Wandering – Oberwesel to Boppard
Posted Saturday 23rd 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 story covers the Oberwesel to Boppard section of the Rhine Gorge and is the second part of a series of travel write-ups covering that year’s adventures, and follows on from the first part that covered Frankfurt to Oberwesel.
Bacharach
We had decided that our extra day would enable us to get the train back to Bacharach (opposite Lorchhausen), a right bank village described as a delightful medieval village surrounded by at 14th century wall. We even decided that if the weather held, we would walk the 6 km back to Oberwesel in the afternoon. As such we didn’t hurry down to breakfast but we were still the first there to find a table labelled ‘Gaste Max und Sue’ – we didn’t have any surnames at this stage. A typically good German breakfast set us up with quite some time before the short run in the train to the south.
At Bacharach we, along with quite a few others went wandering the streets as the locals slowly opened up — we were rather early it seems. Sue espied Information in the Posthof building, so we were able to get town maps and more importantly the walking map that would take us through to Boppard — up to this point we were going to walk off the edge of the first map some time tomorrow.
Bacharach was just waking up when we arrived.
One of the charming German dinner habits is to decant wine into small glass pichets, which allows you to transfer it to your glass as you wish. We found a purveyor of these things at Bacharach so had half a dozen sent home for us — next time you visit remind us and we will get them out.
In time the need for mid morning sustenance resulted in us making a long steep climb to the 12th century castle (Burg Stahleck), which is now a tourist hostel, via the imposing skeletal ruins of the gothic Wernerkapelle. Intermittent rain and an obstinate greyness rather limited views from the Burg – something like 8 km of the river would be visible on a clear day. On the descent we met a most charming and urbane German gentleman who spent much time chatting with us about the area — he splits his life between residences in Bavaria and the Rhine and took the opportunity to sharpen his English language skills while telling us so.
The skelton of Wernerkapelle stands above the village, but well below Burg Stahleck (not in view).
Back in Bacharach itself we made an executive decision to have a proper lunch rather than a walker’s lunch — a pretty little flower covered awning sheltering a small row of tables set with red and white check tablecloths looks too tempting to ignore. A light soup followed by stuffed capsicum or sausage and sauerkraut were an entirely acceptable way of passing an hour or so.
Lunch at the delightful little street cafe.
Around 14·00 we decided to set off walking back to Oberwesel, but took the road on the inland side of the railway since it was closer. Bad mistake — there was no way to get over the railway and the road we were on, once out of sight of Bacharach, started climbing up above the river heading for unknown places. Somewhat reluctantly we returned and having covered around half the distance we planned in any case we then decided to take the train back north instead.
Being Monday, our hotel did not do dinner so we had to go out looking for alternatives — finding many bars and places with light food but nothing of substance until finally finishing up in the hotel opposite ours. It was not as good as we have become accustomed to.
Oberwesel to St Goar
We rose early, as much for aching legs as anything else, although we did not plan to leave early — it was only a relatively short distance to St Goar and we wanted to have lunch on the way overlooking Loreley’s Rock. This time we were welcomed to the breakfast table with a ‘Gaste Michell’ sign rather than the chummier version of yesterday.
Looking forward to the day’s walk – view up Rathausstrasse to the dirt track that would take us upward.
We had plenty of time to finish packing, acquire the various makings for lunch and get a few other odds and sods that we needed before really setting forth at 09·40. The route, now the Rheinburgenweg marked with a red squiggle on a white background, lay along the main street (Rathausstrasse) to a level crossing from where a track veered off, sidling up an open hillside among the abundant vines. At the foot of this section a group of elderly Germans were getting organised for their day out. The route ascended for a while to a junction where a sign pointed in two directions, forward via the shorter route and backward up a longer zig zag route, to our destination — the Loreleyblick overlooking Loreley’s Rock.
Sue pushes on while the going is still good.
The forward route, being the shorter by a (nominal) eight hundred metres, got the nod on our part, noting afterward that the German group did likewise. For a while things continued normally, although by degrees the track degenerated into a narrow walking track that included a couple of goat gates in the increasingly steep countryside. When you get into country that is best utilised for goats then it is time to start being concerned. Things kept getting more rugged with the narrow track often having vertical drop offs on one side and cliff walls on the other.
The going is getting tougher, with an increasing amount of vertical stuff to contend with.
