After the onslaught of busy cities so far into the trip Alison assured me that Bacharach would change all that, so I came in with pretty high expectations of the cosy little town on the Rhine, though with my trademark level of skepticism.
We got off the train with a handful of other travelers into and otherwise unmanned train station, by the time I got my pack on appropriately the place was a ghost town. Honestly, there are no employees here, simply a rather picky ticket vending machine (more on that later). Alison was right so far, this was not like the other cities we’d visited so far on this trip. Definitely more my speed.
We had reservations at hotel Kranenturm, the directions from the station were pretty simple, go to main street, right, 3rd street right… Right on… By the time we reached the hotel we had seen more than half the town. The streets were tiny, all cobblestone, and lined with craft shops and “cute” restaurants. The place clearly thrived off the tourists that come to stay at the youth hostel in the castle that was situated high above the town, and various hotels and pensions scattered around town.
Arriving at the hotel we met our host Fatima, a former teacher turn hotel owner who was more than happy to share her story, the story of the town, and anything else the tourist in us needed to know to fully take in Bacharach. A host in the truest sense of the word, she certainly made us feel welcome and at home while we are there. A stark contrast to the hotels we stayed in at the cities. I couldn’t recommend the place enough, though don’t take my novice travelers opinion for it, the place also comes highly recommended by Rick Steeves (been on his list of places to stay for 25 years Fatima told us), who just so happened to be there one of the nights we were there… True story…
Anyway, by the time we got settled in it was fairly late, so we decided to take a little walk and have some diner. We ended up at Posthof, a former seat of the Templars, now restaurant. Our waiter was awesome, the place was pretty full, he appeared to be the only one working there, and was on top of everything. Easily the best service we’d had since we left home. Food was good, and the local beer was also really good. We didn’t notice at the time but the cloister we sat in was directly below the ruins of an old cathedral, quite a beautiful sight when we noticed it the following day.
We started out the following more in the rain, heading down to the dock for our trip down the romantic region of the Rhine, we only had 1 more day there so we had to do it today despite the rain. It was beautiful, the clouds creeping around the mountains and castles really did provide an eerie backdrop for the adventure. But this was short-lived, I can’t explain it but through sheer willpower alone I believe Alison dispersed the clouds and for the first time I could remember there were blue skies and sunshine… Hey what do you know, they serve beer and pretzels on this thing…. Perfect… As cool as it was in the overcast, we had a beautiful day to be on the river in the sun… In fact I sunburnt my face… It was worth it.
We ended up in the town of rudesheim the last stop for the boat, and a pretty prototypical coastal town. It was a cute little place to be sure, but we only had an hour to get back to the boat or we’d be stuck there for another couple hours. So we grabbed a sausage to walk around with… Let me tell you about the sausages here… They’re frigging long, I think they do it that way because they cook faster when they are thin, but the bun is tiny… I’m convinced the bun is only used as a handle for the thing.. It is tiny in comparison, but delicious nonetheless.
When we got back we climbed to the castle overlooking the town and the Rhine.. It was a long exhausting climb, but worth it, they had beer up there, and a hell of a view. As I mentioned this was a youth hostel though so there were kids running around playing with wooden swords and screaming… Annoying lil pests but I didn’t care too much at the time.
We had diner at the hotel that night, Rick Steeves thought it was a good idea to interrupt while we were eating though, the nerve… The tables around us were full and the people were hooting and hollering. It’s all good though it was a short visit, and kind of neat that he was there, seeing as many of the people were there because of his books and shows.
If you’re in this part of the world you absolutely must see this place, it is so charming and full of history that I don’t know how any traveller could have a bad time there.
