Lorch instead of Bacharach?

I was wondering the same thing, Lisa! I will need to modify my plans to shop if Lorch is substituted for Bacharach.......

I'm hoping one of the RS peeps will see this thread and enlighten us? I really am hoping to meet Herr Jung as much as see the town itself.

My guess is that there was something going on in Bacharach at that time so they substituted Lorch instead. If the tour stays in Lorch it might include a visit to Bacharach, or there might be time to go on your own. Lorch is very close to Bacharach, but, unfortunately, it is on the opposite side of the river, and there are no bridges in the area. However, K-D line runs 5 boats in each direction each day. The trip takes 10 minutes each way and costs 6,-€ round trip.

That's the hard part- not knowing! And since I saw it in a few scrapbooks from trips from different times of the year, it's hard to say exactly why. Nobody in the scrapbooks addressed it. One even had a RS map that had been modified to include Lorch on it instead of Bacharach. Curious minds want to know! ;-)

Lisa

I was curious about this same thing. I am planning on taking this tour in the summer of 2016, and am actually really excited about Bacharach! I was thinking when I booked the tour maybe calling the company to clarify where we would go? I hope someone post on here that might have some answers.
Have a great trip Lisa, it's coming up fast!

I have confirmed that the May 3 departure does sleep in Bacharach, and would expect every tour to visit there even if they had to use a different hotel. However, I don't have the big picture for all dates and have asked the tour manager for a more comprehensive answer.

Thanks so much, Laura! I'm very excited to hear that!

Thanks to everyone else who replied and commented. To those hoping for Bacharach, my fingers are crossed for you! Even if the towns do change on occasion, we can at least we know what where ever our tours take us, we're going to see amazing things, meet wonderful people and have the times of our lives!

Lisa

We are 41 days out from flying out to Amsterdam! I think our final hotel list and paperwork will be here any day now.....my stomach just did flip-flops thinking about it!

Thank you Laura for chiming in.....very excited for our tour which is coming up in 43 days!

I'm so excited for you, Kathy! For both of us actually, as I'm just two weeks behind you. Just think, while you're starting your tour, I'll be in "last minute" mode, doing final preparations with bills and practice packing and double checking lists. Then when you're enjoying Florence and viewing The David, I'll be arriving in the Netherlands for my own adventure. While you're in the Cinque Terre basking in the sun, I'll be touring Amsterdam with the group. When you reach Paris, I'll be in Florence! Then when you're home, recovering from your vacation and obsessing over your pictures, I'll be nearing the end of my tour. We're going to have so much to share once we're both home! I forget, will you be blogging as you travel? Are you doing a website/scrapbook?
Lisa

And you both know I want to know who your guide is, where you are staying, etc! I am so nosy. I can't give it up!

Pam, you really are such a treasure! I love having people who can share my excitement and can give advice from having "been there done that". I've heard such great things about all the BOE guides. I have a couple in mind that my fingers are crossed will lead my tour, but I'm absolutely okay with whoever I get, as I've yet to hear a negative comment on a guide. When you're carting around a group of strangers for 3 weeks through 6 countries, over and over, you've gotta like your job and be good at it! I am eager to find out the names of my tourmates and guides, but I'm a few weeks away from getting those details yet. However Kathy will be finding out soon!
Lisa

I have to figure out the blog thing....I'm such a procrastinator! I just got the mail and almost held my breath as I shuffled through the envelopes......water bill ..... catalog ..... ads .... Cardinal's tickets........nothing from RS :(

I'm pretty sure the list of hotels plus the guide/tour members list comes via email with a link to your RS Tour Portal. In fact, I was obsessively checking it while traveling it and it showed up in the Portal before I got an email saying it was there.

You will get via mail (or really perhaps UPS??) the guide books, money belts, ear plugs, the supplemental guide book and your phrase books. It is so hard to smash those earplugs down the pipe for email!

I am glad you two are letting me enjoy your enthusiasm!