In one part we came to a section descending a rock face with wire rope hand holds and rock bolts for steps, at which point Sue became decidedly uneasy. The German group caught up to us while we took a short pause, which at least allowed a bit of respite while they went through. I took Sue’s backpack and we rather cautiously worked our way through the worst parts (involving some fairly hairy ascents), in the end topping out in a pleasant picnic area where the foot track re-joined the longer route that we had earlier ignored. We were ever so grateful to find a sign there advising that having a fear of heights, not being sure footed and a few other things should deter you from using the short track — but of course for us it was at the wrong end of the section.
Max ploughs on toward the top in country that even for him was rather demanding.
The contrast couldn’t have been greater — from a difficult broken cliff scramble to a pleasant meander through fields and copses in just a few metres. In places it was impossible to believe that only a short distance away was a major gorge containing a river, two pairs of railway and two roads, the meadows and copses undulating off toward the eastern horizon providing no visual clues. In fact, it was with quite some surprise we found a bench seat beside the track that had a view through the trees across the gorge to Loreley’s Rock itself, there being no warning we were so close to our lunch time objective.
We took possession of this wonderfully located gazebo for a rather drawn out lunch.
The Loreleyblick lookout, a short distance further, is a delightfully set up area with adequate amenities scattered behind a pleasant tree sheltered lookout. We took possession of a small gazebo teetering on the brink of the cliffs for lunch. When we arrived, the place was all but deserted (it was not quite midday) but all too soon we were in the company of a school group, which was well behaved but noisy, and a number of individual walkers.
Sue looks straight across to Loreley’s Rock and its twin flag poles.
Loreley’s Rock was directly opposite, maybe 500 metres in a direct line, while the now very narrow and sharply curving Rhine lay maybe 150 metres almost directly below us. Watching the downstream shipping broadsiding around the river bends was quite entertaining while the unending numbers of trains added to it all, or at least Max thought so. Railways on both sides needed tunnels to get through the gorge while shipping was controlled by a signalling system to compensate for the lack of visibility around the corner.
By the time we packed up and left this wonderful spot we were almost on our own again, although we did meet a couple of women from Canberra, walking the other way, just around the corner. The track followed a rough gravel road sharply down for a time before it became a single file walking track which meandered back uphill until it had regained all our lost elevation — a most frustrating state of affairs for walkers.
A glimpse across to the southern part of St Goarhausen and one of its castles.
Hereabouts be fields of grain bordered with a scattering of red poppies. In some aspects, the path onwards was very reminiscent of Burgundy on the way to Nolay in 2004. Inevitably at this time of the year, wherever the soil has been disturbed, there will be red poppies and, in this respect, we were not disappointed.
Sue meanders between the crops and wild poppies
In time we came to a place that overlooked St Goar below us and St Goarhausen on the opposite side of the river in a picture postcard setting that was in distinct contrast to the deeply cut gorge earlier. The only difficulty was that the village still lay a considerable way below us, but as it turned out the track found a way to combine a path with intermittent steps so that our arrival into St Goar was relatively painless. In all the distance from Loreleyblick to just above St Goar we met only one other walking group, albeit comprising maybe 20 walkers out for a jolly day outing.
Picture postcard view of St Goar (left) and St Goarhausen (right) from the top of our descent to the former.
Such was our surging confidence that we sat down in St Goar for a well earned coffee prior to even trying to find Information and lodging for the night. When we did finally front up to Information they found a B and B for us – Bei Alex. It was described as being a bit north of the main town up a side road. Alex herself came and collected us in her Renault — a bit of service we did not expect but could hardly refuse, any more than the beer that was offered when we were suitably installed in our very pleasant room.
We went through the usual washing, washing and a nap routine until heading back into town around 18·00. Sue did a modicum of shopping (and thus committed us to another visit to a post office) before engaging in a bit of exploration. As with all these Rhine gorge villages the main part is along the river on a narrow shelf with extensions back inland in side gullies and re-entrants.
In time we settled on a slightly low-brow sort of dining place with an interesting menu — and it turned out to be quite good. A dessert offering of ice-cream and hot raspberry sauce was an interesting variation from convention. We made a decision during the evening that we would stay an extra day in Boppard (next day’s destination) and forget Heidelberg altogether — one of the advantages of going free-range.
We covered around 9 km, but with slow going early in the piece, a long lunch stop and the usual slow walking we managed to take just under five hours elapsed time for the journey. The day was fine and mostly sunny — quite a contrast with the day before which had intermittent rain all day.
