Bacharach or Bust!

Moving onto Germany! With one night stay in Frankfurt we then boarded 2 trains into Bacharach. We selected this quaint little town on the Rhine river b/c of Rick Steve's recommendation in his book. I was looking forward to a quiet, romantic and picturesque stay and it definitely did not disappoint. This is obviously not the place to go if you are looking for nightlife though. :)


We stayed at Hotel zur Post which was run by a nice woman who kept it spotlessly clean. We asked for a room with a balcony which meant we were on the top floor and I think we were the only ones staying on that floor. It was nice and quiet and we bought a bottle of wine and popped it open on the balcony. By the time we were done with it Wade was drunk and happy and we went for some grub.


We had some schnitzel which was absolutely delicious. Wade said it was the best fried pork tenderloin he's ever had and I may have to agree.

After we ate we decided to tour the little town. I wanted to see the Werner Chapel ruins and we were pleasantly surprised to find that it is on a hiking trail that will take you all the way up to the castle on the hill which has since been turned into a youth hostel. Of course the weather is completely unpredictable and it would go from sunny and 80 degrees to raining and 65 degrees and b/c of my unrelenting luck while we were hiking it was sunny and hot and the second we were done and sat down for a cocktail it started sprinkling. Nice.

The town is surrounded by mountains on 3 sides and the river and on the mountains are vineyards. Wade and I are still wondering how the heck they harvest these grapes b/c it is super steep but it sure makes for some great pictures!

The next day we rented bikes for a ride up the Rheine river. There was a castle in St. Goar that I wanted to tour and St. Goar is approximately 10 miles north with small towns and castles all along the way. The ride was very scenic and beautiful!

Right before we got to the castle (as we are climbing a HUGE hill/mountain) it starts raining on us. We promptly ditch the bikes and try to find a place to hide out and stay relatively dry. Luckily, the weather in Germany seems to change very quickly and the rain only lasted about 5-10 minutes but we still managed to get pretty dang wet. Once it stopped raining we explored the castle which was very cool. It was huge and had little tunnels and pathways everywhere!

You gently cusp the balls...

As we were nearing the end of our castle tour we noticed some storm clouds quickly approaching. We thought we could quickly grab our bikes and get down the hill/mountain into the town and run into a bar until it passed over. But oh were we so wrong. It opened up on us and we got SOAKED for the 2nd time that day.

Once the rain quit we headed back to Bacharah and treated ourselves to some much needed delicious strudel. Oh yeah, it was gooooood.

Since the day was still young we thought we'd buy a bottle of wine and hike up the other side of the path that we didn't get to the day before. We reached what we thought was the top of the path and popped the bottle open and soak up the gorgeous view. We soon realized we were wrong (again) and that the trail continued up farther. Much much farther. So we continued on and enjoyed our wine.

We're classy in that we drink straight from the bottle.

Seriously, just look at that view for a bit. Stunning! We still aren't sure if we ever reached the end of the trail, but it was getting late, we were getting hungry (and drunk) and we still needed to get back down so we turned around and headed back for some dinner and drinks.

Bacharach was a beautiful little town that was a quiet and relaxing stop on our vacation. I'd definitely suggest it to someone looking for a little romance and relaxation, however I'd say 2 days max (at least for me, I like a little action after a bit!)