I am trying to decide how to spend my day of castles and Moselle/Rhine traveling. I am planning on traveling from Amsterdam to Moselkern the day before, and seeing Burg Eltz that late afternoon/evening. The next morning, I was thinking about taking the KD boat from Moselkern to Marksburg castle and Rheinfels castle, but I'm a little bit confused about the times they run and how easy it would be to hop on and hop off for those tours. Also, if I would only have time to tour one of those, and I had already toured Burg Eltz, which one is your favorite? The time crunch comes particularly because after we see the castles, enjoy some river cruising/scenery, I would like to catch a train that to Rothenburg where I would like to sleep and spend the following day. It appears that the last train to Rothenburg from St. Goar leaves at 13:33 which sure doesn't give much time for cruising and castle exploring, I don't think. So if you had that amount of time, what combo of KD boats/trains would you use to see which castle/scenery along the way? (Also, we would be traveling by railpass so everything -boat and train- should be included, right?) Thanks!
Posted by
Lakewood, Colorado
19159 posts
The German Rail (Bahn) website shows connections from St Goar to Rothenburg odT leaving St Goar as late as 18:20 (6:20 PM). There is an all regional connection, which would qualify for lower fares leaving Bacharach as late as 17:20. Both get to Rothenburg just before 23:00. Using regional trains it would cost €44,80/p, but you could use QDL-Ticket on a weekday for €42 or a Schönes-Wochenende-Ticket on a weekend day for €40. Using express train instead of regional trains would allow you to leave an hour later, but the standard fare would be €54/p. With advance purchase from the Bahn, you could get tickets as low as €29/p. My favorite castle is the Marksburg, but since you will have already seen one intact castle, I think you should do Rheinfels. There are other ship lines on the Mosel, but according to K-D (www.k-d.com), their only boat from Moselkern leaves there at 17:00 and gets to Koblenz, where you would have to change boats, at 20:00, so I think the boat is out. Better, take the train from Moselkern to St Goar with a change in Koblenz and spend your time at the Rheinfels, then go by boat from St Goar to Bacharach. That alone take 70 min. The boats are awfully slow; you don't have time to do much boating.
Posted by
Paradise
6775 posts
Your best bet would of course to be to stay another night if you want to do some cruising. If you can't, then take the train - trains run all day and are much faster of course. The trains follow the river banks the whole way anyway, so you'll see pretty much the same scenery as from the boat, just more quickly. Braubach (Marksburg) is only 12 min from Koblenz by train. To cover the same trip by boat would take you 1 hr., 5 minutes. You can leave bags with the Braubach tourist office or the St. Goar tourist office as you visit the castles (no lockers at the stations.)
Posted by
Treis-Karden, Germany
1 posts
Starting in April we will launch a new shuttle service to Burg Eltz including the starting points airports Frankfurt, Dusseldorf and Frankfurt/Hahn. Furthermore it will be started a shuttle from Moselkern station to Burg Eltz including services for accompanied luggage. This new service package will upgrade the opportunities visiting Burg Eltz and the whole range of Mosell highlights. We are looking forward launching an special website for this service. Until then you can get more information by contacting the Burg Eltz team or by visiting www.chauffeur-auf-zeit.de including more contact options. Peter Michels
Head of business development of local government of Treis-Karden