Bingen Travel Guide

The Mouse Tower is a stone tower on a small island in the Rhine, outside Bingen. The Romans were the first to build a structure on this site. It later became part of Franconia, and it fell and had to be rebuilt many times.

According to legend, Hatto II restored the tower and stayed there sometimes when he visited the town, because he felt relatively safe there. A sudden illness forced him to stay on the island, where he was said to have been attacked by thousands of mice and died soon afterwards in Bingen in 970. Since then the tower has been known as the Mouse Tower.

As a highlight in the jubilee year 900 years of Hidegard Bingen opened the museum in the former electricity power station, on the bank of the Rhine not far from the mouth of the River Nahe. The power station is an industrial monument. The station was built in 1898 and was regarded as a cathedral of progress, and was included in the collection of Gothic and neo-Gothic sacred buildings, such as the St Martin’s church and the Rochus Chapel from the year 1895. From the entrance to the museum you can see the Mäuseturm, the ruins of Ehrenfels Castle, the Niederwald monument and Rüdesheim.

There are three permanent exhibitions in the museum: an exhibition showcasing Hildegard von Bingen, a display of unique surgical instruments , and the Rheinromantik (Rhine Romanticism) exhibition showcasing the 19th century.

Hours: daily 10am to 5pm (closed Mondays).

The museum is housed in the city-owned Stefan-George-Haus, a former Hafenkasten Tudor-style building built in 1689. The exhibitions show four main aspects of George's life and an insight into the most important stages in the life of this poet, editor and translator. The museum contains his writing desk and part of the library he left behind. There are also books by Melchior Lechter and translations of George’s work in foreign languages, and also sculptures by Victor Frank, Heinrich Moshage, Ludwig Thormaelen, Urban Thiersch and Alexander Zschokke.

Hours: Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays 2pm to 5pm.

The Rochuskapelle is a German pilgrimage chapel to Saint Roch on the Rochusberg southeast of Bingen am Rhein.

The first building, dating to the plague year of 1666, was destroyed in 1795 during the French occupation of the Rhine valley. The second was built 1814 in the wake of a typhoid fever epidemic brought back by soldiers returning from the Napoleonic Wars, with Goethe describing its dedication ceremony. Its flèche was hit by lightening in 1889 and the chapel burned down to the brickwork.

The present building, built in 1893-95, has Neo Gothic designs by the Freiburg master builder Max Meckel and the Berlin stone-cutters Zeidler & Wimmel. At this time a small Bethlehemskapelle was built under the main chapel's east window, recalling an earlier chapel of that name on the site from the Crusader era. Parts of the earlier chapels' art collections survive, but the only thing to survive the fire entirely was the Baroque statue of the patron saint at the high altar.

Experience the Unesco World Heritage Upper Middle-Rhine Valley by boat tour. There are round-trips where you can learn more about the Binger Loch and the Mäuseturm, the ruins of Castle Ehrenfels and Rheinstein and Reichenstein castles. It will be a trip along one of the most ancient trade routes in Europe to former customs castles and the hideouts of robber barons. Or take the Loreley trip From Bingen to St Goar past world-famous cliffs full of mythology about a beautiful maid with long blonde hair. This trip brings the fairytale Rhine to life. Steep vineyards, nooks and crannies, proud and defiant castles and the Loreley as a symbol of a legend full of passion.

More information on tours, timetables, stops, etc. can be found at bingen-ruedesheimer.com.

Many individual and group specialty tours are available to discover the famous wine growing regions around Bingen and the Rhine River. For instance, try wine tasting at Burg Klopp (Klopp Castle) with a magnificent view over four winegrowing regions: Nahe, Rheingau, Middle Rhine and Rheinhessen, enjoying a wine from each of the regions and learning something about Rhine Romanticism, followed by a vitner's supper. Or, join a torchlight walk to the Bingen vineyards with a bonfire, wine tasting and barbeque.

Contact the Bingen am Rhein Tourist Office for a list of tours.

The cheeky Bingen Waldmaus (Wood Mouse) shows the correct way to go and invites children to follow an experience path created for children and families. The path is a 5.5 km circular tour. During this walk, 24 individually designed topic tables explain local life in the wood on the slopes of the Rhine. Insight is provided into the daily lives and the history of people for whom the wood was a foundation of their lives, and still is, whereas other locations supply insight and details of a lively and cultural life. There are also 13 signs showing the different kinds of trees, which supply unusual information about the sorts of trees seen in the Bingen Wood. A new addition is the 40-metre-long hanging bridge over the 4-metre-deep the Kreuzbach gorge, which connects the experience path with the forest botanical garden.

The path is part of Bingen Wood, covering an area of 2,000 hectares, and it is a popular place for the people who live in the town and for visitors from Germany, from abroad and those living in the Rhein-Main region. The enjoyable circular rambling paths are well signposted.