Wandering – Rudesheim to Oberwesel
Posted Wednesday 20th October 2021
Contents
Between the end of May and end of June 2012 Sue and Max enjoyed a tour to Europe that was designed around three multi-day walks that in aggregate amounted to 180 km over 16 walking days. This is the story of the first few days of those walks.
Frankfurt to Rudesheim
We flew into Frankfurt early on the morning of 30th May after an appalling trip with Qantas. Once clear of their clutches we made our way to the railway, located near Terminal 1, and headed, via a couple of well coordinated trains, to Rudesheim on the right bank of the Rhine roughly half way between Mainz and Koblenz. This was to be the starting point for our first walk.
We knew a modest amount about the detail of our walk from Julia Bradbury’s DVD and the Lonely Planet guide to Germany, although we had no maps and little idea of the detailed route. So, as always, the first thing after arrival at any new place is to head for Information. Outside Rudesheim station was one of those large poster boards with a town map, and there at the opposite end of town, behind what might have been the Rathaus if it actually had a Rathaus was Information. So off we trotted, along the waterfront road which is also the railfront road, to the designated place. With a modicum of difficulty, we found it, or rather where it used to be — a notice on the front door letting us know we had already unwittingly passed it and now should walk half way back to the station to find it at its new location.
Street grazing in Rudesheim.
It has to be said that when we did find it, they (along with every one of the Information and Office de Tourism that we visited) were extremely helpful, providing maps, local brochures and advising on hotels as suited the occasion. In this case we acquired a map which, as we should have anticipated, indicated a plethora of walking tracks on both sides of the river, all identified by symbols. Our main track on the right bank was the Rheinsteig, a long distance track from somewhere up north to Wiesbaden (and maybe beyond), identified by a white wave on a blue background, although we also followed bits of right bank yellow goblet and green grape tracks at various times.
We had pre-booked two nights’ accommodation at the Hohn Hotel (the only ‘walking’ hotel where we booked in advance), which turned out to be at the top of Oberstrasse above the main part of town. It was quite a pleasant place with a very good breakfast included.
Hildegards Abbey above Rudesheim.
We spent the remainder of that day, which in fact was most of it, and all the next getting acclimatised, visiting some of the sights, notably Hildegard’s Abbey high above the town, and even doing a Swiss knife lunch as practice, although since I forgot the knife, it had to be more Bacchanalian with hand shredded makings.
Rudesheim to Lorch
We are on the blue wave Rheinsteig while Santiago is only 2975 km the other way.
The hotel had a set of scales so we were able to confirm that we started walking with Sue’s total burden 6·5 kg while I had somewhat more at 9·5 kg plus a litre or two of water. Although Walking Rule 1 states that we should leave early we didn’t go until 09·30 on this day — that being the time that the Seilbahn (cable car) started. Its advantage was that it gained us 200 metres in elevation, 1400 metres horizontally and took us to the imposing Germania monument. In the intervening time we visited the internet cafe, which opened a bit late but made up for it with complementary coffee, and also visited the Backerei to buy supplies for lunch.
Our cable car swings along above the vines on its way to Germania.
We were the first travellers on the Seilbahn so at least we were on time for our late start. The Germania monument was encased in protective sheeting during some sort of restoration (its 125th birthday was around the time we were there) so that was a bit of a non event. However, we found our first blue wave track marker and off we went. We didn’t find another marker and in time realised we had lost the track almost as soon as we had found it. However, by some skilful navigation, an attribute one of us became quite noted for, we walked back onto the proper track a kilometre or so along through the forest.
Pleasant forest walking but not actually on the Rheinsteig.
At various points there were lookouts to castles,or their ruins, that are rather numerous in this part of the country — the Mausturm (Mouse Tower) mid river, Ruine Ehrenfels down below us and Rossel which was almost encircled by the track and therefore impossible to miss.
Rossel is an unmissable feature of the path high above the river.
In a delightful part of the track way above a bend in the river we found a dog kennel on stilts. Closer inspection revealed had a credit card swipe inside which would give you a glass which you could fill with the wine of your choice. We thought 10:00 was rather early, even for a German yard arm.
Sue is intrigued by the dog kennel, but is about to find out that it is a wine dispensary.
At one place in the forest, we came across an ornamental gazebo — except it was actually the entry to a stone above ground walking tunnel that was built for the amusement of some long gone royal.
