ausieo

I'm planning a europe trip in May and will fly into Frankfurt from Australia. We are two older but fit independant travellers and will need to do our sightseeing by public transport. My plan is to work our way along the rivers from Koblenz to Passau and then go onto Prague, Vienna and Budapest. We will probably spend about 5 weeks in Europe so we have time for day trips. What I need is some of your thoughts on where are the best places to stay two or three nights at a time. We don't want to be moving accommodation everyday! Some of the places that sound interesting are Cochem, Trier, St. Goar,Wurzbug, Rudesheim,Regensburg, Rothenburg(so many!) We like wandering around the old towns and sitting in the cafe's drinking coffee etc. Just need to stay at the best places for access to trains, buses and ferries. Also any recommendations on family pensions or small hotels/apartments. Your help would be appreciated. thanks

Russ

Cochem is a terrific base town for rail travelers exploring Trier, St. Goar, Burg Eltz, and Rhine castles like Marksburg.

Fodors contributor Ben has an excellent list of accommodations with commentary for Cochem and the region:

http://www.bensbauernhof.com/accommo...hinemosel.html

And for Bavaria:

www.bensbauernhof.com/accommodationsbavaria.html

Gary_Mc

We like the slower pace of travel that you are describing. Three places that you mention are favorites of ours: Würzburg, Rothenburg ob der Tauber and Regensburg.

In Würzburg, I most like the fortress across the Main River, Marienberg Festung, with its two nice museums. My wife likes the more popular Residenz in town. It is nice walk across the river and up to fortress or the Kappele.

Würzburg would be handy for day visits by train to Bamberg and Rothenburg, though each of these towns are worth a couple days on their own. Bamberg has some of the nicest old alleyways in Germany to my tastes.

Regensburg is another town that warrants a couple days in our book. Its Gothic Dom (cathedral) appeals much to me. It is an interesting contrast to the nearby Alte Kapelle, which has been redecorated in Baroque. My wife really enjoyed the tour of the aristocratic Residenz of the Thurn & Taxis family near the train station. The Danube river front is very attractive and there are Roman ruins built into more recent buildings. A day trip might be to Landshut, a town that I keep trying to visit. The city museum has good displays about the Dom, the Roman fort and the 12th C Steinerne Brücke (bridge).

Rothenburg is a photographic treat, even with the all tourists. The Stadtmuseum has pleasant 19th C. paintings of the local area. The real attractions to the city for us are the walls and the alleyways. Lots of good bakeries and cafes.

We are also visiting the Rhein/Mosel valleys this May for the first time in years. Our experiences are too dated to qualify as tips.

Regards, Gary

Gary_Mc

Hotels

Würzburg:

http://www.hotel-barbarossa-wuerzburg.de/

http://www.hotel-st-josef.de/

Rothenburg:

http://www.gasthof-greifen-rothenburg.de/

http://www.haus-karin.de/engl.htm

bilboburgler

All sounds like a nice trip. Most individual centres can be searched on this web site. I think Cochem is good fro the point of tranport links but is itself not very pretty and heavily tourist infested. i would do trier for certain but maybe beernkastel or trab and trabach which are just nicer. trains and ferries stop in both but you will need a degree in german logic to understand the ferry timetables. koblenz is too big imo but try up or down the river for a small town. german web sites are very logical. hence trier.de goes straight where you expect and you can search for wine or sausage festivals.

ausieo

Thanks for all your tips. There are just so many places that sound great! Cochem, Boppard,Wurzburg and St Goar keep coming up on the forum as good places to stay. I wonder, has anyone done this trip without booking too much accommodation ahead? We've done the Greek Islands this way and its a great way to travel. Just not sure about Germany though.

I've got some planning to do and will follow up on all your suggested websites and places to visit.

Thanks again

Gary_Mc

We travel in April 2006 w/o reservations. We had researched hotels well. So, we had a list with phone numbers. We just called ahead the day before. Tourist Information offices in towns can also help you find a room.

We researched hotels on HRS.com, which is the largest in Germany. That helped us know if a town was filling up and whether business fairs were driving up prices. We also used hrs.com once to reserved a room the day before.

Regards, Gary

Russ

May is typically not a busy month along the Mosel. The only major event I'm aware of that would affect your stay in Cochem would be Happy Mosel on May 3. All the towns along the river between Koblenz and Trier will be quite busy for this annual event - approximately 150,000 visitors descend on the valley for a day of car-free bicycling and rollerblading along the main river road. It's a lot of fun but it impacts accommodations.

Regarding Cochem... after numerous trips to numerous villages along the Mosel, I have to say that Cochem is truly adorable, my favorite spot on the river, one of my favorite in all of Germany. It is altogether possible that some visitors have seen only the much more modern "Cond" side of the river or overlooked the very attractive old town, which lies behind the more more modern buildings that line the Mosel promenade. Full of half-timbered buildings, cobblestones, and old walls and narrow alleys, it's a fantastic spot to stay, to dine, and to wander around.

Some photos:
http://www.goteborgcityairport.se/en...nfo/cochem.asp

Bernkastel is also extremely scenic and worth a trip - but it is not a good base as it lacks a train station and is a good bit further west, making trips to the Rhine area trickier.

ausieo

Thanks Gary. Sounds like you travel like us! I do heaps of research and carry a small notebook with telephone numbers, train and ferry times etc. Then we just pull it together as we go. It's fantastic,little stress as you know what to expect when you get to places and we have the freedom to change our minds and stay longer if need. I will check hrs.com - I didn't know that one.

