(8/1 – 8/10/2025)
For this year’s family vacation, we took Sister (our daughter) and Brother (our older son) to Germany. It has been many years since our last family vacation in Germany back in 2010. This time Cutie (our younger son) stayed home to take care of the cat.
Day 1: Bacharach
We arrived in Frankfurt past noon. Then we went through the custom, got the luggage and rental car, and drove to Bacharach in the Rhine Valley. Daddy was the driver, and Sister, who took 2 semesters of German in college, was the designated navigator.
When we arrived, it was already past 3pm. We rented an apartment in Bacharach, which was actually the combination of two apartments with a total of one large living room, two dining areas, one kitchen, two bathrooms, three bedrooms, and two attic rooms. It’s plenty of space for the four of us.
Brother wanted to rest, so we and Sister went out for a quick sightseeing. Bacharach was a charming little town by the Rhine River. There was an elegant church and many restaurants. The buildings were traditional style of half-timber houses and were very beautiful.
We walked along the Rhine River to take some photos. There were some interesting sculptures, and we also saw a family of Egyptian geese on the riverbank. We could see a castle perched high on top of a hill. Since it was overcasting, we decided not to climb to the castle this afternoon. This turned out to be a very wise decision, because it started to rain soon after we returned to the apartment.
Sister searched the internet to find a restaurant for dinner, and we decided on a German restaurant An der Stadtmaner. Rei had schnitzel, Sister ordered turkey steak with curry, Brother ordered meatballs and sausage, and I had smoked salmon and potato pancakes. We all enjoyed the food very much.
Day 2: Luxembourg
I planned to go to Trier today for sightseeing, but Rei wanted to go to Luxembourg because he saw Luxembourg in a TV show (he watched too much TV!) and thought it’s a nice place to visit. Sister, the one with the most authority in the family, broke the tie and voted for Luxembourg, which sealed the deal.
Rei and Sister went to a neighborhood bakery to buy breakfast. (Brother slept late.) After breakfast, we left around 9:30am for the 2-hour drive to Luxembourg. GPS chose the shortest route that started with a 13-km drive on a very twisty mountain road, which reminded us of the Dolomites drive – scenic but scary. Then we were driving on a freeway. On the way we saw many vineyards, corn fields and wind farms.
When we arrived in Luxembourg, we found a parking lot just under the Place Guillaume II. A stately Guillaume II equestrian statue dominated the square. The Tourist Information office was also on the square, which was very convenient. The friendly staff inside gave us maps and a walking guide. The town hall was also on the square. There’s also a free and very clean public WC there.
The cathedral was closed for Sunday mass, so we went to Grand Ducal Palace to take some outside photos. Saint Michael’s Church was the oldest church in the city. It was right by the impressive Bock Promontory, a UNESCO site. The view from the promontory was gorgeous!
We decided to find a restaurant for lunch before continuing sightseeing. Sister found a Turkish restaurant on the square, where we had pide (Turkish pizza), salad and grilled meat. The food was delicious, but the service was slow due to the crowd. The square was alive with a performer making bubbles. Many kids ran amok chasing bubbles.
We finished lunch around 2pm and continued to the rest of the sites (Place de la Constitution, Grand Duchess Charlotte Memorial, etc.) on the walking guide. The cathedral was open by now, so we could have an inside visit. We also walked around the Bock to take more photos.
We left Luxembourg around 4pm and returned to the apartment around 6pm. Everyone was too exhausted and too full of the late lunch, so we skipped dinner.
Day 3: Rhine River Cruise
You cannot go to the Rhine Valley without taking a river cruise. So, this morning, we walked to the pier around 9:30am to take the KD cruise to St. Goar. The Egyptian goose family (2 parents and 3 babies) we saw two days ago was still there. In addition, there was a big group of Canada geese. Then we saw 2 Egyptian baby geese swam away with several Canada geese.
“Kidnapping!” exclaimed Sister.
The boat arrived on time at 10am, there were already many tourists on board because the itinerary started from Rüdesheim. Most passengers stayed on the upper deck for the excellent view. We managed to find a table with 4 chairs on the upper deck. Sister mainly stayed put, while Brother moved around trying to see views from different angles.
