Germany - questions about the Rhine and Mosel areas
 

I'm trying to decide how much time I need to get a good taste of the middle Rhine and Mosel River areas. I actually wasn't even planning a trip to Germany but the best (by far) prices I'm seeing on flights to get me to Greece for next July is via Dusseldorf, Germany. So I figured I'd do a day or two at each end of the trip in Germany. But once I started reading up it looks really wonderful. Our time is fairly flexible - three weeks or so, so now I'm thinking of just over two weeks in Greece and almost a week in Germany.

The following towns all look wonderful but I think it's probably too much - Aachen, Koblenz, Bacharach, St Goar, Oberwesel, Rudesheim, Cochem, and Trier. So I'm looking for opinions as to which towns are the "best" (most atmospheric, photogenic), about how long to plan for, etc. Anyone have any trip reports for this area they could share links to? I know these are rather vague questions but at this point I'm just trying to get an idea of number of days before I buy the tickets, then I'll plan in more detail. Thanks

This is a wonderful area that we visited in 2006. We drove from Brugges through Trier where we stopped for a few hours to tour around then on to Beilstein (lovely very small village) to stay at the Haus Lippman hotel(charming, good prices and fab dining room too) for four nights as our home base. During the four days we drove to St Goar and took the Rhine cruise boat to Bacharach then back to Beilstein. We also toured Burg Eltz Castle one day and drove to Cochem another. Overall a great time and one of my favourte places. Wonderful cave restaurant in Beilstein that has dancing on Saturday nights along with trays of beer samples; also nice pottery shop. We did not get to Koblenz to see the cathedral unfortunately as we had to leave for Munich.

Boppard (not on your list) is a very nice town, right on the riverbank... Stayed in St Goar - it would take about 5 minutes to see, very tiny. Has a nice castle ruin on the overlook:
http://www.ricksteves.com/plan/desti.../rheinfels.htm

The 'old town' in Koblenz is also pleasant...

Trier has some great Roman "ruins" including the wonderful Porta Nigra.

We have stayed in Bacharach at the Rhein Hotel which we enjoyed very much. Lovely town with some good restaurants.

There is a very nice Castle Hotel called the Auf Schoenberg in Oberwesel. It overlooks the Rhein River and is a great place to stay if it fits your budget.

Cochem is a very nice, but busy, town with the Reichsburg Castle overlooking the town. It is close to Burg Eltz which we found to be one of the more beautiful castles in the area.

As mentioned earlier, Beilstein is on a very pretty part of the Mosel River and the Haus Lipmann is a highly recommended hotel. However, it is a very small town.

We last stayed in Bernkastel-Kues and it was probably one of our favorites.

I think anywhere you stay in this area would be fine, especially if you have a car for getting around.

type "mosel rhein" in search box and you will get many wonderfully informative threads.

also write "wineries mosel" for some great places to stop.

Hi isabel,

We visited the Rhine and stayed along the Mosel last October ('07) and loved it! We stayed 4 nights in Valwig, just across from Cochem and felt one more night would have been perfect. Cochem as a base is ideal in my opinion, yet you really can't go wrong with any of the other towns along the Mosel. We have a trip report with a link to our photos which may be of help/interest to you. I will say that Burg Eltz (by Cochem) and Marksburg Castle (along the Rhine) were highlights for us (we love castles!). It's all beautiful though.

http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=35089110

Hope this helps.

Paul

Thanks for all the replys. It all sounds wonderful. Except instead of helping me decide what to drop from my plans you've just given me several MORE towns that I want to visit.

Paul, I just read your trip report, very helpful.

lincasanova - you're right about getting more trip reports with "mosel-rhine", so now I have several more to read

A question - most of you talk about driving in the area. We had kind of planned on trying to do it by train. This will be the last week of our more than three week trip, so we'll be a bit tired (we tend to slow down a little by the third week). If we do drive is parking easy to find and inexpensive in all these little towns? Some trips I've spent way more than I expected on parking.

With a week, you can see this area quite well, and you can do so cheaply and easily by train.

Aachen: a bit far from the other destinations. See on the way from D'dorf? You can stow bags at the station for a look around before proceeding, or spend your first night there.

Mosel: some good suggestions here. Cochem is very atmospheric, your best choice as a base for seeing the area by train, as connections are very good. Daytrip to Burg Eltz, Trier, Bernkastel, do some biking along the river?

