olijoc

We are a retired couple interested in spending 3 nights on the Rhine. Any suggestions for towns to stay in? From reading many of your comments, we are thinking of these towns as a base: St.Goar/Boppard/Bacharach/Rudesheim.

We enjoy hiking and small charming towns, relaxing in cafes, and we will be doing all of our travels by train. Our hotel budget is "approx." $250. night.

Thanks for any help as I'm a little unsure about where our base should be.

PalenQ

Rudesheim is a fine old town but it is also tour bus central in the tourist season - literally crawling with bus tours when i've been there. That said i kind of like tourist trap-like places - but St Goar and Boppard are must more subdued (though the Rhine Gorge here attracts many tourists)

Bacharach is a bigger town that to me has less romance than St Goar or Boppard or St Goarhausen, another favorite for many.

But really you cannot go wrong in any of the choices. Trains ply each side of the Rhine Gorge as do the kd.com Rhine boats and small ferries cross the river at some points - so it don't matter much where you base as everything is in a compact say 20-mile or so stretch of the Rhine.

Reisender

We enjoyed staying in Bacharach and found it to be quiet and enjoyable. It has been a few years ago but if she is still in business Pension Lette was a nice place to stay right inside the town walls. We tried to get into the hotel that is built into the town walls but it was full. We did eat dinner there and it was good.

PalenQ

I believe there is a nice part ruined castle above Bacharach you can trek up to - but then again every town here has a ruined castle above it it seems.

Marksburg Castle down towards Koblenz is said to be the only intact old castle on the Rhine that was not knocked down by military invaders thru the years - many by Napoleon i guess.

Bitter

The ruin that Palen Q refers to in Bacharach is the Werner (sp?) chapel, I believe. I forget the story, but it is kind of beautiful in a haunting way. There is a path along/near it up to the castle (hostel) above the town. It is a great little hike with wonderful views.

There isn't much else to Bacharach (except eating and wine tasting, whch isn't all bad). It is a nice base, but there may be better.

bettyk

We spent a couple of days in Bacharach in 2006. There was a festival there at the time which made for some great photos.

We stayed at the Rhein Hotel and enjoyed the town very much. We liked the fact that it wasn't too big or too noisy.

Here's one of our photos. There are quite a few others of Bacharach in this album as well.

http://travel.webshots.com/photo/204...11574650hDvwTU

We did visit St. Goar and Boppard and really enjoyed the Sesselbahn in Boppard. Great views of the Rhine from up on top.

olijoc

Thank you all for your help with my question. I think I'm going to 'ask' another question since it seems as if we're spending alot of time changing hotels. That's not fun.

Thanks again!