Schloss Drachenburg is an easy train ride from Cologne so it’d be rude not to check it out. Well, I say a train ride, you get off at Königswinter then it’s up to you whether your wallet or your calf muscles take the hit for the last little bit up to the castle. There’s a historic railway, the Drachenfelsbahn, which is Germany’s oldest still-functioning cog railway. It’ll take you all the way up to the summit of the hill you’re standing at the bottom of deciding the fate of your legs, and the castle is halfway up. We’re young (ha!) and healthy (HA!) so we decided to walk up. It’s steep but it’s not hideous, and it’s entirely tarmacked.

So the castle was built as a private home in the late 19th century but the bloke who built it never actually lived in it. He was too busy living it up in Paris, snorting brie off a hooker’s tits I would imagine, as you do when you’re rich enough to build a literal fucking castle to not actually live in. Over the years it changed hands and uses before being abandoned, then restored using old drawings in the late 20th century. It’s quite spectacular. I was more interest in the outside than the inside because it looks like a fairy tale, but the inside is interesting too. You can climb up the towers for views of the Rhine and Bonn, and I really liked the murals and stained glass windows. I do love a stained glass window. I think the most I could afford is covering my windows with bits of coloured plastic but it wouldn’t have the same effect.

Obviously once you’re at the castle you’ll need to get back to Königswinter for the train and it will make you very aware of your knees. Fortunately there are places to grab snacks and beverages on the way down so we did just that. It’s nice, this chilled version of touristing. I usually try and pack way too much into a day but as I was with Lydi and not my wife I was trying to pretend I wasn’t such a hectic control freak. Lydi and I have travelled together before, that’s how we met, pretty much 20 years ago in Australia. She knows I’m a fucking control freak but I was attempting to demonstrate maturity and calm. I think I nailed it. Good job too because the train was delayed by, like, fucking ages on account of some manner of signalling error. I’m not a train driver but I feel like signals are important.

Anyway, we did make it to Linz am Rhein at a decent hour, not that it mattered what time we rocked up because all we were going to be doing here was pointing our faces at half-timber houses. Very, very pretty. They’re all over the town but the easiest place to gawp at them would be the main square. Another thing I noticed a lot of here was numbers, letters and symbols above the doors. I saw it in Cologne too but there seemed to be a lot of it here. I asked Lydi what it was and she said she wasn’t sure. “Some Catholic thing I think? For luck?” I had to Google it and yes, it’s for luck for the year, but another German friend said very few people believe in that shit now, it’s mainly the old folks.

We had a little wander along the river too which was really fucking high! Not so high that you’d need to have a kayak on standby, the only reason we knew it was high was on account of the benches sticking out of the water. I’m quite certain most people use benches to enjoy the water by looking at it, not whilst being partially submerged. It’d make your sandwiches soggy. Not a euphemism. We were actually going to have some dinner at a place overlooking the river but when we walked in it became immediately apparent that it was way too posh for the likes of us. Like, tables set up with wine glasses and cloth napkins kind of posh, like I wasn’t just going to shovel a schnitzel into my facehole like I hadn’t seen food since Christmas. We didn’t even do the thing where you pretend to look at the menu whilst calculating the loan you’d need to take out to afford to eat there, we just turned around and found a place that was much more our vibe staffed by a women who you just know is lovely. She had that air about her.

So that was another brilliant day. Germany is really growing on me. I think the public transport system is fuelling a bit of this emerging love, I fucking love a decent public transport system. I’m not saying you can reach every corner of Germany without your own wheels and I wouldn’t rule out hiring a car on future visits. But yeah, way to make getting around a piece of piss, Deutschland.

Jump to “Useful shit to know…”

---

Schloss Drachenburg & Linz am Rhein, Nordrhein-Westfalen/North Rhine-Westphalia, Deutschland/Germany

Stayed at: LaLuna – Wohlfühl City Apartment im Herzen der Stadt, Cologne, Germany

Useful shit to know…

Deutschland Ticket (D-Ticket)

• For €63 a month you can travel all over Germany on regional trains and local public transport. You can’t use the long distance, high speed trains such as IC or ICE. So you could spend the best part of €100 to get from Munich to Berlin in 4.5 hours, or use your Deutschland Ticket but it’ll take closer to nine hours and you have to change five times. See, that just sounds like a fun adventure to me!
• I bought mine through the DB Navigator app and had to enter my bank details. I assumed that they’d just take the money but they didn’t and instead sent me an email saying I had to send it to their bank. I did this and that was sorted. I’ve since found out you can’t use non-EU banks (thanks, Brexit) but if you do it through a city’s local transport app you can pay by credit card. It doesn’t matter which city.
• IT IS A SUBSCRIPTION!! The cut off for cancellations is the 10th of the month. So I only wanted it for the last few days in February. I bought it early in the month and cancelled before the 10th February. It remained valid until the 28th.
• If your trip straddles two months you’ll need it for both months thus doubling the price so you’ll need to do some maths to see if it’s worth it.

Public Transport & Miscellaneous Info

• To get to Schloss Drachenburg you can take the RE8 or the RB27 train from the main train station in Cologne to Königswinter. It’ll get you there in 35 to 40 minutes. You can plan your journey with the DB Navigator app and the D-Ticket is valid.
• From the train station in Königswinter you then walk to Drachenfelsbahn, the historic railway station where trains run every half an hour from January until early November. Times vary according to the season and you can find more information HERE.
• When we were there is was €12 one way and €14 return to take you all the way to the summit. The castle is at the midway station.
• We decided to walk. It’s very steep and probably took us about half an hour, maybe less. It’s not unpleasant though.
• It cost us €10 each to get into the castle.

• When planning your train journey to Linz am Rhein you’re looking for Linz (Rhein) in the DB Navigator app.
• The same trains that brought you from Cologne to Königswinter will take you onto Linz, and it’s only about 15 minutes. So less than an hour if you were coming all the way from Cologne.