I am going on the tour leaving a week before Kathy's, and haven't got our full tour schedule or participant list yet. I seem to recall them saying that it's sent three weeks prior to the tour starting. As we leave for Europe two weeks before our tour starts, we should get it about a week before we leave. I'll let you know if we're going to Bacharach. I'm particularly looking forward to meeting Herr Jung too!

26 days to go...!

I got the package with the earplugs, moneybelt, map and books quite a while ago already. Love looking through it all!

Em~ you're SUPERDUPER close to tour time! I'll be so excited by then that I don't even know if I'll be able to talk- or stop talking, lol! You mentioned going two weeks before your tour starts? What all are you going to see?

I'm excited because I just booked my day tour to Bruges a couple of hours ago. Things are happening!

Are there any rules on this messageboard about making a thread giving out your webaddress for your trip? I've not seen anybody do it. Nor have I really seen anybody put their webpage here after the tour to view scrapbooks. I've only gotten the webpages thru private messages, the contest page and my own searches. So wondered if there was a rule or something.
Lisa

Lisa - we have 5 days in Morocco, 3 days in Barcelona, 3 in Aix en Provence, then a day in Amsterdam before our tour starts. Highlights include a camel ride out into the Sahara desert where we'll sleep in tents for the night, a day trip up the French Riviera, and staying on a houseboat for our night in Amsterdam! We've also booked a day trip to the Loire Valley for after our tour. We're coming from Australia, so both the cost of the flights and the length of travel time mean you really need as much time on holidays as you can afford to make it worth it. I'm impossibly excited, it's just about all I can think about!

My Rick Steve's Customer Portal tells me I should get my full tour itinerary on the 15th of March, so (to keep this marginally on topic), I'll let you know if my tour goes to Bacharach once I receive it. :)

Holy cow, Morocco?! How exciting! You have quite a diverse itinerary!

Trust me, I understand your excitement. Have you done much travel before? This will be my 2nd trip overseas, but my first visit to everyplace but Amsterdam and Paris- and Paris was only a daytrip (from he!!). I'm looking forward to having Paris redeem itself. Then I'll polish off my Europe experience with a week in Scotland. I too will be staying on a houseboat in Amsterdam, though I'll just be renting a room as opposed to a whole boat. Since it's just me, the room is fine. I stayed there before with my daughter 2 1/2 years ago and just loved it. We had a nice room, bathroom and kitchenette and a big corner picture window overlooking the canal. I loved watching the swans, geese and ducks float by- so entertaining! Also loved the weekend boat parade. I love the thought of going back there. The neighborhood was great (Jordaan area) and it was an easy walk to everything. It's reassuring knowing I'll be someplace that's familiar and comfortable, especially on those first days when I'm hoofing it alone.

I can't believe I'm just 7 weeks away!

You're from Australia? That might be the one overseas place I could get my husband to (one day). He's intrigued by that country. He really has no desire to see anyplace else- he's very much a homebody!
Lisa

After reading all these comments I am more excited than ever. My husband and I are on the same trip as Kathy. It is only 40 more days before flying out to Amsterdam. According to the RS portal we should be getting our information by March 20th. Hopefully it will be sooner. Very interested in finding out if we are staying in Bacharach also. I believe if we stay in Lorch they will have a way for us to visit Bacharach, hopefully. I hope these next 40 days go by fast but want the month we will be gone to go slow.

Hi Carole! Yes, in the scrapbooks I've looked at where Lorch was home base, they still went to Bacharach to visit the castle and a few stayed to shop. Otherwise, the local guide and tour were of Lorch, so no Herr Jung. But the Lorch guide got good reviews. I'm curious too if there will be more tours going to Lorch or not. Changes are bound to happen over time, and on random occasions but it can be difficult sometimes to have that change when you're not prepared and it was something you were looking forward to.

40 days for you?! 39 now! It really is terribly exciting! Will you be flying in a bit early to explore or getting there right at tour time? You're lucky to have already met some folks on your tour. I've only met one so far, a young lady from the midwest too, going with her mom and sister. I'm hoping I can meet more ahead of time, but if I don't, it's great coming here and chatting with folks who've already taken the tour, or are in countdown mode like me!