We passed the amazing Pfalz on a small isle in the middle of the river and the magnificent Gutenfels on top of a hill. There were many beautiful half-timbered houses around Oberwesel.
We heard eerie “siren music” when the boat approached the Km 554 mark of the Loreley rock. Sister spotted the small siren statue soon after that.
The elegant Katz castle was sitting pretty in the middle of a mountain. This was a fortified castle that used to collect river tolls in the old times. We could also see the great Rheinfels castle when we reached St. Goar, which was the last stop of this cruise.
It was only around 11am, so we decided to visit Rheinfels castle first. The helpful staff at the TI office gave us maps and instructions. It took us about 20 minutes to climb up to the castle. Part of the castle was converted to a beautiful hotel. The part that’s open to visitors was in a ruined state. It was currently under renovations, and some places were closed to visitors. The view of the Rhine River and surroundings from the top of the castle was splendid!
There was a WC right by the cashier office. Sister reported that WC used old water pumps, and everyone decided to go in to check. Rheinfels castle had a small but cool museum displaying miniature models of weapons and a “foldable” stair/chair.
There were several connected hiking trails, so we took a different route down. This was more like a hiking trail in the woods and nicer than the one we climbed up. We met some hikers on the trail. This region had many hiking trails for day hikes and thru-hikes.
St. Goar was a larger town compared with Bacharach. It had more stores and restaurants, including a very tempting cake shop. Sister found an Italian restaurant (cash-only) near the train station, where we had pasta and pizzas. The food was delicious.
After lunch, we took a train ride back to Bacharach. The weather was cloudy this morning, but the sun came out in the afternoon. The train ride was faster and cheaper (6 euro per person) but not as scenic.
We returned to the apartment to rest for a while. Then Sister and Brother went to have some ice cream (the store also only accepted cash). Rei and I went to the Shahleck castle up on a hill. The trail started next to the Church of St. Peter. The initial climb was very steep, but the hike was short. We passed the Werner Chapel ruin on the way. We were surprised to find the El Camino sign on some trails.
The view from the trail was great, and the view from the castle was stunning! The castle has been converted into a youth hostel and therefore was in great condition. We took many photos before taking another longer trail back.
Tonight, we went to Posthof to have a German dinner of Kaesespaetzle, Schnitzel, sausages and salad. The weather was nice, so we dined in the courtyard, which had an excellent view of Church of St. Peter and Werner Chapel ruin. Later we found out that Posthof was formerly the seat of Knights Templars.
Day 4: Cologne and Eltz Castle
We left after 9am to start the 2-hour drive to Cologne (Koln). It was drizzling. We congratulated ourselves for deciding to do the Rhine River cruise yesterday when the weather was better. After half the way, the rain stopped. Then the sky cleared, and we even got some sunlight. When we arrived in Cologne around 11:30am, the weather was sunny.
We parked the car in a garage near the Cathedral and walked there. There’s a public WC in the cathedral square that required 50 cents to use! This was the first paid WC in this trip.
There was a cashier nearby selling entrance tickets. We purchased 4 tickets (8 euro each). I thought this was the tickets to enter the cathedral, but it ended up that we purchased the tower tickets!
We immediately encountered a very narrow and twisted spiral staircase going relentlessly up. There were visitors walking down the stairs too, so it was very crowded. Last time when we climbed a tower in Germany, Sister passed out halfway up. So, this time we decided to go slower and take many breaks in between. There was a stop to see the bells, and another circular stop before the final ascent on a metal staircase all the way to the very top. The last part was a bit scary. However, the view of Cologne from above was truly magnificent! People all spent extra time taking many photos.
The walk down was also slow due to the traffic jam. Rei counted more than 500 steps! When we finally got down, it was already way past noon. Then we entered the cathedral (which was free of charge). The cathedral was huge with plethora of stained-glass windows. There were also intricate mosaic floor tiles. There’s a crypt, which was the burial ground of many cardinals.
