Stay overnight before Rhine cruise

Depends on what you want to do, be on the river, be in a smaller town, or be in a city with all it has to offer. What are your interests? History, scenery, medieval churches, museums, art, architecture, etc.

Down the Rhein from Koblenz is NW towards Köln.

What is the cruise? Koblenz or St. Goar to Bacharach?

After the "cruise", I would stay in Bacharach at Im Malerwinkel".

Before,? Koblenz is kind of big and not that nice. St. Goar would be nice if you are just doing St. Goar to Bacharach. Another place, on the opposite bank would be Braubach. Stay in Weinhaus Wieghardt. It's in the old town square, a few blocks from the boat landing. The Marksburg, the only Rhein castle never destroyed, is in Braubach.

We are thinking about taking a K-D boat from St Goar to Bacharach. So it seems to me that we should look at a place in St Goar the night before. How long is it from St Goar to Bacharach by boat? Would we be better served staying a night at Bacharach or could we go further to Frankfurt?

The trip (click "River Cruises" > "Scheduled Crises" > "Timetable Rhein") from St. Goar takes a very boring 70 minutes (I did it once). You get to see the Loreley from the river, a little closer, but it is just a big cliff, easily see-able from the train between St. Goar and Bacharach (or on foot from St. Goar). You do get to see the Pfalzgrafenstein (mid-river toll castle) up close.

The trip down the river, with the current, from Bacharach to St. Goar, only takes 40 minutes. If I were you, I'd take the train to Bacharach (10 min) and come back with the boat.

Spend the rest of the day doing something interesting, like exploring Rheinfels castle.

Because of the current, it's quicker and more interesting to travel from south to north on the Rhine boats, as Lee indicates.

I suggest that you overnight in Bacharach and catch the 10:15 am boat north. If you stay on past St. Goar, you'll still be able see a lot of other castles and interesting scenery. Marksburg Castle, as Lee suggested, is a terrific destination and has a good tour. If you want to see it, stay on the boat until Braubach. It'll drop you there at 12:20. Then walk up to the castle or take a shuttle from town (the "Marksburg Express", a choo-choo on wheels.) After that, you can catch a train from Braubach to wherever you're headed.

Thanks to all for the information, it has been helpful. We can't wait to be on our way!

It's 14 km between St. Goar and Bacharach, it takes a little over an hour on the KD line. Lee says 70 minutes and that's probably correct. I think it's good to do, but probably not something you would choose to do more than once.

The trip from Koblenz takes much longer. You won't add any significant sites that you can't see in the relatively brief St. Goar to Bacharach trip.

I've stayed at the St. Goar hostel (pretty standard hostel) but you guys may not be up for that. I've also stayed in pensions in the area. A pension is a good idea - clean comfortable and relatively cheap. Rick's guide book has suggestions.

We stayed in St. Goar, the Hotel am Markt, right on the main drag, near the train station and the boats. Rooms were clean, hosts were very nice, good restuarant. Hotel Hauser also looked nice, was right across the square. Both are mentioned in the 2002 RS Best of Europe. We did a day cruise from St. Goar to Koblenz, then back to Bacharach and then took the train back to St. Goar. Best part by far was from St. Goar to Bacharach, but we had the time and I figured, what the heck....go both ways and see if the view was different. It was great...well worth seeing twice. Only regret was not going to Marksburg. Enjoy the trip.

I’ll recommend Hotel Hauser in St. Goar, located right on the river. They offer large rooms with balconies overlooking the river, very clean (if not a little worn), great restaurant, and good prices. Check it out…good reviews and four stars on trip advisor: http://www.hotelhauser.de/. I’ll stay there again.