Germany: Day trip To Drachenburg & Drachenfels Castle, Königswinter

From our base just outside of Speyer/Hockenheim in Germany, we do day trips that are easy to get to and worth the journey and fuel to visit. This trip to (Schloss) Drachenburg Castle / Drachenfels Castle / Drachenfelsbahn was over-ambitious at first because there were so many things to see on the way there – it actually would have been a weekend trip instead of just one day. Jamming as much as possible into one trip is usually a recipe for disaster, and so the trip was seriously curtailed at the last minute. That just means we’ll have to go back to Germany once again to get to the places we missed this time – oh dear that’s such a sad situation… not!

The original over-extended trip called for us to head out towards the 42 and hug the Rhine River for most of the journey. On Google Maps the 42 looks like a small 2-lane motorway, but in fact it’s a combination of 2-lane and autobahn-type roads that have an average speed limit of about 100 km/h – those crazy German’s don’t understand meandering slow driving-for-tourist type roads it appears!!

The Rhine River has an average of one castle every 2.5 kilometres, so there are literally tons of them to see, but many you can’t actually visit. For someone that likes to go “castling” it’s a dream come true, but the main reason it wasn’t feasible to see everything on our list in one day. We had plans for the evening, so we had to get back to our home base by around 7pm. After snipping the multi-castle tour, we ended up with one visit: Schloss Drachenburg (Castle) – which also includes Schloss Drachenfels and Drachenfelsbahn.

Related Day Trips…

Tübingen
Rothenburg ob der Tauber
Heppenheimer & Michelstadt
Lichtenstein Castle (Schloß Lichtenstein)

Heading north-west, our journey took about 2 ½ hours to get to the Drachenfelsstraße in Königswinter. Parking was plentiful and a modest €4 for the day. The parking machines were finicky and wouldn’t accept our credit card. When we paid for our castle visit we asked for change and went back to the machine to feed it some coins. What3Words: ///minerals.monument.laptop
Parking: What3Words ///gently.passport.begun

The Schloss Drachenburg is actually a 3-in-1 visit; Drachenfels tram, (Schloss) Drachenburg Castle and the Drachenfels Castle (ruins).

Drachenfelsbahn – this is the train station where you purchase your tickets for the tram and castles. You can opt to walk the steep incline to the castles if you feel energetic and want to get nice and sweaty. We purchased the Combi ticket for €15 which got us entry to both castles, and the tram in both directions. For €8 you can get the tram up and the walk back down. Entry to Drachenburg Castle by itself is €5 and can be purchased at the mid-point (there’s no charge for the ruins).

Drachenfels Railway
Taking the Drachenfels tram – a cog railway that has been located there since 1883 to the mid-point, we disembarked to visit the (Schloss) Drachenburg Castle. The electric rail system is the oldest ‘rack and pinion’ railway in Europe and climbs a height of 321 metres between the town and the castle. There is nothing to see from the tram as it is in the woods for its entire journey. The tram runs every 15 minutes both up and down the track.

Schloss Drachenburg, Drachenburg Castle, Koenigswinter‎, Königswinter, Drachenfels Castle (Schloss), Drachenfelsbahn, TravelBloggers.ca, Iain Shankland, Gail Shankland

Drachenburg Castle
The mid-station building is large and has a small gift shop and café. There’s a little display room with some bits and pieces of historic items apparently having some kind of significance, but we couldn’t figure it out because it was all in German.

Special Note: go to the Google store and download the The Lauschtour-App (it’s free) – this is what you’ll use throughout the castle tour. Don’t worry if you haven’t downloaded it before you go, there’s free Wi-Fi all around the grounds. Direct link HERE

Using your ticket/pass you go outside and get your first real look at the castle in all its magnificence. Note: once you’ve gone through the turnstiles DO NOT re-enter the building until you have finished the tour because the ticket is a one-use, one-way only. We made that mistake and got locked out of returning to the castle (we crawled under the gate to get out – no one was around, but it could have been awkward if there was a guard or someone there). We used the app on our phone as we walked around the castle – too bad more castles/attractions don’t use this as it was very user-friendly and you don’t have to deal with the billions of germs and awkward tourbox type contraptions at most places.

We took about 90 minutes or more to tour the castle, taking lots of pictures, even though the castle is quite small. There’s plenty to see inside and outside. When leaving the main front door go to the left and you’ll find the circular staircase taking you way up to the highest tower (the North Tower) for magnificent views of the countryside. You can easily see Bonn and on a good day Cologne. Large clean toilets are located in the basement to the left of the front door. There’s also some displays there of the castle in the past and other artefacts of the era. There’s a coffee shop at the back of the castle facing the Rhine.

Drachenfels Castle
Getting back onto the tram we took the short ride up to the Drachenfels Castle which is just ruins, but the views from there are even better than the North Tower. There’s a large restaurant and outdoor biergarten. We spent about 30-45 minutes exploring and taking in the sights before taking the tram back down to Königswinter.

It was a longish drive for us to reach Drachenburg Castle from where we were based, but definitely worth the drive. For anyone in the Bonn area it’s only 10-15 minutes from the train station to the Drachenfelsbahn. There’s a rail track and station building right beside the Drachenfelsbahn, so we’d assume you could get a train right to the door.

If you go:
SatNav Directions: Drachenfelsbahn – Drachenfelsstraße 53, 53639 Königswinter
What3Words: ///minerals.monument.laptop
Parking: ///gently.passport.begun
Website: www.schloss-drachenburg.de/index.php/en/

Trainline offers plenty of options for travelling by rail all over Europe

Admission:
The train runs every 15 minutes
Adult Combi ticket – €15 (castles + tram in both directions)
Tram (one direction) – €8 or €10 both directions
Walking/hiking – free
Drachenburg Castle – €5 (can be purchased at the mid-point or Drachenfelsbahn)
Drachenfels Castle (ruins) – free

Click this linkHERE

About TravelBloggers.ca
Iain & Gail started blogging in order to inspire and motivate people to travel the world from their perspective – specializing in having the most fun while using the least amount of money, travelling on the cheap without sacrificing comfort.

In the end, you will only regret the things you didn’t do