What are you most looking forward to seeing over the 21 days? I think for me, it's Bacharach, Venice and Lauterbrunnen.
Lisa

Lisa we will be flying into Amsterdam on the Friday before the tour starts. We will be staying in Haarlem but not at the same hotel as the tour. We found a cute little loft for the two nights. We will do some site seeing in Haarlem that Friday morning then going over to Amsterdam that afternoon. On the Saturday we have a 5 and 1/2 hour tour to Zaanse Schans then some more walking around Amsterdam. We plan to just do a little relaxing before meeting up with the tour group at 2 on that Sunday. We are also staying four extra nights after the tour. Two nights will be in Bayeux (leave first thing the morning the tour ends) with an all day D-Day tour on the Sunday after the tour (tour ends Saturday morning) and a bus tour to Mont St. Michel before catching a 6:40 train back to Paris for the last two nights. We do not fly out of Paris until 2:00 so we can have a leisure breakfast before heading out to the hectic airport to fly home.

We have made all of our pre-registrations so just now waiting for the fun to begin. As for what I am looking forward to is hard because I have never been overseas so everything is going to be exciting. The reason we picked the BOE 21 day was because it hits all the areas we would want to go to see.

Maybe someone from the RS tour staff will see these posts and let us know if the April 19th tour is staying in Bacharach. Have fun on your trip and will definitely be doing a tour report when we return.

Carole, you'll love Zaanse Schans! Is it the tour that also takes you to Volendam and Marken (to see wooden shoes get made)? My daughter and I took that tour and really enjoyed it a lot. At first thought Zaanse Schans was a total tourist trap, and it kindof is, but it's so beautiful and fun that you'll forget that. They'll pose you for a picture before you go in and have a "package" ready for you when you leave (for about 20-30 bucks). The windmills are lovely, the views are perfect for picture taking, and best of all, lots of cheese and chocolate samples! You'll get about 45 minutes to stop for lumch at one of the seaside restaurants or kiosks, or you can go to one of the photo shops and get your picture taken in traditional Dutch garb. We ate and later wished we had taken the cheesy fun pictures, lol! Then you'll take a boat ride to Volendam and walk around. Marken is where all the fun is and watching the wooden shoe making demonstration is really interesting. It's a good place to get souvenirs too, at a reasonable price (unless you want to splurge on clogs!)

Haarlem is a lovely town too and there is so much to see there. We went to the Psychiatric Museum "Het Dolhuis" and of course the Corrie Ten Boom house. I'm going back to Corrie's again this time (didn't get enough the first time, lol). I'm also planning to attend church at the Grote Kirk on Sunday morning before my tour (and tour it for pictures the day before, if I can).

We have so much to look forward to! I hope you and the others hear about Bacharach soon. I look forward to reading everybody's trip reports and viewing their blogs (those that will make scrapbooks and/or blogs).
Lisa

Do they have services at the Grote Kerk on sundays? For some reason I thought they had services at the new church....what time on sunday? We plan to head out to Haarlem fairly early on tour day.....it would be fun to attend a service although hubby wouldn't want lightning to strike it so he would probably stay outside ;)

Do they have services at the Grote Kerk on sundays? For some reason I thought they had services at the new church....what time on sunday? We plan to head out to Haarlem fairly early on tour day.....it would be fun to attend a service although hubby wouldn't want lightning to strike it so he would probably stay outside ;)

I know they switch between the old and new church for services. I haven't checked the website recently for service times. I'll go where ever the service is- thought it would be fun to attend a service if possible (and risk the lightening) ;-) .
Lisa

I thought it'd be fun to start a new thread about our pre- and post-tour plans - there seem to be a few of us on the countdown now! I've written some more about my plans there. :) I'd love to hear more about what everyone else is doing!

Great idea!

Lisa

Also now confirmed that all 2015 Best of Europe and Family Europe groups will stay in Bacharach on the Rhine, not a neighboring town.

Thank you Laura. Great news.

Thanks so much, Laura, that's great news!