Bacharach

My hostel..the castle!!!

I had an amazing time in Bacharach...what a great place!

It is a really small town on the Rhine River between Mainz and Kiblenz. Very medieval looking, very picturesque...walking down the cobblestone streets was like taking a trip back in time.
I stayed in a hostel that is actually a renovated castle called Burg Castle...my directions from the train station being: Get off train, turn right at the church, look up, start climbing.

Hiking up to my hostel castle!

View from the top!

My dorm room.

Climb I did...about 20 minutes straight up with a 45lb backpack. Now THAT was a workout! I earned my dinner but it was well worth it!

The next day didn't go exactly as planned, but turned out to be a really great day.

I planned to go on a Rhine cruise then to St. Goar and check out Rheinfels Castle there, only to learn that the castle is shut down to the public until Saturday. I was very disappointed but decided to hop a train and go to St. Goar anyway to at least take a look at the outside  in hopes that a brilliant plan on what to do instead would come to me.
At the train station I ran into some american tourists who said that they went to Marksborg castle yesterday and it was really good...the only problem was that it was on the opposite side of the river and I had no idea how to get there (they had driven so had no idea either).

My new goal: Get to the other side of the river.

When I  got to St Goar I came upon a beer stein shop a bought a really cool one...not a cheap tourist souvenir, one but a real one. I was so excited and then as I was walking along the pier back to the train station I noticed some tourists standing near one of the docks waiting. I waited nearby hoping a boat would come by and not 5 minutes later a ferry pulled up. I haphazardly jumped on ...not knowing it's destination or even if I was supposed to be on it....Turns out I enjoyed beautiful 2.5 hour Rhine cruise on the top deck while I took pictures of castles and suntanned! Then when it pulled into a small town I hoped off. Better yet, no one ever asked me for money or to see a ticket!  So yeah for me! Free cruise! I think I was a castaway as all the other tourists, about 50 of them, seemed to be familiar with each other..oh well, no one questioned my presence there.

Now my new first order was to find out where I was...turns out there is no way to ask someone that without looking like an idiot.  I was told I am now in the town of Rudeshein......where is that you ask?! Well, it's on the other side of the river!!!
My excitement of being on the right side to visit Marksborg Castle was only momentarily clouded by thoughts of how to get back over to the other side at the end of the day...oh, well.....Castle first, worry about that later.

The castle was super cool and was a good 30 minute hike up from a town called Braubach. I am just burning up the calories these last 2 days!
I showed up just in time for the last guided tour of the day. It was only in German but a nice fellow tourist was nice enough to translate into English for me!

View from Marksborg Castle.

I hoped back on the train at the end of the tour and the nice train ticket checker gave me directions back to Bacharach. It turns out there is a train bridge up ahead in a town called Koblenz and then a train change there. I even managed to find a ticket counter in Koblenz in between my trains and pre-book my Munich trip today.

I was just tripping over horseshoes all day!

Well, I just arrived in Munich and now much find food! I'm starving. Tomorrow I plan to go to the Dachau concentration camp.