Travels with Sarah

Bacharach and St. Goar in the Rhine Valley

It was our dream that if we planned a trip lasting months, one or more of our adult children would join us for awhile. Sarah finally made this a reality when she flew into Frankfurt to spend a week with us. We camped at Sonnenstrand Camping right on the Rhine river outside Bacharach. She stayed in a lovely hotel that straddles the old city walls in an area of such pretty houses, it’s called Malerwinkel “Painter’s Corner.” We followed part of the RS guided walk through town and had delicious food at the “Altes Haus” restaurant which means “oldest house,” as its the oldest surviving house in town. We perused the book our server brought us about the town that contained pictures of the house, town, and many of its people from many years ago. Our server pointed out a picture of a very young girl and her family that lived in this very house. That same woman, she told us, was born in this house, is now 75 years old and is currently cooking our food! 

Click here for our photos, (i) for information.

The next day we finished the self-guided walk and climbed up to the tower for lovely views of the river, chapel ruins, and medieval houses. We walked along the town walls as far as we could and took lots of pictures. 

We took a river cruise to see all the towns, castles, and ruins of castles along the Rhine between Bacharach and St. Goar. Unable to find a shady seat on the deck above, we went below and relaxed listening to the descriptions of the various castles on the trip upriver, then took pictures on the way back.

The next day we took the train to St. Goar and toured Rheinfels Castle which was built in the 13th century and was once the “mightiest of Rhine Castles.” Our guide led us throughout the extensive ruins complex explaining the history of many different areas including a huge open storage room and dark tunnels we had to navigate with our phone lights to avoid tripping over uneven stone floors and stairs and/or hunched over to keep from hitting our heads on the low undulating ceilings carved out of rock. There were foxholes where the men shot through loopholes and the women reloaded. She even showed us where the toilets had once been - tourists are always fascinated with medieval plumbing, or more accurately, the lack thereof. The tour was in German so we tried to follow along using the google translate app to transcribe what she was saying which worked pretty well except while we were in tunnels or anywhere that cell signal didn’t penetrate. The tour ended in a small museum full of interesting artifacts and even models of the castle and fortifications in its heyday.  I remember exploring this castle along with my children many years ago and there’s really something special about exploring castle ruins with child-like wonder.

We ate lunch in the adjacent restaurant in a table set high up on a tiny terrace just big enough for our table for three overlooking the Rhine. With a bit of time before our next train, we wandered through St. Goar and topped our visit off with gelato. 

Cochem and Beilstein in the Mosel Valley

Burg Eltz

Cochem is a small city with an historic core. Sarah stayed in the city in an Air BnB and we stayed in a campground about 25 minutes walk away. She visited our campsite. Sarah has been infatuated with all the fruit on the trees, vines and bushes everywhere we've  gone. She wants to taste everything but our fruit identification skills aren’t up to the challenge.  

Our main destination here was Burg Eltz which is Rick Steves’ favorite castle in all of Europe. It is far from the Mosel River and far from any major towns. Its lack of strategic importance is the reason it still stands when most other castles were destroyed by Napoleon's armies. The castle had been home to the same family possibly since the 12th century. The tour allowed us to visit the beautifully furnished and decorated rooms in two of the three towers but we weren’t allowed to take pictures except in the treasury.

Beilstein is a cute small town along the Mosel river. We toured the town, enjoyed the small but informative Jewish Museum, climbed up to the top of the hill to visit the ruins of their castle and climbed a bit further to take in the lovely hilltop views of the vineyards, town, and river.

Frankfurt

After those charming towns, the city of Frankfurt felt more like any other city. There were some interesting historic buildings but they mostly they were rebuilt after the war to resemble the originals. We wandered the city and found the Holocaust Memorial and located the marker for Anne (Annelise) Frank. Then we walked along the river and Sarah found Historisches restaurant zum Storch. It had been a restaurant since 1704 and was run by current family since 1960’s. After dinner we sadly said goodbye to Sarah. It was fantastic traveling with her, she brought a new spark to our tour and reminded us how lucky we are that we don't have to go back to work!