St Goar to Boppard
The distance to Boppard along the river was 14 km but via the red squiggle track it was almost double that. It was not too difficult to decide to go the short way, particularly after we woke to intermittent rain and low cloud. Accordingly, we were in no great hurry to get down to breakfast although, as seems to be the custom, we were still the first there. Alex engaged us in vigorous conversation in between tending to us and the other three guests, having learned English in America a while back when her husband was in the German military.
Looking back to Bei Alex, our home for the night, as we set out for a wet trudge northwards.
We set off around 09·30 with the backpacks secure under their little raincoats. It was not long before we followed suit. The route was along the bike and walking track between the highway and the river. As might be expected it was near enough to level and was all hard surface stuff — no forest floor or malleable earth on this section.
The river km posts were a handy marker of progress and also allowed us to identify our progress on the map, which seemed to have anticipated such an eventuality by showing the river distances. We started at 557 km and knew Boppard was at 571 km — handy references. The track was a wide path subdivided into a walking and a bike section except where it had to unavoidably narrow on bridges and the like.
Trains were an ever-present part of today, being only a few metres from our walking path the whole way.
It was fairly straight forward walking, made more interesting by the passing watercraft and trains as well as periodic villages and attendant ruins. Among these was an empty riverside hotel constructed to look like a landlocked ship.
On the other side ships were equally an ever-present companion. Here the elegant paddlewheeler Goethe heads upstream on its daily run.
After 10 fairly wet kilometres we came to Bad Salzig, a riverside village of some substance which had a Backerei which had the usual amazing array of breads and pastries, where we had our first second morning breakfast although in hindsight it was probably early morning lunch. It was not only a convenient time to rest feet weary from walking the hard pavement but also the rain retreated for the time being allowing us to dry out during the remaining walking to Boppard.
Bad Salzig would be hard to miss at any time. For us it provided a very welcome break.
There was only another 4 km to go but by the time we reached the fringes of Boppard our collective feet were really complaining. Perhaps fortunately the place we were heading for (en spec — no prior booking) was at that end of town, was well signposted and immediately gave us a good room for two nights without a blink. This place was much more backpacker than any of the previous places we had stayed at, but was quiet, comfortable and clean.
There was a sense of considerable achievement when we stopped — partly from having completed the first stage of our planned walk, and partly because we were now about to embark on the next stage, via a short diversion through Paris. Having settled in Sue had a nap while I did the wash / wash routine.
Boppard town was quite a lively place, made better by the rain clouds now heading away to the south.
Sometime mid-afternoon we went out for what might charitably be called a late second lunch, having more or less forgotten to have a first one at all. Given we now had a calorie credit we felt justified in indulging in a bit of guilt free culinary decadence. Suitably replenished we found the Post Office, despatched another box of goodies home then went over to the station opposite to make bookings on the train to Paris.
Things have moved on from having people behind counters to make bookings with — after some time we worked out that tickets (which we didn’t need) were sold from machines on the platform, but reservations were handled by DB’s agent in town which was — the post office. By now the clock had ticked just a few too many times so we put the reservation thing off until the morrow.
From there we wandered down to the river at this (northern) end of town where a quite elegant promenade overlooked the great 180° bend in the river as it churned its way toward the sea. It seemed like a good idea for a while until it started to rain again, gently at first but with increasing intensity that ultimately drove us under proper cover.
It seems that waterfront is the place to be in Boppard, just like a few other places we know.
In the fullness of time, we went looking for a place for dinner — choosing a riverside restaurant only a block from our pensione. The restaurant was quite a large place, apparently attached to a hotel, but despite this we were the only diners other than a foursome who were there when we arrived. I chose calf (veal) with fried potato slices, grilled vegetables and Béarnaise sauce (all good), while Sue had schnitzel with parmesan sauce (too salty).
The car ferry (Autofahre), which came and went from more or less outside the restaurant, was a strange small vessel in which the cars loaded from the side with a capacity of maybe 6 cars. When it cast off it turned to point upstream a bit toward the opposite bank and simply let the quite substantial current do most of the work. Mind you if the engine ever failed mid-stream it is likely that it would be in Koblenz within the hour, rather than the opposite bank in five minutes.
The distance covered was a hard 14 km and took a bit under four hours elapsed time. Slow walking was not part of the plan this day — rain and unyielding pavement putting paid to such lofty aspirations.
We had completed our first walk, 56 km in around 19 walking hours, and now had some travelling to do, via Paris would you believe, to our next walk in the Loire and Cher valleys