After the cathedral, we had a quick lunch stop. Then Sister wanted bubble tea, Brother wanted a treat from McDonald’s, and I wanted to go to the river to take photos. We also visited St. Andrew church, which had unconventional stained-glass windows. Therefore, we didn’t manage to leave Cologne until after 2:30pm.
GPS estimated that we wouldn’t arrive in Eltz Castle until 4:40pm, which was cutting too close to the 5pm closing time. In addition, we would also need to walk 15-20 minutes from the parking lot to the castle entrance. Rei, being a big risk taker, said we should still go. At least we would be able to take the outside photos of the castle.
It ended up that GPS overestimated the required driving time, and it only took us no more than 10 minutes to walk on a paved down-hill road to the castle. So, we arrived at the castle before 4:40pm and still had time for a quick WC stop.
The castle could only be visited by joining a guided tour. There was an English guided tour a few minutes after we arrived, so we didn’t need to wait long. The Eltz Castle was originally owned by 3 families, but only one family remained. The tour included visiting the rooms owned by the two families that were no longer living in the castle. We saw great halls, bedrooms and a kitchen. It was very interesting to see the inside of a castle that’s still in “working” state. There’s also a treasury showcasing valuable items.
When we left the castle, it was already closed. The advantage of a late visit was that only few tourists remained on site, and we could take great photos on relatively empty ground without a swamp of people.
On the way back, we decided to stop by Koblenz to have dinner. We found a fusion Japanese restaurant (also cash-only) along the river. We ordered fried udon, sushi, and set dinner. It’s a great dinner. The fish was very fresh. We could see Rheinburg from across the river.
Day 5: Heidelberg
Instead of rain, we had hazy sunshine this morning. We checked out of the apartment after 9am and drove south along the Rhine River. There were again many boats sailing on the river, including a Viking Cruise long-ship.
Today’s sightseeing destination, Heidelberg, was 1.5 hours south. After we arrived in Heidelberg, we parked the car in a garage and then walked towards the castle. The TI office was in the opposite direction, so we decided not to go there to look for information.
I suggested we take the funicular up to the castle, and we should look for the station, which was supposed to be nearby. However, they looked at Google map and said that we either needed to climb hundreds of steps or walked on a long winding uphill road. They finally decided on the stairs. After an exhausting climb with several breaks in between, we ended up at the castle entrance instead! Apparently, we were looking for the upper end of the funicular station, which was déjà vu of the Dolomite Lagazuoi tunnel experience. (We eventually found the funicular station on our way back.)
We only paid the 11-euro per-person entrance fee without joining a guided tour. There’s a German Apothecary Museum inside, displaying the old pharmacy settings. There were even instruments that looked like they were inside a chemistry lab!
Then we checked out the giant barrel installed in a basement that could hold 130,000 liters of wine! There were stairs for us to climb to the top of the giant barrel. Many visitors were posing for photos there.
Afterwards, we walked to the balcony. The view of Heidelberg from the balcony was fascinating.
Sister didn’t think the castle garden would be impressive, so we skipped that to go to lunch instead. Many restaurants were full of customers. We finally found a German restaurant that had a table for 4. The food was excellent; however, the service was very slow. It was already past 2:30pm after we finished lunch.
I wanted to visit the Old Bridge. Many postcard views of Heidelberg were taken from the other side of the bridge. Rei said that we could stroll down the main street to do some shopping, then we would reach the bridge. He bought a red Heidelberg baseball cap and was very satisfied with the purchase. He immediately wore the cap.
When he led us to the bridge, it was the wrong bridge! So, we had to walk a long distance back to the Old Bridge. Sister and Brother said they were too tired and refused to go on the bridge. So, it’s just Rei and me. The views of the castle from the bridge and from the other side of the bridge were indeed spectacular!
Then we had a very long walk back to the parking garage to continue the drive to Baden-Baden, which was about an hour away.
We struggled a bit to find the proper place to pay the city tax (3.8 euro per person per night, cash only) and to get the key to our apartment. It was already past 6pm when we finally got into the apartment.
