If you feel like a different kind of European holiday the Rheinsteig hiking path is worth considering, 320 kms. of spectacular scenery, in most places high above the UNESCO listed Upper Middle Rhine Valley. There are many tour companies who will book your hotels and carry your luggage between the hotels each day. You can choose to do individual sections or the grand tour.
Having just ridden the cycleway along the river I would do it by staying in Koblenz, that city makes an excellent base, take a train to your starting point and then another train back to Koblenz at the end of the day. If the weather is not good there are plenty of options in Koblenz.
We did two sections, one during the bike ride and the other on the second last day of our stay in Germany. The first was an out and back from St Goarhausen. The path rises steeply from the village passing Kastel Katz until you reach the Lorelei overlook, then back down to the river, crossing to St Goar on the other side and our hotel. The total distance was about 7 kilometres.
The second section was an out and back from Wiesbaden, total hiking distance was 22 kms. We started by taking the 275 bus from the Wiesbaden Hauptbahnhof to the small village of Schlangenbad [snake bath]. This local bus passes many of the main parts of the city, it takes about 35 minutes and costs €3.60 per person. From Schlangenbad we hiked back to Bierbrich and then took another bus the remaing 4 kms. back to Wiesbaden. Along the way we were treated to spectacular views of the Rhine, beautiful forest trails, vineyards and the final few kilometres beside the Rhine until we reached Bierbrich Castle. It was a very enjoyable and memorable day. We had expected to find a small restaurant in one of the villages for our lunch but even though it was midweek everything was closed until we got close to Bierbrich around 4.00pm.
There is an excellent book available which gives very detailed descriptions about each section, it also gives you a link to GPX files for the various sections. We downloaded those to my Nexus 7 and used the Locus map app. Signposting was good and we only needed to use the GPS a few times. Locus uses maps stored on your device so no wifi or mobile signal is required and it's a free app.
The book is called Rheinsteig Hiking by Ulrike Poller and Wolfgang Todt, it's in English.
The second section was an out and back from Wiesbaden, total hiking distance was 22 kms. We started by taking the 275 bus from the Wiesbaden Hauptbahnhof to the small village of Schlangenbad [snake bath]. This local bus passes many of the main parts of the city, it takes about 35 minutes and costs €3.60 per person. From Schlangenbad we hiked back to Bierbrich and then took another bus the remaing 4 kms. back to Wiesbaden. Along the way we were treated to spectacular views of the Rhine, beautiful forest trails, vineyards and the final few kilometres beside the Rhine until we reached Bierbrich Castle. It was a very enjoyable and memorable day. We had expected to find a small restaurant in one of the villages for our lunch but even though it was midweek everything was closed until we got close to Bierbrich around 4.00pm.
There is an excellent book available which gives very detailed descriptions about each section, it also gives you a link to GPX files for the various sections. We downloaded those to my Nexus 7 and used the Locus map app. Signposting was good and we only needed to use the GPS a few times. Locus uses maps stored on your device so no wifi or mobile signal is required and it's a free app.
The book is called Rheinsteig Hiking by Ulrike Poller and Wolfgang Todt, it's in English.
