2007 and really liked it. Noerdlingen probably has the best preserved "Wehrgang" wall next to Rothenburg's. The only down side is that of all of the towns on the Road, it is the most like Rothenburg, although much less touristy. Noerdlingen is easily accessible by train on a line from Donauwoerth (Donauwörth), which is on one of the main lines from Muenchen to Rothenburg.

If it's walled cities you want to see, Donauwoerth might be another choice. It has portions of it's wall still intact plus the grisly ruins of a thousand year old fortress.

Posted by
19238 posts

"I know some stops leave about every hour"

While the train runs hourly both ways on both sides of the river, the K-D boat has only 5 runs a day each way on the most popular stretch. I really wouldn't bother with Mainz to Bingen, and unless you are really fond of boats, I would go all the way to Bacharach and take the boat to St. Goar. That stretch has the Pfalzgrafenstein (mid-river toll castle) and the Loreley.

Posted by
19238 posts

Burg Eltz is not an easy castle to get to (see here). There are no lockers at the train station to store your luggage; I don't know if an inn in the town of Moselkern would let you leave it there. So if you are going from your accommodations to Burg Eltz to Amsterdam, luggage could be a problem. As far as castles to visit on the way to Amsterdam, the Marksburg, in Braubach, would be a little more on your way, but luggage would still be a problem.

Posted by
10 posts

Thanks Lee, I've noticed your other posts and I'll definitely keep your advice in mind

Posted by
6941 posts

Wednesday: The boat ride between Mainz and Bingen is slow and uneventful. Take the train to Bingen and start your cruise there.

Thursday: Burg Eltz will be time consuming. Marksburg Castle is on the Rhine just north of St. Goar, offers tours year-round, and is very worthwhile. Take the train to Koblenz, drop your bags in a locker, then catch the next train to Braubach and walk uphill to the castle or take the in-town shuttle (Marksburg Express, runs through 10/15.) You'll return to Koblenz to get to A'dam anyway and can just pick up your bags on the way.

http://www.marksburg.de/english/frame.htm

If you catch the 11:30 boat in Bingen, you'll be in St. Goar by 1:00, so it might be possible to drop bags at your hotel and head straight to Marksburg on Wed. afternoon instead. The ferry crosses over to St. Goarshausen and you catch a train from there to Braubach.

Posted by
12313 posts

The Romantic Road town I like most is Wurtzburg. It's larger and has more to see than most of the other towns.

For the KD cruise. I also think the one hour (approx. 14 km) cruise between Bacharach and St. Goar is plenty. It's sort of a best of stretch. If you do more, it will take considerably more time and you won't see anything you didn't see during the one hour ride. As far as a place to stay, I love Burg Stahleck above Bacharach. It's a castle turned into a hostel. It's clean, quiet and very well run. It's always full, so reservations are a necessity. Rheinfels castle is one of my personal favorites and appealed to my whole family.

On the Mosel, I really liked touring Berg Eltz. The walk there from the train station was more than half the fun. The castle is nice, significantly different than Rheinfels because it isn't a ruin. The tour is pretty brief. If you can include it, Trier is great. Trier has (I think) the most extensive Roman ruins outside of Italy, apart from that it's a nice town in itself.

I'm not a huge fan of Amsterdam. I'd take a night in Cochem or Trier over one in A'dam but I think it depends on what you like.

This topic has been automatically closed due to a period of inactivity.