We were all still very full of the late lunch, but we did want to try the famous Black Forest cake. However, most bakeries were already closed. The only place that’s open didn’t have Black Forest cake left, so we ended up buying a strawberry cream cake, a cheesecake, and a Sacher cake. I took a shower after returning to the apartment. When I came out, Rei informed me that all the cakes were very good, especially the cream cake, which he had already finished!
The apartment had a washing machine, so we were able to do some laundry.
Day 6: Black Forest
We were pretty exhausted by now. Today we only planned to tour the Black Forest; therefore, we didn’t leave the apartment until 10am.
We drove on the scenic B-500 from Baden-Baden to the Black Forest. This was a twisty mountain road with great forest views. There weren’t many cars on the road. After about an hour of drive, we reached the Black Forest National Park visitor center. There’s a short Skywalk that provided very close look of the Black Forest. There was also a tower so that we could have a better view of the surroundings. We were told that there were a lot of hiking trails around. However, we didn’t plan to have a long hike today.
The Open-Air Museum was another hour’s drive away, also on mountain roads. It was already lunch time when we arrived, so we had lunch first before sightseeing.
The museum had many old houses of different eras. There were also farms and farm animals. We picked several houses to have inside visit. The weather was sunny and very warm, so we didn’t make an extensive visit. Then we had Black Forest cake, apple cake, and coffee in an onsite restaurant.
Brother and Sister wished to return to the apartment, so we cut the sightseeing short and skipped the rest of the planned itinerary. We returned to Baden-Baden around 5pm and managed to get more cakes before Café Koenig closed at 6pm. Their Black Forest Cake (with liquor) was indeed excellent! Brother loved their apple cake too.
Tonight, we went to an Italian restaurant for dinner. The food was good, but the service was very slow.
Day 7: Colmar, France
We started earlier this morning around 9am to drive to Colmar, France, which was more than 1.5 hours away. Brother was the interpreter today since he knew French. (It’s great to have multilingual children!)
The weather was sunny and hot today – the hottest day so far in this week. There were many cars on the highway. The vineyards we saw in the Rhine Valley gave way to corn fields. We saw a lot of corn fields all the way to France! Rei wondered why we didn’t see corn on the restaurant menus.
The border between Germany and France was on the Rhine River. The scenery was very similar in both countries. However, we did see some castles high up on the hills in France.
A small Statue of Liberty situated in the middle of a roundabout greeted us when we approached Colmar. The creator of Statue of Liberty, Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, was born in Colmar. There was a Bartholdi Museum in Colmar too.
After we arrived and parked the car, we first walked to the TI office to ask for a map and information. The lady in the TI office informed us that there’s a walking tour (6.1km, 2.5 hrs) passing through interesting sites in Colmar. The tour started right in front of the TI office and was marked with special triangular signs on the route.
We walked past the famous Underlinden Museum to Dominican Church. There were a lot of street vendors selling antiques. Then we walked past a house where Voltaire once stayed and the Bartholdi Museum, where was the birthplace of Bartholdi, the creator of Statue of Liberty.
Then we had an inside visit to the Collegiale St. Martin. We found a restaurant right by the Schwendi Fountain for lunch. The Former Customs House (Koifhus) with multi-colored tiled roof scintillating under the bright sunlight was just across. We had delicious meat stew, veal with kaesespaetzle and salmon salad.
After lunch, we continued to the Former Customs House and covered market to reach Little Venice. Little Venice was probably the most famous place in Colmar. It was very crowded with many visitors taking photos. There were canal boat rides, but it was too hot. We had ice cream instead. Sister didn’t feel well, so we decided to end the sightseeing to return to the garage. On the way back, we stopped by a gingerbread cookie store, Fortwenger, to buy cookies for souvenirs.
We returned to the apartment around 5pm. Sister and Brother wanted to rest, so Rei and I went out to tour Baden-Baden by ourselves. We stopped by the drinking house or pump room (Trinkhalle) first. It was inside a beautifully decorated building with long outside walkways with paintings. There’s a faucet with hot water inside the great hall!
