I said goodbye to Frankfurt early and took a scenic train ride towards my first stop, Bacharach. The town is tiny- so small it doesn't even have a grocery store. Amazingly, Bacharach is one of the larger towns along Rhine and survives entirely on tourism, wine, and its own beauty. The small restaurants and hotels are wonderfully classic German and the Rhine is beautiful.
I had arranged to spend the night in the town's castle that was converted to a youth hostel in the 1920s - or so I thought. The castle was a long, steep, and slick hike up from the train station, and the half-hour climb while carrying my luggage was painful. Finally, I reached the top - only to find that I didn't have a reservation. I swore that I had a confirmation, but after going through my email, I could not find the last email that I thought I had sent with my credit card information. It appeared there had been some operator error on my part, and of course, the hostel was full. Darn. I had really wanted to sleep in a castle. On the other hand, I had somewhat expected this to happen at some point - with 64 days of hotel, train, and airplane reservations, I knew that one kink in the travel plans was bound to happen. Fortunately, the missing confirmation was not a disaster, as another hostel a couple of towns over had room, and I was able to book there for the night.
I sadly made the climb down from the castle, and focused on the relieving fact that I wouldn't need to climb back up again. After reaching the town, I was surprised to find how empty the beautiful city was. I was starting to regret booking the new hostel so quickly after the number of places I passed by with "Zimmer frei" signs - I might have been able to strike a good deal and enjoyed the evening in the beautiful spot.
I decided to recover from the climb and my disappointment with a Rhine valley wine tasting. I popped into a local wine house, and had the place to myself with only a waitress and the owner on hand. The dry Rieslings were wonderful - why is it that the only Rieslings that are shipped to the US are the sticky sweet ones? The Germans are clearly keeping the good stuff for themselves. Smart.
I found the dry rose to be nice, too, but the red wines were far too light-bodied for me. The tasting was fun, and afterwards I spent a bit of time admiring the city before heading to my new hostel down the river in St. Goar. After a 10 minute train ride, I reached the town, which was slightly smaller and less charming than Bacharach. After a much less steep climb to my hostel, which was sadly not a castle but sat directly beneath one, I checked in for the night. The hostel was on the older side, but I had a well-priced room all to myself. The room included an all-you-can-eat buffet dinner, which turned out to have both the ambiance and quality of a middle school cafeteria lunch. Not surprisingly, half of the hostel's guests appeared to actually be middle schoolers. German Hoteling International youth hostels tend to attract more families and school groups and less of the young and friendly backpacking crowd. While they offer decent and clean facilities, I've found I enjoy the less institutional-feeling and often more fun hostels, but for some reason Hoteling International seems to have a monopoly on the Rhine valley.
The second disappointment, after the food, was that I had an assigned seat at dinner next to a German middle-aged man...with no sense of humor. He was on vacation and biking along the Rhine valley, but still seemed to have no intention of enjoying himself. Another Swiss biker at my table was much more pleasant, but spoke little English. After giving up on enjoying either the conversation or my spaghetti bolognese, I defected from the table to escape to the town. Not much was open, except a wine bar that turned out to have wonderful goulash soup. After a couple of glasses of wine, I felt ready to tackle the hostile hostel again. I spent my evening on the hostel terrace watching the sun set and darkness fall over the Rhine before heading back to my private bunk beds.
Tomorrow is my last full day of the trip, and I'm hoping for a good ending!
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