Russ, Cochem is sounding a favorite! I agree with you about needing to look at the old part of town. We always try to stay in the old cities even though the accommodation is often not plush. It's so much more interesting and we love walking out of the door onto the cobbled laneways. Thanks for the tip about May 3 as we may be arriving around that time.

Thanks to you both

pja1

Hi ausieo,

I have to agree with Russ regarding Cochem. We stayed 4 nights in October 2007 and thought it was the nicest old town along the Mosel. Bernkastel is also very charming, but Cochem is our favorite. We have some photo's at:

www.worldisround.com/home/pja1/index.html

Paul

Barbara5353

After carefully researching towns on the Rhine we decided on Boppard as our home base for a week-long stay a few years ago. We took trips by train, bus, and river to various places including Koblenz, Mainz, Rudesheim, Bonn, Bacharach, St Goar..the list goes on and on.
Our reason for choosing Boppard was that the town is right on the river..in many other towns the railroad tracks are between town and the Rhine. In Boppard, the train tracks are behind the town and river. There is a lovely, long promenade with many benches to sit and watch the traffic on the Rhine. It is a small enough town to be very walkable, yet large enough to have many good places to eat and shop. We made a reservation for the first night, then found a sweet little apartment just a block off the river that we rented for the rest of our visit.

ausieo

Loved your website Paul. The pictures are lovely. There's obviously so many picturesque places to visit in that area thatI think I will have to allocate more time for it! Cochem or Boppard? It's hard to choose. Barbara makes Boppard sound like a good base too. It might come down to which place is easier to get to from Frankfurt airport as after flying for 22 hours from Australia we wont be wanting to make too many train changes! Anyway, whatever happens, I'll definitely put both places on our itinary.

Thanks for everyone's input it all very helpful.

ausieo

isabel

Don't mean to highjack your thread Ausieo but - I just posted a question yesterday about accommodations in the area. I had thought we'd stay in Koblenz since we want to do both Moselle and Rhine and also be able to get to Dusseldorf to fly home, all without changing hotels. But now I'm rethinking that and Boppard sounds good. Do those of you who've stayed in Boppard (or Cochem) feel it didn't add too much time to get to towns along the "other" river? Did you have to change trains in Koblenz, and if so did you spend a lot of time waiting for connections, etc. Or did you drive? We'd really rather do this by trains. Thanks

Russ

Boppard is a very nice town too. It's larger than Cochem, and doesn't have the scenic location or the old-world ambience that Cochem does. But if you decide to base on the Rhine, it's a good choice - a lot smaller and village-like than Koblenz but with many services. St. Goar is my favorite town if you want a base on the Rhine. It's a lot smaller than Boppard. It's got the most scenic location of any town on the river, IMO, with 3 castles visible from town, and there's a ferry to take you across the river to a train station that serves the east bank of the Rhine - very handy for getting to Marksburg Castle in Braubach or to Rüdesheim.

St. Goar is not plagued by train noise in the way that Bacharach is.

Trains hit all the Rhine towns every hour or so. Koblenz is of course the train hub, so you'll get the best and fastest connections if you stay there. Get your itinerary here:

http://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/en

ausieo

It's hard to make a decision, isn't it isabel? I'd just about decided on Boppard although it does mean changing trains at Koblenz for the moselle, but now I think I'll just check out St Goar as it gets mentioned often in the forums. Just one thing, I did read on one of the threads that Assmanhausen was the more picturesque place to stay in/or near Boppard. It's not in my guide book though maybe Russ has some thoughts on this?

Russ

Assmannshausen is a pleasant little place. Its Hotel Krone is a big enticement to stay there. But it's on the "wrong" side of the river if you want to see what most people want to see on the Rhine - Bacharach, Boppard, St. Goar - and it's further south so that you must travel further if you want to go anywhere on the Mosel. It's not as good a base for outings and not as scenically located.

A place in St. Goar I've stayed: Walter Huppertz' apartments, excellent location, some with river views, very nice host who speaks good English and greets you at the station. Also very reasonable:

http://www.mittelrhein-ferienwohnung...any/index.html

elbegewa

My wife and I are also looking for a place to base ourselves to explore the Lahn Valley, the Mosel, and the Rhine ... looking for a place that has good road access to all (we'll have a car).

A place near the confluence of the 3 rivers may work best ... say Koblenz, Lahnstein, Braubach, or Bad Ems.

Any suggestions or insights about those places or others? Any suggestions for mid price hotels or pensions?

ausieo

Russ,thanks for the information on Assmanhausen. I'll forget that as a possible base now. I looked at the apartments in St.Goar and they looked great and reasonably priced. As soon as we have our flights definitely booked for late April/early May I'll email and see if we can get five days there. It looks as though there are plenty of day trips we could make from St.Goar. Many thanks for your help...ausieo

lincasanova

I really found so much more to do in Cochem or Bacharach as we found St. Goar, for our one night, a bit of a letdown after so much advised here. (Both couples agreed)

Of course, we were not dependent on a train station, in which case I only am giving you my opinion from an entertaining point of view, not a logistics' one.

Gary_Mc

We are taking our kids (adult kids) this time and so made reservations for the second week in May at both St. Goar (Hotel am Markt) and Bacharach (Pension Malerwinkel). The room prices are a bit nicer than we found in Franken or Southern Bavaria.