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✨ Why the Rhine Valley Completely Surprised Us

Before this trip, we honestly didn’t know much about Germany’s Rhine Valley besides “there are castles somewhere around here.”

Turns out… this place feels like a real-life storybook.

Picture:

vineyard-covered hills
medieval towns along the river
scenic cable cars floating over wine country
ferries gliding past castles

…and somehow it still doesn’t feel nearly as over-touristed as other parts of Europe.

If you’re planning a Germany road trip, THIS deserves a spot on your itinerary.

📍 Where We Based Ourselves

The night before, we stayed at Burghotel Auf Schönburg - aka a literal castle hotel overlooking the Rhine River. Read our blog post about our experience HERE.

Not a bad way to wake up.

After breakfast, we drove about 30 minutes to Bingen where we parked our car and took the ferry across to Rüdesheim am Rhein to start the day.

🚢 Ferry from Bingen to Rüdesheim

It took about 30 minutes to drive from the castle to Bingen. Once we arrived, we parked here for €4 per day, walked less than 5 minutes to the dock, and boarded the next passenger ferry to Rüdesheim.

The ferry ride alone already felt like part of the experience.

Within minutes we were floating past vineyards, charming riverside towns, and castles perched on hillsides. The ride was only about 10 minutes long but oh what a beautiful 10 minutes floating across the Rhine River.

👉 Pro tip: sit outside if the weather is nice because the views are SO worth it. The ferry ride is included in the Ring Tour which I detail below.

🍷 Exploring Rüdesheim am Rhein

Rüdesheim ended up being way more charming than we expected.

It’s touristy… but in a fun, lively way.

The town is filled with:

wine taverns
half-timbered buildings
little alleyways
souvenir shops
outdoor restaurants

We started our morning wandering through Drosselgasse, which is probably the town’s most famous street.

Yes, it’s touristy.
Yes, it’s crowded.
And yes… you should still absolutely walk through it.

☕ You HAVE to Try a Rüdesheim Coffee

One of our favorite little stops of the day was grabbing a traditional Rüdesheim coffee.

If you’ve never had one before, it’s basically Germany’s dramatic answer to Irish coffee.

It’s made with:

local Asbach brandy
coffee
whipped cream

…and usually prepared tableside with fire involved which automatically makes it more fun.

🍇 Wine Tasting at RheinWeinWelt

If you like wine even a little bit, don’t skip this.

RheinWeinWelt is such a fun tasting experience because instead of a traditional tasting menu, you trade your money for coins and sample wines from self-serve machines. 1 coin = 1 tasting.

You can choose how many coins you want. They come in packs of 10 for €12 or 20 for €22. For each coin you get a taste of 20ml of your chosen wine. We chose to split the 20 for €22 option.

Which means:
👉 you can try a TON of different wines
👉 at your own pace
👉 without awkward wine tasting pressure

Dangerous? Maybe.
Fun? Absolutely.

🚠 The Rhine Valley Ring Tour (We Did It in Reverse)

One of the highlights of the entire day was doing the famous Rhine Valley Ring Tour.

But here’s the thing…We actually did it in reverse.

And honestly? We’d recommend doing it this way.

Instead of rushing straight to the cable cars first thing in the morning, we spent time exploring Rüdesheim.

It made the whole experience feel:

less rushed
more relaxed
way less chaotic

After exploring town and wine tasting, we:

took the train to Assmannshausen
hopped on the Assmannshausen chairlift
walked through the forest trails
visited the Niederwald Monument
took the Seilbahn cable car over the vineyards back down to Rüdesheim

And WOW. The views over the Rhine River were unreal.

This ended up being one of our favorite experiences of the trip.

NOTE: All of this, including the ferry, was included in the Ring Tour ticket (€24 per person). We booked this online ahead of time (you have 1 year to use it once purchasing) and showed the QR code whenever we needed to board a mode of transportation.

🗺️ Want to follow the exact route we did?
Click here to open our interactive Google Maps route for the reverse Rüdesheim Ring Tour 👇

🚠 How the Classic Rhine Valley Ring Tour Works

If you’re unfamiliar with the Ring Tour, here’s how the classic route works:

You start in Rüdesheim am Rhein (or Bingen in our case) and take the scenic Rüdesheim cable car up over the vineyards with incredible views of the Rhine Valley below.

From there, you can walk through the forest trails toward the Niederwaldtempel and Niederwald Monument then continue on toward the Assmannshauen chair lift (just know the walk from the Niederwald Monument to the Assmannshausen chairlift is a slightly uphill walk the entire way which is why doing this in reverse is great because you walk downhill the entire way instead).

The Assmannshausen chairlift then takes you down into the quiet riverside town of Assmannshausen where you can hop on the train or ferry back across the Rhine to Bingen or Rüdesheim.

