Here is some practical advice on how to ride the car ferries in Germany on the Rhine River…
When I took a trip to Europe last fall, I decided to plan the whole trip myself. I spent about six months researching everything to make sure we didn’t have any mishaps or problems once we arrived for our trip. However, sometimes it seems that even with careful planning, problems can still arise. Or, perhaps someone will give you incorrect information by mistake. Or, you might not be able to find out how to do something no matter how much research you do.
For us, the car ferry thing was a big mystery. I didn’t really understand how to ride the car ferries that were available in Germany on the Rhine River, so I decided to plan the trip around them. However, it became apparent once we were in the Rhine River Valley that having some of this knowledge would have proved quite useful. I hope this article can help you to plan your next trip to the Rhine River Valley in Germany.
To give you some background information, I will be discussing the Rhine River Valley in Germany that goes from Koblenz in the North to Rudesheim in the South. This is the Romantic Rhine area, a great area for a romantic getaway. For information about Rhine River castles, see http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/233374/three_great_castles_on_the_rhine_river.html . The Rhine actually extends beyond both of these points, but the car ferry discussion is focused on this area, which is widely traveled.
Purpose of Car Ferry
The purpose of the car ferry is to take you from one side of the rhine to the other. There are little towns on both sides of the Rhine, and there are castles on both sides. If you are driving around the area and want to see all of the castles, using the car ferry will prove invaluable for getting you back and forth across the Rhine River. If not, you would have to go up to Koblenz way out of the way and cross over the bridge, or go south near Rudesheim to make the bridge crossing there. You could waste a lot of valuable time by not using the ferry on your drive.
The car ferry also allows foot passengers. This means that you can walk onto the ferry to cross to the other side of the Rhine River in Germany. If you are a foot passenger, there are luggage restrictions you will need to know about. It costs less to go by foot.
Path of Car Ferry
The car ferry goes straight across the river, from one side to the other. You get in a line with your car, and then drive right onto it. Someone working on the ferry will direct you where to park and then another person will come to take your payment. You don’t need advance reservations. The ferry arrives on the other side, in about five to ten minutes, and then the cars unload. The car ferry then loads again and goes back across the river. This process repeats itself over and over throughout the day. The only thing you need to know is what the hours of operation are and where the car ferries are located.
Location of Car Ferries
There are seven different places between Koblenz and Rudesheim to ride a car ferry. You will be able to find them if you just drive along the Rhine River between Koblenz and Rudesheim. The locations can be found at http://www.welterbe-mittelrheintal.de/index.php?id=53&L;=3 . It took me almost an hour to find this website, because it is German and when you put in English words to do the search, it won’t pull up these sites. Going from South to North, the first ferry goes from Bingen to Rudesheim. A second one goes from Lorch to Bacharach. The third goes from Kaub to Oberwesel. The fourth goes back and forth between St. Goar and St. Goarshausen, with the fifth from Boppard to Kamp-Bornhofen (site of Castle Liebenstein where we stayed.) The last two are from Lahnstein to Koblenz-Stolzenfels and from Koblenz to Koblenz-Ehrenbreitstein. The ones that are most useful are the ones that aren’t near Koblenz or Rudesheim, because you could take the bridges in these areas.
If you are going to take the car ferry, you will need to know what hours it operates. The hours are longer during the summer, when there are more daylight hours and more tourists. As winter approaches, the ferry schedule diminishes. To get the schedule, you can visit the websites shown on the above overall site. However, the websites are all in german. For instance, if you are interested in the car ferry from Boppard to Kamp-Bornhofen, you can visit http://www.faehre-boppard.de/Main/index2.php .
A short german lesson can help you understand how to read the website. Fahrplan means the schedule. Ab boppard means what time the ferry leaves Boppard. Ab Filsen means from Filsen, or what time the ferry departs from Filsen (Kamp-Bornhofen.) If you look on the fahrplan (schedule), you will see that the first ferry leaves Boppard at 6:30 am. Montag bis Samstag means Monday through Saturday. Sonntag means Sunday, and on this day the ferry doesn’t start running until 8 am. To find out what time the ferry runs until in the evening, you can see that from April to September you look for *. The last ferry during these months from Boppard leaves at 21:00 hours, or 9 pm. From June through August, the last ferry leaves at 10 pm. From October to March, the last ferry leaves Boppard at 8 pm. I wouldn’t recommend waiting until the last ferry, in case it is full or they would happen to close early for some unforeseen reason.
Price of Car Ferry
Preise means the price. It costs adults (erwachsene) 1,30 E, which means 1 Euro 30, or about 2 American dollars with the awful exchange rate we currently have to the Euro. Children 6 to 11 (kinder) cost .70 Euro, about one dollar. It costs 3 euros for a pkw, which is a passenger car. Usually, the first adult is included in this price, and then you have to pay for the extra people.
If you still have questions about the ferries, you can email the car ferry directly and someone will generally respond to you in English if you email them in English. The Boppard-Kamp-Bornhofen car ferry’s email address is [email protected] .
There is one piece of caution you should use if you are taking the car ferry on the Rhine River in Germany: if you have a rental car, the company may or may not allow use of car ferries. This may or may not be included in your rental.
Some companies will allow you to use the car ferries anywhere in Europe under all circumstances, and this agreement is part of your rental.
Some rental car companies will allow you to use the car ferries if you pay an additional, and somewhat hefty fee. This is because you put the car in risk of danger when you take a car ferry. The ferry could sink, and then the company would be out a car.
Some companies tell you that if you take the car on a car ferry, during the ride across the water, the car isn’t covered. If this is the case, if the car ferry and your rental car sink or the car becomes damaged on the ferry, you will be fully responsible.
So what should you do to protect yourself? Find out from the rental company what their policy is. If they don’t allow for it, you can still risk it and get on the car ferry, but you have to be willing to accept the consequences. At this point you could contact your own insurance company and see if you would be covered while driving the rental company and while riding on the car ferry.