The track turned inland for a bit then twined its way past a Sessellift (chair lift) and down to Assmannshausen. We thought the Sessellift might be an interesting (and relaxing) way down and in time found the attendant trimming weeds 100 metres or so away and got ourselves aboard. In the 15 minute journey there was only one other couple going the other way, otherwise it was all ours.
Descending on the chair lift we had some idea of what came next (right side) while Burg Rheinstein looks on from across the river.
Assmannshausen is a lovely little village shoe horned into a side valley, but with little in the way of mid morning bars or coffee shops, so we kept going — which in this case meant regaining the 200 vertical metres we had just chair-lifted down, although on the far side of the village. The route followed well formed zig zag tracks through the vineyards that are so prominent hereabouts — stone walling above and below with paved surfaces and in one case huge letters announcing the particular vigneron. The sun was shining, there was a pleasant breeze and the views were extravagant.
We followed the zig zag tracks through vineyards to the distant copper topped gazebo, where we had lunch.
In time we came to a copper topped gazebo (with another dog kennel nearby) where we had lunch overlooking Burg Rheinstein (castle) right opposite on the other bank. Trains came and went both sides of the river while not inconsiderable numbers of barges did the same on the river. It was notable that during this first half day and in fact all the way down river for the next week one or more castles or their remains were always in view somewhere. Lunch was our first real Swiss knife lunch — baguette, cheese and sausage cut up with the trusty knife.
After lunch we kept going, although by now we had done with the climbing pro tem and more or less were back to level walking. By degrees the vineyards dropped behind until, rather unexpectedly, we found ourselves on a rough walking track rather than an unused road, with a couple of scrambles and with a significant fall off on the low side. It was rather hard going for a bit. Sue in particular was not happy since she has trouble with such things as a result of eye problems.
The walking track has become a bit of a challenge, albeit still through very pleasant forest.
The forest through which we were walking was a mix of unfamiliar trees, most of which must have been deciduous judging from the ‘soft’ walking, but was quite entrancing just the same.
In time we found ourselves back on a road of sorts, which made a long ascent to around 300 metres. A bit of wayward map reading at this point caused some consternation on the part of the map reader in chief. From there the track generally descended slowly but with a couple of big loops inland to contour around gullies and side creeks. Much of the afternoon walking was in forest out of sight of the river, but the almost constant rumble of trains reassured us that in fact it was never far away.
Around three km before Lorch, at a time when we were starting to fade, we came to the much anticipated yellow goblet junction, where we traversed into open vine country again, with a view ahead to the village of Lorch strung out along the river. In time we arrived in the village, avoiding the shorter route through the cemetery just in case we didn’t make it out the far side.
On the Yellow Goblet track heading down to Lorch.
We found the Backerei (bakery) which was also the accommodation place, but “no room” was the stern admonishment. Information had already gone home, however the Backerei did point us somewhere up the road, and after some fairly convoluted to-ing and fro-ing via a florist we found ourselves in an attic with a shared bathroom (but no other guests to share it with) run by a lovely elderly German woman with no English, which nicely complemented our total lack of German. Despite this we got on famously and at the same time rather laid to rest our concerns about relying on find as you go accommodation.
Dinner was another matter — it seemed that the only place was between the railway and river some distance north — a road house sort of place. The food there was passable although not as good as we had become used to in Rudesheim, although the beer was still very German and refreshing. The river channel was very close to the river bank here and the barges going upstream struggled against the current, barely making walking pace, whereas going downstream they positively rushed by. One oddity was that every freight barge had a car or two parked on the aft deck — lifted on or off with a small ship mounted crane.
One advantage of walking is that you can stuff yourselves silly, knowing that it will be used up as fuel during tomorrows walk. In time we wandered back to our accommodation. We were nearly six hours on the track and covered an estimated 23 km, not including the 2·5 km of aerial cableway travel — a fairly substantial effort for a first day and, as it turned out, the longest day of all the walking days. The day had been partly cloudy but with quite a bit of smog which at times disrupted the view.
Lorch to Kaub
Apart from the impact of creaking joints and tired muscles after yesterday’s walk, we had an entirely satisfactory night and an even better breakfast served up to us by our amiable host – coffee, rolls, croissants, cheese, meat, jam and a boiled egg as befits a day of good German wanderwegging. In view of the relatively short walk to Kaub we didn’t stock up on lunch makings, but we did get a couple of charmingly decadent cherry swirls for morning tea.
