charismatic megafauna since 1985

Bacharach

It’s a small wine/tourist village on the Rhine River, between Cologne and Koblenz). Only about 1000 people live there. For me, the draw was 1) getting to spend a bit of time on the Rhine 2) getting to stay in a castle! At the top of the hill in town there’s an ancient castle, Burg Stahleck, that’s been turned into a youth hostel. To be honest, it was mostly that second reason that drew me there.

I got into town after dark after spending the morning in Berlin. It’s a pretty steep 15-minute hike up the hill, and I was glad that I only had a small backpack to carry. When I checked in and went to my room, I tried to open the door but in only moved a couple inches. “Hello?” came from inside the room. “Hi there! I’m your new roommate” I replied, still on the opposite side of the door. “Oh, one sec…”

I heard the sounds of furniture being moved around; about 5 minutes later the door opened. It was a girl and a guy from the University of Oregon (they didn’t know Price or Tara), and they had made a fort in the room thinking that they’d be the only ones (not a bad assumption, just wrong this time). They’re taking some time off school before they start a study abroad program in Germany; they’ve got more time to travel than I do.

The next day, after a leisurely breakfast of cheese, bread and jam. I took the train up to St. Goar. There’s another castle there, Burg Rheinfels. Unfortunately for me it closed for the season about a week before I got there, but I didn’t find that out until I’d hiked up to it. I took some pictures and hiked back down into the town.

My other plan for the day was to take a ferry along the Rhine to see some of the sights along the (so-called) Romantic Rhine. I didn’t find it particularly romantic, but I suppose few things are when you’re doing them solo. There were a lot more castles to see though, and some legends that were relayed through the Rick Steves’ photocopies that I’d brought with me to follow along on the ferry ride.

When I got back to Bacharach, I used the last 45 minutes or so of daylight to take a tour (thanks again to Rick Steves) of the town. It took me along the old city wall, by some of the important shops in town (including the post office where I mailed some postcards) and up to a very scenic vista where I could look over the town as well as at the old watchtowers.

After that, it was back to my castle for some all-I-could-eat noodles and tofu-pineapple curry and some sleep. I had to get up around 6 to pack my stuff up and hike back down the mountain to catch my train here to Munich.