Rhine: it's possible to daytrip from Cochem but would be time-consuming - best to find a new base over there if you want to cover the towns you mention easily. My pick would be St. Goar since it is centrally located and has the most scenic setting of all the Rhine towns, and there's a ferry there that allows access to trains on the east bank (Rüdesheim, Braubach/Marksburg Castle.)

Instead of finding 2 bases for the Rhine/Mosel region you could also base yourself in Koblenz for the whole week, as it's a train hub for the area, but I don't think it has the sort of ambience most visitors are looking for. It's a nice enough city, but nothing all that special when compared with the smaller villages.

Trains: once you're south of Bonn, you can travel on a Rheinland-Pfalz Ticket - a cheap daypass for 2-5 people - to all your destinations. It's under 30 euros. Just pick up a pocket timetable at one of the bigger (Koblenz, Cochem) stations in the area so you can make impromptu decisions and still make it back to your base on time. The only destinations mentioned above that not reachable by train are Bernkastel and Beilstein. There is a bus connection to Bernkastel from Wittlich's train station that is covered on the daypass, however.

Here's a brochure on the Land-Ticket. As the map shows, it includes Bonn in the north, as well as numerous towns outside the eastern border of the Land. The Saarland state is also included.

http://www.der-takt.de/uploads/media...yer_080428.pdf

These local transport systems are also covered: RNN, VRM, VRN, VRT, KVV.

<i> there's a ferry there that allows access to trains on the east bank (R&uuml;desheim, Braubach/Marksburg Castle.) </i>

Just a clarification: trains run up and down both banks. R&uuml;desheim is on the west, and Braubach the east. An interesting stop is www.asbach.de.

&quot;Just a clarification: trains run up and down both banks. R&uuml;desheim is on the west, and Braubach the east.&quot;

Sorry, Robespierre, but R&uuml;desheim is and has always been on the east bank of the Rhine.

&lt;&lt;Sorry, Robespierre, but R&uuml;desheim is and has always been on the east bank of the Rhine.&gt;&gt;


I think that it would be more accurate to say that R&uuml;desheim is on the north bank of the Rhine, as it flows from east to west at that point. Alternatively, one could say that it is on the right bank.

&quot;I think that it would be more accurate to say that R&uuml;desheim is on the north bank of the Rhine, as it flows from east to west at that point. Alternatively, one could say that it is on the right bank.&quot;

So... you think it's wisest to rename the riverbank when on occasion a river that runs north-south takes a turn this way or that? That will keep you very busy.

The &quot;right&quot; bank? Wouldn't that depend on which way you happen to be facing?

The point is that however you choose to name the riverbanks, Braubach and R&uuml;desheim are on the SAME SIDE of the river, not opposite sides, something the poster should know before deciding which town to bed down in.

We have been to only Aachen and Trier. We were able to see most of the former in one day (we were staying in Spa). However, Trier has a lot more going on - including very substantial Roman remains - so I think worth a couple of days to explore.

&lt;&lt;The &quot;right&quot; bank? Wouldn't that depend on which way you happen to be facing&gt;&gt;

No it doesn't. &quot;Right&quot; and &quot;Left&quot; always refer to the side when one is facing downstream. Hence in Paris the &quot;rive gauche&quot; and &quot;rive droite&quot; never change no matter which way one happens to be facing.

laverendrye:

You are just too funny.

So I should choose my river nomenclature based on the the insane premise that the poster happens to know in which cardinal direction the river flows?

If you did a poll, I'd be willing to bet you some solid money that you'd get no better than 25-30% correct answers to the question, &quot;Does the Rhine flow north, south, east, or west?&quot;

And if you can't answer that question - or if you can't also remember whether &quot;left&quot; or &quot;right&quot; should be determined by upstream or downstream orientation, then &quot;left&quot; or &quot;right&quot; are totally useless terms.

Once again, the whole point is that Braubach and R&uuml;desheim are on the SAME SIDE of the river!!!

Now, if you'll kindly find something else to do besides confuse the poster and waste board space...

(I don't know why - perhaps because my shopping is done - but I'm finding terribly amusing to pursue this petty squabbling, something I'm normally reluctant to do, so if you want to discuss this further... :)

I can only comment on Aachen, but I really liked it. It's very important in terms of medieval history.