We departed from near the ‘drinkenwasser’ fountain at around 09·15, rather ignoring our own go early dictum. The Rheinsteig crossed the local creek then set off inland through a part of the village. Not far out it veered off into a strange stone paved cutting that sidled up the quite step side slope — for all we know this could have been a Roman road or a cart track to by-pass the river rapids that centuries ago blocked shipping at this point. It was too well made to be an accident.
Max plods up the Roman Road little realising he will soon be crossing over his own track on the bridge.
The trail followed this for some distance but then curled around to cross back over it on an overbridge and shortly afterwards turned into a steep and very rugged walking track that made yesterday’s harder bit look a lot easier. We were introduced to the wire rope hand rail and rock bolt steps in this section — something that appeared on another day in even more demanding country.
In time we topped out at the Ruine Nollig which we rather naively originally thought we would have contoured past at a much lower level since it sits on top of the ridge. It was becoming clear that German Wanderlust is inclined to follow routes to interesting places regardless of the terrain. It also became evident that we could have continued on the ‘Roman road’ until it intersected the 20th century road and arrived up there the easy way but that is not the way walking routes work (nor should they).
The track by now was well above the river, contouring around the side of the gorge.
At least, after a short recovery break, we found ourselves on a fairly level road (well, a pair of wheel marks) that contoured for quite some distance well above the river. At Lorchhausen village the track, almost as an apology for its earlier ruggedness, took a contour route around the back rather than descend into the village — a route we thoroughly approved of.
Goat country is a reasonable definition of the terrain we were in.
Somewhere around the far side of this contour we found a pleasant little grove with a seat where we took the opportunity to have a rest and refuel with our large sticky pastries. The view was quite entrancing — a small chapel perched precariously on a promontory across the valley stood sentinel next to a delightful array of vines strung out down the absurdly steep slopes in an aesthetically pleasing pattern, while the church spire in the village poked up from the greenery to act as a lower sentinel at the far end. The rather circuitous route thus far had not really taken us very far in river distance.
Chapel and vines combine to make a picturesque backdrop as we circle round above Lorchhausen.
The track continuing on high above the river followed a more direct line for a period with lovely views across to Bacharach on the left bank, at least until it turned inland and started a gentle climb through dense woodland which in time brought us out at a cider bar buried deep in the middle of nowhere. It was closed when we arrived so we invited ourselves to use the furniture for another rest stop, during which time the proprietor arrived (on foot — there didn’t seem to be a road?) and started setting up. It was Saturday after all and we later discovered that wanderlust is a bit of a weekend obsession locally.
By now the map reader in chief had got his map reading sorted out and so we were not surprised to find ourselves on yet another forest walking track climbing steeply up to a ridge top. At least this track was a pleasant track, more or less soaring up a ridge line through the forest, rather than the rather ferocious sidling that previous tracks had provided. From the top, where we joined yet another walking road, the track descended gently almost continuously through forest and lower open country to a second Yellow Goblet junction.
Wandering slowly down the forested laneway nearing the second Yellow Goblet turnoff.
Once again, we abandoned the Rheinsteig for the yellow goblet to avoid more climbing and some unappealing extra distance. It seemed that the considerable numbers of locals ascending from Kaub had the same idea. Bit by bit the track came out into mixed vines and orchards and, as we had hoped, a cherry tree in full fruit was leaning over the track just waiting to be grazed — so we did.
Afternoon tea is about as fresh as it is possible to get.
The rather amazing Die Pfalz — a ship shaped structure standing on a low pebble island mid river — was visible for much of our descent into Kaub, adding to the litany of castles and ruins we had encountered.
The rather commanding Die Pfaltz mid river castle is probably the most identifiable of the castles on our walk.
We actually came down to river level at the station which is at the far southern end of the village. We had picked up a local accommodation guide and had decided that one of the three hotels clustered toward the north end would be the go, except that is not what the hotels thought. The first two returned a simple “nein, nein” when asked — maybe daunted by our unintelligible language skills. The third was also a non starter but the young woman there rang around until she found a place, back around a kilometre in the direction from which we had just come; the Stadt Mainz. It faced a cobbled square between the railway the steep hillside, standing shoulder to shoulder with a bunch of similar buildings
The river was only a small park and roadway beyond the railway so it was all quite compact. In the park was an imposing statue of Bluecher, he of the boots fame, who led the Prussian armies across the Rhine at this point to assist in the defeat of Napoleon. The Stadt Mainz was a small family run hotel with a smattering of English and a room in the roof which we occupied. By this time, it was rather past our lunch time, so we asked at the bar and were somewhat surprised to be given a pizza menu — it seems we were also staying at the village pizza parlour. A couple of typically enormous German beers and a pair of quite passable pizzas later found us in a much more relaxed frame of mind with half an afternoon in which to do very little, so that is what we did. A wash of all our dirty clothes (in the shower, thus saving water) and a bit of a nap were the first of many that were to follow as we trekked around pieces of Europe.
