Hiking from Hirzenach to Boppard

In order to limit the oil consumption in Germany, the German government decided to introduce this thing called 9-euro ticket, which, as the name suggests, costs 9 euro a month and is valid for all regional trains in Germany. Whether this was a good idea or not, it brought us myriads of new possibilities, and also hopelessly overcrowded trains. I had a super difficult time figuring out how to make sense of it the most, without making it over-ambitious, and decided to organize this relatively easy hike from Hirzenach to Boppard, just south of Koblenz, but relatively unknown (at least compared to the Rheinsteig).

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Following the extremely chaotic weekend last week, which was also the Pentecost weekend, where we were luckily outside of Germany, I was kind of unsure of what we were up to.

Düsseldorf central station at 7:58am, despite my worries the train indeed arrived on time. And to my great surprise, it was relatively empty. Actually for the whole journey there was no problem at all. I should have taken my laptop to work on the train…

For some reason we got a really weird connection at Koblenz, as we had around 50 min to change trains. In order to make sense of this time, we went to a nearby café to get breakfast for me. We then went a few stations more and arrived at Hirzenach.

So today’s track was as I already said not the most famous one. Paradoxically, I have to say the view from the top of the hill was actually better than the other side of the Rhine (which is a more famous area). In order to reach that place, however, we had to climb up a steep hill. Apparently there were some people who essentially got stuck in that first part. I don’t think they continued with us.

As we were having an amazing weather, the temperature skyrocketed just as much. Today, I was glad to be in the shadow whenever it was possible. Fortunately or unfortunately there was a really good mixture of forests and fields, so that every now and then I had the feeling of being burnt by the sun.

There were some people who hike with us regularly, but at the same time there was a large number of people who hiked for the first time with us. The regular ones were going actually very fast, while the first timers didn’t have the map and were totally dependent on me, which is generally a bad sign.

Anyway we were having great views over the course of the day. We stopped regularly whenever there was a platform or a bench. For some people it was starting to appear like a waste of time.

There were some cherry and apple trees on the way. Such a beautiful area.

The problem happened when we were to have the break at Bad Salzig. There was a construction site where I didn’t know how to continue. We simply took a different path and went to the city center. There, I left the group for a short while to get something for lunch. In the meantime, some people apparently continued a bit further, going over the construction site. After I finished my lunch, I had a short nap on a nearby bench, where people apparently went to a nearby café. There, some people said the hike was over, so many people actually took a train and went back home. In addition, those who went over the construction site simply started without waiting for us.

So in the end we were a group of only 5 people. Since I anyway had my own ticket, I didn’t really mind.

We had such a heated conversation about how to make compost with worms, I was actually not really paying to the landscape. There were again some cherry trees on the way. Then there were this beautiful endless field, with golden wheat moving back and forth as the wind came and went.

Finally, we went to the city of Boppard, that I guess I visited for the first time. This city, just like a lot of cities along the city, was a beautiful medieval German city worth taking a lot of pictures of. To be honest, if I was a tourist, I would skip all the big cities like München or Frankfurt and visit this kind of cities in Germany.

We had an ice cream in a random ice cream parlor and walked around the city. We intentionally missed one train and enjoyed the nice place along the river.

When we reached the train station, we realized that the train connection was actually really bad, so that we decided to have a stop over at Koblenz to join the beer festival. Those who have been following my on this site for more than 3 years probably know that we used to visit beer festivals after the hikes in the summer, obviously before corona. Today was the first session in this season and the first one after a break of 2 years. It was anyway a good plan to stop in Koblenz, as the train from Boppard was hopelessly crowded

We had some beer in the festival and stayed on a nearby field for the rest of the evening. It was just as lively as before corona. It’s so great that the life is coming back now.

It was past 10pm when we arrived in Düsseldorf. Such a long day…