I'm baffled.

We took the train upriver from Bonn, with a change at Koblenz. The river was on our left.
We detrained at R&uuml;desheim.
We got on the K-D boat (which had come from Mainz - upriver).
The boat proceeded in the same direction it had come from.
We got off at St. Goarshausen.

Or maybe we didn't actually get off at R&uuml;desheim, but someplace across the river? Which bank do the boats and trains stop on?

Trains run on both sides of the Rhine in this area.

Boats zig and zag across the river as they proceed up- or downstream.

If you traveled south/upstream with the river on your left the whole way, you may have disembarked in Bingen and taken a boat or ferry across the river to R&uuml;desheim.

Or perhaps the river was on your left from Bonn to Koblenz, but after changing in Koblenz, your train proceeded upstream along the east bank, with the river on your right, in which case you may have gotten off the train in R&uuml;desheim. Koblenz sends off southbound trains along both sides of the river.

<i>...after changing in Koblenz, your train proceeded upstream along the east bank...</i>

That would be true - but I don't think it's possible. Our ride was early in the morning, and I have a great shot I took coming out of Koblenz of the sun rising over the misty mountains across the river. And there are no rail bridges more than a few kilometers south of Hbf Koblenz.

I guess I'll just have to go back :D

Russ: You win. This is of no help to the OP. Now I'm off to finish my Christmas shopping.

Thanks for all the info. By looking at a map I can see that some towns are on one side and some are on the other side of the river. This did indeed help when looking up train schedules. Clearly it's easier to take a ferry over to the &quot;other&quot; side and then resume train on that side. I think I have it figured out.

Russ, thank you so much for the info on the Rheinland-Pfalz Ticket. That certainly will make it less expensive than a car so I think we'll go that way. We do tend to drive a lot on trips and I love the flexibility driving provides but it seems I can get nearly everywhere I want by train and won't have to worry about parking.

It looks like in most cases there's some form of transportation from the riverside towns up to the castles if you don't feel like walking. Does this sound right? I guess the big exception is Burg Eltz which seems a lot harder without a car.

I'm thinking it makes most sense to base in Koblenz, perhaps for four days and do day trips up and down both rivers, then move to Cologne for two nights to do Aachen from there, and be able to get to the Dusseldorf airport for departure. Do this sound reasonable?

The R-P ticket requires that you use the RB and RE trains - not the high speed ones - which is really just fine since you're not traveling long distances in this area. From Koblenz to Trier, your longest run, catch the RE, not the RB, which stops at every town and takes substantially longer. Also - on weekdays, you must use the R-P only after 9 am; travel prior to 9 requires an additional ticket. You can buy the R-P ticket from one of the red/blue DB ticket machines (they have an English interface) and use a credit card.

Your plan sounds reasonable to me; in Koblenz, try to stay somewhere within walking distance of the station to minimize your coming/going time.

Burg Eltz is not a difficult walk but it is time-consuming. Marksburg and Rheinfels have shuttles but can be walked to as well. I've always walked on my visits. Cochem's castle (Reichsburg) isn't hard to walk to either, and it has an excellent falconry show (separate admission.)

If you should decide to drive (and we much prefer the flexibility that driving allows along the Mosel), parking is easy and free in most of the smaller towns. Those few that do have pay parking (if you were stopping for just a short visit, for example) have plenty of it and we didn't find it at all expensive.

burg eltz should not be missed. i am not sure how to get there with no car. a taxi?

i also like having a car to be able to sleep &quot;off&quot; the busy mosel/rhein when i want to .. back towards the lovely farmlands. it is very peaceful.

In September I traveled exclusively by train and spent four nights in Cochem. It's a great base being centrally located between Koblenz and Trier with better train connections than many of the smaller towns.

To get to Burg Eltz I took a local train to Moselkern - a very small town. There is a walking trail to Burg Eltz from Moselkern - it's supposed to take one hour to get to the castle. The station was deserted and I was the only person to get off the train there. The signage was not the best. I walked for 20 minutes before I saw anyone to ask if I was going the right way. It took me just under an hour and a half to get to the castle, much of which was on paths through the woods. If you have mobility problems this is not the way to go.

The castle itself and the setting are worth the trip. There is a parking lot not far away and it would be a much easier trip by car.

It may be worth your while to rent a car for the day.