Bacharach, Germany

After visiting Cologne, we stopped by for the night at the little German town of Bacharach. Bacharach was highly recommended by Rick Steves in his travel guide to Germany, and we wanted to experience the wonders of this small town.

We had hotel reservations at Hotel Zur Post, with a room upstairs.

The town is relatively small - a very quaint, German small town.

The streets are very narrow, and all buildings are pretty old.

Our hotel was in the middle of town with no parking. We had to find parking across the street near the Rhine.

Inside Hotel Zur Post, there are plenty of places to sit, relax, and review things to do.

As we were hungry, we decided to get dinner at Stubers Restaurant. Stubers Restaurant is inside the Rhein Hotel nearby.

All of the dishes were good but not exceptional. There were frequent loud train sounds since the restaurant sits next to the railroad.

After dinner, we explored more of the town, including the nearby Saint Peter's Church.

The town is very well preserved, with little authentic German houses.

Here is a watchtower used to warn the town of an impending invasion.

The ruins of Wernerkapelle are visible from the overlook.

According to Wikipedia:

In the early 11th century, Bacharach had its first documentary mention.^[2] It may have been that as early as the 7th century, the kingly domain passed into Archbishop of Cologne Kunibert’s ownership; pointing to this is a Kunibertskapelle (chapel) on the spot where now stands theWernerkapelle. The Vögte of the Cologne estate were the Elector of the Palatinate, who over time pushed back Cologne’s influence. Count Palatine already had so much influence that he resided at Stahleck Castle. His successor Konrad von Staufen’s daughter secretly wed at Stahleck Castle a son of the Welfs, who were family foes, leading to Bacharach’s, and indeed the whole County Palatine’s, falling for a short time to Henry of Brunswick. In 1214 the Wittelsbachs became Bacharach’s new lords. Together with the Unteramt of Kaub they received here their most important toll and revenue source. In 1314 it was decided to choose Louis the Bavarian as the German king. Furthermore, Bacharach was the most important transfer point for the wine trade, as barrels were offloaded here from the smaller ships that were needed to get by the Binger Loch (a quartzite reef in the Rhine upstream near Bingen) and loaded onto bigger ones. From then on, the wine bore the designation Bacharacher. The timber trade from the Hunsrück also brought Bacharach importance, and in 1356, Bacharach was granted town rights.

Wernerkapelle in an engraving byWilliam Tombleson

Widely visible is the Wernerkapelle, a Rheinromantik landmark of the town, lying on the way up to Stahleck Castle from the town. It is the expanded Kunibertkapelle, and is still an unfinished Gothic ruin today. Its namesake is the former “saint” Werner von Oberwesel, known for hisanti-Semitic associations. According to the Christian blood libel, which was typical of the times, a 16-year-old was murdered on Maundy Thursday 1287 by members of the local Jewish community, who then used his blood for Passover observances. On the grounds of this alleged ritual murder, there arose an anti-Semitic mob who waged a pogrom, wiping out Jewish communities not only on the Middle Rhine, but also on the Moselle and in the Lower Rhine region. In folk Christianity arose the cult of Werner, which was only stricken from the Bishopric of Triercalendar in 1963.

Near the town is a winery. We decided to walk around the town and noticed a tall watchtower. We decided to climb to the top to get a better view.

There were a lot of stairs and even more stairs.

There were plenty of murder wholes - places for archers to hide during attacks.

The nearby winery is growing lots of grapes on the steep hill.

The town of Bacharach looks beautiful, overlooking the Rhine.

We walked down to Wernerkapelle. It was lit by the moon.

It was getting dark, so we decided to head back to the hotel and get some needed sleep.

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

In the morning, we dressed and went downstairs to eat breakfast. It was modest, with cheeses, meats, bread, orange juice, and other breakfast items. However, we didn't expect it to be included in our very reasonable hotel rate. The hostess was very kind and gracious.

Before dinner, we decided to relax on our balcony.

For dinner, we decided to try the Weingut Wine Tasting. We tried many local Rhine wines (from dry to sweet) with some basic, plain, peasant food.

We tried the "Tower of Love" wine-tasting combination.

We had a wonderful stay at Hotel Zur Post in Bacharach and hope to return someday.