Chapter Twenty: The Romantic Rhine

After visiting Burg Eltz on the Mosel River, we drove back to St. Goar on the Rhine River and spent the afternoon exploring the Rheinfels Castle ruins that overlook the town. The ruins are huge and yet are estimated to be only about one third of the original castle size. It took several hours to walk through the small museum and then wander our way through most of the multiple levels of ruins.

We then spent the evening walking around and exploring the town of St. Goar. We found a couple of rooms in a small, locally-owned hotel in which to stay. Most of the small shops were already locked up for the night but we still enjoyed strolling along and window shopping. We had dinner at an outdoor café in perfect, spring weather and just enjoyed watching the children play and all the people walking past.

When we tramped downstairs the next morning to check out, most of the other hotel guests were just eating breakfast in the adjoining room. I guess we presented quite a sight with all of us trouping down and out of the hotel because they all looked up and watched us exit. We had our four kids in tow along with 15-year-old Rebecka so we must have looked to be an exceptionally large family to everyone there.

After checking out of the hotel the next morning we booked a roundtrip cruise on the Rhine, up to Bacharach and back. The Rhine cruise we took was between St. Goar and Bacharach and is really the most interesting and scenic section of the Rhine River. We cruised past the Loreley, the iconic “lighthouse” castle mid-river at Kaub, a multitude of castles and past several other lovely Rhine towns on both sides of the river.

Bacharach, like most other Rhine towns, is known for its Rhine wine. It is the quintessential, picture-perfect German town with lush green vines hanging over most doorways and gingerbread-style houses and buildings amidst narrow, winding cobblestone streets. The castle stands guard from high on the hill above the town. It is an old town with a Roman cathedral ruin and an old wall with a few remaining towers. We spent most of the afternoon just walking around exploring the town, old wall and towers after enjoying ice cream cones. Then we meandered our way home along the Rhine before getting back on the autobahn and speeding home.