Will be landing in Frankfurt and from there want to take off to the Rhine and cruise the best part...from Bacharach to St. Goar. Where is the best place to meet up with the k-d line? I was thinking of taking the train to Mainz and then going to Rudesheim for a short visit. Is this possible...to pick up the boat in Mainz and then hop off and on as I please or is it more limited than that? <BR>Thanks

Carol, <BR>You will find out that you have to juggle schedules. The KD-line cruise, while there are several departures per day, only few of them start as far back as Mainz. <BR>Here is the schedule: <BR> <BR>http://gogermany.about.com/travel/go...&cob=looksmart <BR> <BR>Also it takes more than 3 hrs to get to St. Goar from Mainz. Presuming you are travelling by train, you will have to make trade off on how much north by train you want to go before catching the boat. Bacharach, while will get you quickly to the section you want to cruise, not all the trains stop at Bacharach. <BR> <BR>Would you not want to catch the boat at Rudesheim where there are more departures per day?

Where will you be staying? You mentioned one end of your trip at St. Goar. There are a lot of cruises from there to Rudesheim, hopping off at towns as you please. That's a very pretty section, filled with castles and grapevine lined hills.

Hi. We will be going to the Rhine directly after our plane lands in Frankfurt. Starting at Rudesheim sounds great...I just need to find out if I can get good train connections from Frankfurt there. After we cruise the Rhine we are off to Heidelburg for the night. I heard the castle there is awesome. It looks like I can get a train connection from Frankfurt to Bacharach and then I could get off at St. Goar, look around and head back to Bacharach to look around and then off to Heidelburg. If anyone sees a better way to do this, please let me know!!!

I did this journey myself a few years ago, after getting off the plane at Frankfurt after a 24 hour flight from Melbourne. I boarded the KD Boat at Mainz, and I've got to say the cruise did'nt really become interesting until we left Rudesheim nearly 2 hours later. <BR>If I was to do it again (and I hope I do) I would start from Rudesheim. <BR>There are trains from Frankfurt Airport to Rudesheim about every hour, usually with a change at Wiesbaden onto a quick connection. Journey time Frankfurt-Rudesheim is about one and a quarter hours. I cruised to Boppard about half an hour past St.Goar, and the train station there is about a 5 minute walk from the boat dock.There is a very nice hotel at the boat dock the Belle Vue with rooms overlooking the river. I stayed the night there, and caught the train south the next morning,and would recommend this.

I concur with Tony on staying a night on the Rhine -- and with his suggestion of Boppard. I don't know how tight your itinerary is, but you'll probably wish you'd had more time in this area. In Boppard you can take a chair lift to a nearby peak for a super view of the Rhine, visit some Roman ruins there, or head a few miles north to Marksburg Castle in Braubach for a tour of the only undestroyed castle on the Rhine. There's much more to do and see along the Rhine, but if you can spend at least a night there, you'll have a better chance of getting a feel for the place and of relaxing a bit after your flight.

Carol, <BR> <BR>I visited Germany last May, and like you, I went from the Frankfurt airport directly to the Rhine area. We took the train to Bacharach, spent two nights there at the Hotel Kranenturm, which I highly recommend. After our first night, we took the KD line from Bacharach to St. Goar, toured the Rheinfels castle ruins there, explored the twon, and had a picnic lunch along the Rhine before heading back to Bacharach. <BR> <BR>I highly recommend that you spend at least one night in the Rhine. For you to cram in a quick cruise in between your flight to Europe and a drive to Heidelberg in one day (especially your first day) is way too ambitious. Besides, the cruise was okay, but the real fun is walking around the small towns and exploring. This requires a little time. Otherwise, you might just find yourself getting burned out quickly, not to mention missing the real highlights of an area. The small towns ended up being the favorite parts of my trip and were a good way to slow the pace between the larger cities. <BR> <BR>Regards, and hope you have a great trip!

Thanks so much for the advice!! I do tend to want to cram in too much, because it's not every day that I get to Europe and I am limited to my time!!! Thanks again, everyone, for all the advice.