From History

In Stahleck castle  nowadays you find a modern Youthhostel. In the vineyards, halfway between St. Peter's Church and Stahleck Castle , you see as a historic landmark and a jewel of the Rhine High Gothic the ruins of the former Werner chapel. On Good Friday in 1287 the corpse of a boy named Werner was found was in a cave near the river between Bacharach and Rheindiebach. Born in Womrath, a village on the Hunsrück, the boy had entered service in Oberwesel.

On the false accusation of a female servant the Jewish employer was accused of  ritual murder  of the boy. In consequence of the ritual murder accusation a pogrom flared up in Bacharach and the neighboring towns of Oberwesel and Boppard. Only in those placesmore than 40 Jewish victims  were killed by the incited mob.

The wave of murders spread all along the river down to the lower Rhine and was the worst pogrom since the first crusade. From this incident, Heinrich Heine was inspired to his 1840 novel fragment "Der Rabbi von Bacherach".

A chapel was built and up to the middle of the 16th century this was a pilgrimage place. The Werner cult was one of the boils of Christian anti-Semitism.

Bacharach was occupied by the French during the Nine Years War and during an act of war the Werner chapel was destroyed in 1689.

In the 19th Century, the ruins of the chapel became a symbol of the Romantic Rhine.

From 1981 to 1996, the ruin has been restored with the help of a citizens' initiative. Today, it is not only an excellent example of Gothic architecture, but also as a memorial of Christian delusion and guilt towards the Jewish people. The dedication plaque expresses this with a  prayer of Pope John XXIII.

The Middle Rhine Valley

In 2002 UNESCO declared the Middle Rhine Valley from Koblenz to Bingen a World  Heritage Site. It's official title is "UNESCO World Heritage cultural landscape of the upper Middle Rhine Valley". This 65 km section is a cultural landscape of great diversity and beauty.
Special events are an annual "Rhine in Flames":
From early May to late September on several weekends the valley is illuminated with a huge array of pyrotechnics in the various towns from Bingen to Bonn.
End of June, there is "Tal-to-Tal"(total valley) on both sides of the Rhine with free ride for bikes only.

Every weekend during summer there are several vineyard festivities, village and farm festivals.
In 2005 the "Rhine Castle trail" was completed, which also passes our house. It connects 28 Castles on left side of the World Heritage area from Bingen to Koblenz. This path is the trail with the highest density of castles in Europe.

For a travel hints about Bacharach click here.

The vine

Of course we should not close the view on the region, without naming the elixir of life that holds together the Middle Rhine Valley, the wine. In the Middle Rhine region there are  about 600 hectares of vineyards, especially the classic Riesling, but also Müller-Thurgau, Kerner, Red wine and Pinot Noir are grown.
Many sunny days and sheltered position give these wines their special quality. The Rhine and the prevailing slate soil act as a natural heat storage.
Because of the intense tourism, the wine in the Middle Rhine Valley is often marketed directly to end users.