Exploring Bacharach and Freiburg, Germany – 2023

We’re back with another post! This time, we’re writing about our 2023 summer in Europe. Before officially starting our honeymoon in France, we first headed to Germany to see Stefan’s family along the way. See below for a video of our travels as well as a write-up with photos!

As we were planning our trip to Europe, castles made it to the very top of my must-see list. I had never been to Europe, but I’ve certainly seen photos of beautiful German castles and I loved hearing about how Stefan used to explore them when he was younger and pretend he was in sword fights with his brother. There are apparently two types of castles: the war castles and the castles that were built by the wealthy (usually monarchs).

Bacharach

Our first stop was in Bacharach, Germany. It only took a 4 hour flight from Denver to Seattle, a 10 hour flight to Frankfurt, and then a 2 hour train ride to Bacharach! But this quaint little town was filled with German culture and history, which was perfect for our first night stay!

The next morning, we took a boat on the Rhine river, which overlooks other small German towns.

During our boat commute, we listened to Rick Steve’s audio files on the Rhine which perfectly pointed out points of interest which involved some of Germany’s history.

Then, we got off at the the Saint Goar exit to go to the Rheinfels Castle. It was, you guessed it, a war castle from the medieval times! The first thing I did was use the bathroom (of course), which was all medieval-ess and had a large metal pull to flush. I’m sure you wanted to know about that, so I included it here!

The Rheinfels Castle itself successfully resisted attacks by Spanish and Imperial troops in the 1600s partly due to it being further down the river.

Freiburg

We then met up with Stefan’s parents in Freiburg, where Stefan actually lived for a few years in his youth! To celebrate her 70th birthday, his mom invited the family out to revisit the city. We had a great time visiting more castles, biking, and enjoying all the delicious food (especially the ice cream!).

As you can see, the area was beautiful! We talked about taking a month at some point in the future to come back over a summer. It would be a good opportunity to keep working on my German: with a bit of help from Stefan, I did manage to order food and get stamps at a post office. I even got a compliment from a person working at a coffee shop!

But this wasn’t the summer to perfect my German…after a week in Freiburg, it was time to head to France!