Page 489 - Lonely Planet Europe’s Best Trips (Travel Guide)

toll. The island makes for arched gateways under
b Kaub a fabulous picnic spot. the train tracks and you’ll
Kaub is the gateway to Alongside Kaub’s car find yourself in a medieval
one of the river’s iconic ferry dock you can hop on old town filled with half-
sights. Like something out a little Fährboot (propelled timbered mansions.
It’s possible to walk
boat; adult/child €2.50/1;
of a fairy tale, 1326-built,
boat-shaped toll castle hevery 30min 10am-6pm almost all the way around
Pfalzgrafstein (www.burg- Tue-Sun Apr-Oct, 10am-5pm Mar, the centre on top of the
walls. The lookout tower
10am-5pm Sat & Sun Nov, Jan
pfalzgrafenstein.de; adult/child
€3/2; h10am-6pm Tue-Sun & Feb, closed Dec) passenger on the upper section of the
ferry (it only runs from
wall affords panoramic
Apr-Oct, 10am-5pm Mar, 10am-
5pm Sat & Sun Nov, Jan & Feb, this side of the river). views.
closed Dec), with distinctive The Drive » From Kaub, Dating from 1421,
white-painted walls, red take the car ferry across to the Zum Grünen Baum
trim, and slate turrets, Rhine’s western bank and head (www.weingut-bastian- GERMANY 34 ROMANTIC RHINE
perches on a narrow south on the B9 for 3km to bacharach.de; Oberstrasse
island in the middle of the Bacharach. 63; hnoon-midnight Apr-Oct,
Rhine. A once-dangerous reduced hours Nov-Mar)
rapid here (since modi- c Bacharach serves some of Bacha-
fied) forced boats to use rach’s best whites in
rustic surrounds. Its
the right-hand side of the Tiny Bacharach conceals
river, where a chain forced its considerable charms nearby Vinothèque (www.
ships to stop and pay a behind a 14th-century weingut-bastian-bacharach.de/
wall. Enter one of the thick vinothek; Koblenzer Strasse 1;
CRUISING THE RHINE
If you’d like to let someone else drive for a while and get a different perspective of
the Rhine, it’s easy to park up and hop on a cruise boat.
From about Easter to October (winter services are very limited), passenger ships
run by KD (Köln-Düsseldorfer; %0221-208 8318; www.k-d.com) link Rhine villages on a set
timetable:
» You can travel to the next village or all the way between Mainz and Koblenz (one-
way/return €50/55, downstream Mainz to Koblenz/upstream Koblenz to Mainz
5½/eight hours).
» Within the segment you’ve paid for (for example, Boppard–Rüdesheim, which
costs €25.40/26.80 one-way/return), you can get on and off as often as you like,
but make sure to ask for a free stopover ticket each time you disembark.
» Children up to the age of four travel free, while those up to age 13 are charged a
flat fee of €6 regardless of distance.
» Return tickets usually cost only slightly more than one-way.
» To bring along a bicycle, there’s a supplement of €2.80.
Several smaller companies also send passenger boats up and down the river:
Bingen-Rüdesheimer (www.bingen-ruedesheimer.com)
Hebel Linie (www.hebel-linie.de)
Loreley Linie (www.loreley-linie.com)
Rössler Linie (www.roesslerlinie.de)

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