Bacharach

Bacharach keeps much of its town wall with towers and gates, and a dense old town of timber-framed houses inside. Above it stands the Wernerkapelle, a fourteenth-century Gothic chapel left roofless after collapse and war damage; in the 1840s it was to be demolished for stone, and Victor Hugo, who had described the village in his book Le Rhin, protested publicly, which contributed to its preservation as a ruin. Burg Stahleck above the village has been a youth hostel since 1926. The village sits in the UNESCO Upper Middle Rhine Valley, listed in 2002, and Riesling is grown on the slate slopes around.

History

The old name Baccaracus suggests a Celtic origin, and Bacharach is first mentioned in documents early in the 11th century; the royal estate may have passed to Archbishop Kunibert of Cologne as early as the 7th century, as the Kunibert chapel on the site of today's Wernerkapelle suggests. The Counts Palatine, the estate's protectors, pushed back Cologne's influence and resided at Stahleck Castle. Building of the town wall began in 1344 and was finished around 1400; the town became Protestant with the Palatinate in 1545, changed hands eight times in the Thirty Years' War, and in 1689 French troops blew up Stahleck Castle and four towers of the wall. French Revolutionary troops occupied the left bank of the Rhine in 1794, and from 1802 Bacharach was for a time French (Wikipedia, Bacharach).

Highlights

• The Wernerkapelle - a roofless Gothic chapel saved from demolition.
• The town walls - towers and gates with a walkable stretch.
• Burg Stahleck - a hilltop castle in use as a youth hostel.
• The timber old town - dense framed houses within the walls.

When to go

April to October; the Rhine in Flames fireworks event falls in one summer night and fills the village. Wine festivals run in autumn. Winter is quiet.

What to expect

The village is small and busy with cruise groups in season. The castle is a working hostel with limited public access. The rail line runs loudly along both banks.

Nearby

The Loreley rock lies downstream; Bingen is upstream.

Key facts