If you have been reading our blog for a while you would probably know that we love doing DIY Day trips. Why? Because planning for it is always fun, it turns out to be far more economical than the organised tours, gives us a lot of flexibility and lastly, we feel that these self-guided day trips are nothing short of a mini adventure.

 

Well, talking about day trips and adventures, our Day trip to Burg Eltz from Frankfurt unarguably tops the chart. So, without further ado let us take you through our escapade.

 

 

Our original plan for this trip was to start off really early in the morning from Frankfurt and include Cochem (a small picturesque town with a beautiful medieval castle) in our trip but since it was a rainy morning we had to delay our start and had to restrict our trip only to Burg Eltz.

 

 

We left from our hotel around noon, bought a day ticket from the ticket vending machine at the station and got a train to Koblenz. We then made an easy change and reached Moselkern around 3 PM. Now this is where things get a little tricky if you are DIY-ing on this day trip, because this is the closest you can come to the castle via public transport. Well there is a bus which runs from the station to the castle on weekends and public holidays but there’s nothing on the weekdays. The next best option is to hike for an hour to reach to the castle parking, but since it was already too late we had ruled that out and took a taxi instead. We booked with Taxi Charly and it costed us 25 Euros one way. We would highly recommend to book in advance. Their service was excellent, the driver was waiting for us outside the station when we reached and it took us only 10 minutes to reach to the castle parking (the drive is beautiful and picturesque!). From here, we hopped on to the shuttle bus that takes you to the castle gates. It’s a 2 min ride and costs 2 Euros each way. You can also walk to the castle as it’s an easy and short hike.

 

 

Once we reached the castle, we roamed around and took pictures for a while. Soon we realised that visiting at this hour might be the best if you like to take pictures with less to no people in the background! The entire time that we were there, tour groups came in a hurry and moved on quickly, which is understandable considering that they had to get back in time before nightfall. We almost had the background of the castle all to ourselves, barring maybe one or two photographers who were there taking pictures.

 

 

That being said, would we go again this late in the day? Maybe not… read until the end to find out why.

 

 

The castle grounds aren’t very big and you can easily walk around and cover the area rather quickly. We decided to sit and have a cup of hot chocolate and an apple pie in one of the restaurants with an outdoor seating before heading back to the train station. The views were incredible and the restaurant so peaceful…we really enjoyed the fact that the place was not crowded at all.  In fact, there was only one other couple there apart from us.

 

 

On the way back, we called our driver 10 mins in advance and by the time we got off the shuttle bus, he was already there. This time around, he took us to the train station via a different route – down the mountains on a curvy, bendy road… it was quite exciting to see the different scenery! It took us about 10-15 mins to reach the station, just in time to catch the 6 pm train. The station was absolutely deserted with no other passengers… what was even more strange is that there was no staff at the station. We straight away went to the platform and waited for the train but it never showed up, the display on the platform was not very helpful as it was in German so I checked on the DB Navigator app and realised that the train was running pretty late.

 

Now here’s the thing, Koblenz is a very small town and the sun sets pretty early in late October. 10 mins in, we found ourselves to be absolutely alone sitting on a deserted platform in pitch darkness and utter silence which was soon broken by a distant cry of a man from the other side of the platform which sent chills down our spines. Now, Germany is supposed to be very safe for foreign travellers and we have never come across any disorderliness in Germany but since we were all alone we felt a little terrified and decided to walk away from the open platform and came towards the station building which again was pretty spooky as there was literally no one around. We stood at the entrance of the station for almost half an hour speculating other options of transport. I desperately checked for Uber but sadly there was no availability. The DB Navigator app kept showing delay in arrival of the next train and just when we were about to call the taxi guy we had hired earlier in the day a guy appeared out of nowhere. He had head phones on and was talking to someone on the phone and straight away headed for the platform. He was wearing a uniform (probably a staff member at a construction site) and looked like a genuine person. To be really honest his presence did spike our confidence and we went sat on the platform with him. It still took a good 30 more minutes of waiting before our train finally arrived and we ultimately made it to Frankfurt, grabbed dinner from McDonalds and called it a day.

 

Now coming back to question we raised earlier in the article, would we go this late again? Definitely NOT.

Well, there is no better way to put it – the castle doesn’t have great connectivity by public transport. Hiring a car perhaps would be a better option but we aren’t comfortable driving on the right side of the road and organised tour are just too expensive… so in case we ever visit Eltz Castle again (which we would love to), we would be taking the same route but would start a lot earlier in the day.

 

For Timetables and fare do check out www.bahn.com or download the DB Navigator app.

 

Have you visited Burg Eltz? If yes, tell us all about your trip and how you got there 🙂 

24 Hours in Cologne, Germany