The Stadt Mainz sat at the far side of a small square, framed by the railway bridge which itself is only a few metres from the river.
We found the Information at Kaub but like the JNTO Information Centre in Sydney it is quite unattended. The information available was of limited use for walkers so we spent some time just dawdling around the village, making the acquaintance of the ferry office, having a latte or two, having an ice cream and generally just enjoying the less demanding part of a walking holiday.
We had dinner at our hotel where we were stymied by some of the items on the menu. Our host had no English so initially tried charades to illustrate what was involved, but to no avail so he then went out and rounded up a dinner guest who was bi-lingual and dragooned him into acting as interpreter. After dinner, we made use of the residual daylight following the Rheinsteig back towards where we had come from for a few hundred metres to a view point over the village and our hotel, then returned in the fading light to be surprised, as were the village dogs, by a fireworks display somewhere down near the station on the river bank.
Last colours of the setting sun reflect in the river.
Today we covered around 10 km (although it felt longer) and took a bit under four hours to do so — but that included some well practised ‘slow walking’ – the art of going at a pace that allows you to soak up the surroundings and enjoy being in new and sometimes obscure places. The day had been similar to the previous day but rather warmer as the day wore on.
Kaub to Oberwesel
This was cross the river day. There were a couple of choices but the morning Rudesheim to Koblenz ship (it was too big and elegant to be a ferry) looked to be the best option. It was a dull and rainy day so having a minimum of walking was fortuitous. We duly presented ourselves after a good night’s sleep and a moderately good breakfast, at the ferry wharf for the 10·25 sailing for Oberwesel, a whole 3 km along the river and maybe 400 metres across. In the meantime, our host from the hotel caught up with us to collect the room key — he didn’t ask and we forgot.
At the appointed hour not only did the good ship Stoltzenfels hove into view but so did a cluster of other cruise and tourist boats. As our ship came abeam it was put into reverse sufficient to hold it against the current and at a slight angle so that the river slowly pushed it up against the jetty. Around a dozen people got off and we two walkers got on. Given that our journey was downstream it is not surprising that it took a mere 10 minutes to get to Oberwesel, but even then, we had to weave through the gaggle of passenger ships going down and a bunch of barges and passenger boats coming up, while trains went past both ways on both sides.
A bunch of barges and passenger boats coming up.
We disembarked through a large crowd waiting to join, gathered a town map from the ferry office, walked 200 metres to a ‘gate’ under the railway and through the city wall to Marketplatz where our initial choice of hotel (Weinhaus Weiler) was where we hoped it might be. In fact, the proprietor was on the front steps when we arrived such that we had organised a room within a couple of minutes of arriving in Oberwesel and before we had even set foot in the hotel.
Our Oberwesel room was in the far top ‘attic’ window, overlooking the town wall, near railway, river and far railway.
Given the early hour it was not unexpected that the room was not available at that time, but later when we returned, we were offered a choice of any one of three rooms — Max unanimously chose the upper-level room that was practically on the near side railway and had a view over the river to the far side railway. In the same vein at lunch, which we had in the hotel, we were undecided which of the local Riesling offerings to take so we were feted with a wine tasting to sort the matter out. Not surprisingly were made the first of many ad hoc changes to the itinerary at this point and decided to stay two nights in this charming village.
Laneways, towers and walls encircle the town.
The day was spent wandering the narrow streets and lanes and in particular following the city walls, which are fairly intact, as much as we could.
The Oberwesel community garden, located where we would never allow such a thing.
At one point we came to the Stadt Garten — a delightful small but well tended garden where we met a lovely German group who went to some effort to talk to us about the plants that were there.
There was intermittent rain most of the day which slowed things down a bit, but as walkers we couldn’t let that stop us (or was it that we had no choice?).
Oberwesel is a place of towers and walls.
Sue found the local internet cafe — in fact a coin in the slot system at the local hospital – so was able to clear off a couple of matters back home. Dinner was in the hotel and was entirely memorable.