👉 If you started in Rüdesheim, you can ferry back there directly.
👉 If you parked in Bingen like we did, you can simply get off at the Bingen ferry stop instead.

The entire experience combines:

cable cars
scenic walking trails
ferry rides
vineyards
panoramic Rhine River views

…and honestly feels like a mini adventure in one day, all wrapped up in one convenient little package.

There's also a version of the Ring Tour which includes a visit to Rheinstein Castle. This tour is called the Romantic Tour (€28 per person).

(photo from the official website)

🚂 Train to Assmannshausen

While wandering around Rüdesheim earlier in the day, we passed the main cable car station for the Ring Tour and immediately noticed the line was LONG.

Like… much longer than we expected.

At first we planned to just deal with it later, but after our wine tasting at RheinWeinWelt, we noticed the train station right across the street and decided to quickly pop inside to check train times to Assmannshausen.

One thing we loved about this area is how easy it is to get around.

As it turned out, the next train was leaving in only 10 minutes.

That’s when we made a very last-minute decision to completely reverse the Ring Tour route in hopes of avoiding the long cable car line in Rüdesheim.

And honestly?
This ended up being one of the best decisions of the day.

The train ride itself was quick (less than 15 minutes), easy, and followed the Rhine River along the way.

🚠 Assmannshausen Chairlift

Once we arrived in Assmannshausen, we headed straight to the lower chairlift station.

And unlike the packed cable car line back in Rüdesheim… there was basically no line at all.

The chairlift ride was a peaceful 15 minutes long ride which floated up over the forest and hillside vineyards with beautiful views opening up over the Rhine River below.

It also felt way more relaxed than starting the day in a huge crowd.

NOTE: This chairlift has better views going down rather than going up since when you're going up, your back is towards the Rhine.

🌲 Walking Through the Forest to the Niederwald Monument

Right after getting off the chairlift, you come across the Wildpark Niederwald, this is a small game reserve where you will find native deer. You can purchase feed from the vending machine for the deer if you desire. After walking past the deer, we followed the walking trails through the forest toward the Niederwald Monument and Niederwaldtempel.

This portion of the route was mostly downhill and easy to follow. This leisurely stroll took us about 40 minutes from the chairlift to the monument.

While parts of the forest walk were peaceful, we personally found this section longer and less scenic than we expected.

Still, arriving at the Niederwald Monument made it worth it.

This monument is HUGE.

And honestly, photos really don’t do it justice.

Built to commemorate the unification of Germany in the late 1800s, the monument towers above the Rhine Valley and feels incredibly massive once you’re standing beside it.

To try and emphasize just how enormous it is: depictions of the persons in the center on the monument are life-size.

Which means the monument itself is absolutely gigantic.

Between the scale of the monument and the panoramic views overlooking the Rhine River and vineyards below, this ended up being one of the most impressive stops of the entire day.

🚡 Taking the Cable Car Down to Rüdesheim

After admiring the views and the monument, we hopped on the 10 minute cable car back down into Rüdesheim am Rhein.

And this is where reversing the route REALLY paid off. By the time we arrived later in the afternoon, the line heading down was only about five people deep.

Earlier in the day, the uphill cable car line in Rüdesheim had been packed and when we got off the cable car at 3:30 PM, the line was even longer.

The cable car ride itself was easily one of the highlights of the day, floating directly over the vineyards with unreal views of the Rhine River, surrounding hills, and the town below.

If we were visiting again during busy season, we’d absolutely do the Ring Tour this way again.

🚢 Ferry Back to Bingen

We wrapped up the day by having some gelato and coffee in Rüdesheim before taking the 5:20 PM ferry back across the Rhine to pick up our car and continue on toward Cochem and the Moselle Valley.

This entire day felt straight out of a movie.

💡 What We’d Do Differently Next Time

If we were to do this again, we’d probably simplify it a bit.

Instead of continuing all the way to Assmannshausen, we’d take the cable car from Rüdesheim am Rhein first thing and head up to the Niederwald Monument, spend time enjoying the views, and then either:

walk back down through the vineyards to Rüdesheim
or
simply take the cable car back down and enjoy the afternoon wandering around Rüdesheim

While the section between the monument and the Assmannshausen chairlift was nice, we personally found it longer than expected and not nearly as scenic as the vineyard and Rhine River views.

Additionally, we found that Assmannshausen itself didn’t have a whole lot going on compared to Rüdesheim.

So if you’re short on time - or just want to maximize the most beautiful parts of the experience - we’d probably skip that entire section next time and spend more time enjoying Rüdesheim instead.

We'd also spend a second night in the area, maybe even another castle stay, since there are quite a few in the area.