Then we stopped by the casino to take a few photos. From the outside, we could see a castle perched high on top of a hill. The garden was full of colorful flowers.
Baden-Baden was a very famous resort spa town. Rei wanted to go to the hot springs. However, he had second thoughts when he realized that some thermos spas were following the traditional, textile-free way. Besides, it was too hot today for hot springs.
There were additional attractions in Baden-Baden such as Faberge Museum and Museum Frieder Burda. However, this was our last sightseeing day here, so we would skip those – maybe for future visits.
Sister still didn’t feel well, so we decided not to go out for dinner. Rei went out to buy two pizzas for us to share. This turned out to be a great decision, because we were not very hungry. We were going to Frankfurt tomorrow, and it would be inconvenient to have leftovers.
Day 8: Frankfurt
This was the first time we went out to have breakfast during this trip. After breakfast, we took Sister and Brother to see the casino and the pump room. Trinkhalle wouldn’t open until 10am, so we only saw the outside and the great hall with the hot water faucet.
Then we drove two hours to Frankfurt. Since the entire route was on the highways, there’s not much to see except for some interesting cloud formations. We had another hot and sunny day today.
After checking into the Moxy Hotel near the airport and depositing the luggage, we drove to the airport car rental return. Rei thought we could have lunch at the airport food hall, but it turned out that there were only McDonald’s, KFC and a Thai café. So, we walked back to the hotel and had lunch in a nearby Italian restaurant.
Rei and I decided to go to Frankfurt Old Town to do some sightseeing. It was almost 3pm. Sister and Brother didn’t want to join, so Rei and I took Bus X77 across the street from the hotel to the Frankfurt south train station.
After a short walk, we arrived at the pedestrian-only Iron Bridge. It was full of people taking photos on the bridge! Then we walked to the Old Town. It was overcrowded too! We didn’t know whether it was because today was Saturday or Frankfurt was always so crowded.
It was very warm, so we wanted some ice cream. Because Rei also wanted to use WC, we went to a sit-down ice cream store and had a giant ice cream sundae and a fancy lemonade.
The next site we went was the cathedral. It was very big. Instead of stained-glass windows, it had windows with geometric designs. There were many ancient arts like medieval paintings and wooden altar pieces. It felt different from the Cologne cathedral.
The last destination was the house of Goethe. We didn’t pay the 12-euro entrance fee to enter but only took photos from outside.
When we walked back to the train station, bus X77 was coming, so we were able to board the bus to return to the hotel without waiting.
Brother and I decided to skip dinner. Rei and Sister went to an Asian fusion restaurant right by the hotel. Rei also discovered a supermarket next to the hotel, where he bought lots of Haribo candies, Milka chocolates and cookies.
This ended the Germany family vacation this year. We were flying back tomorrow morning. Overall, we were very satisfied with this vacation. Rhine Valley and Black Forest are beautiful places that have not yet been ruined by over-tourism.
Practical Information
Lodging
We chose Bacharach because we were able to find an apartment with at least 3 bedrooms and 2 baths there. Bacharach is charming; it’s smaller and quieter than other larger towns in the Rhine Valley. We enjoyed the stay very much. However, St. Goar might have been a better choice for some because it has more stores, restaurants and river cruise options.
We stayed in Baden-Baden for the Black Forest visit, because we didn’t want to stay too far south. Since we didn’t make it to Freiberg, I cannot comment on it.
Money
Credit cards were widely accepted. However, we encountered the following places with a cash-only policy: an ice cream shop in Bacharach, an Italian restaurant in St. Goar, a Japanese fusion restaurant in Koblenz, a parking garage (don’t remember which one), and Baden-Baden city tax.
Transportation
There were many train and river cruise options in the Rhine Valley. We also saw buses in places like Eltz Castle and Black Forest. Therefore, it’s possible to rely on public transportation only.
We rented a car because it’s more convenient and economical for 4 people. All the parking lots we used had very narrow passages and tight parking spots. Therefore, compact cars would be more convenient.
Amy 'n Rei 