Hi,
I%26#39;m planning a trip to Munich and have the opportunity to do an 10 hour stop over in either Frankfurt or London, England. We will be doing day trips during our week in Munich so we%26#39;ll not be as far north as Frankfurt. Therefore I thought that might be nice to do, and it%26#39;s not likely I would otherwise go there. On the other hand, London would be something different, but I plan to go to London on a future vacation. Does anyone have thoughts on which city is better for a stop over? One thing to weigh would be how close sights are to the airport, as we don%26#39;t want to spend alot of time getting to the city center and back to the airport. We will not be renting a car so public transport (I assumne train) would be key. It looking on line it looked like some towns outside Franfurt would be best (Limburg, Cologne, or Heidelberg), but perhaps too far to see much in a 10 hour stopover. Any thoughts/suggestions would be appreciated!
Thanks,
Carolyn
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10 hours is a decent amount of time to visit either Frankfurt or London, but you%26#39;ll be scratching the surface of both. Frankurt is only about 15 inexpensive minutes away from the airport by S-bahn. The London airports are much further, and for any other than Heathrow you%26#39;ll have to take a fairly expensive train, or the slow tube from Heathrow if you don%26#39;t want to ride the Heathrow Express which anyways only takes you to Paddington Station and not the center of london. Of course, there are things to see near both London and Frankfurt where you don%26#39;t have to go into the cities, for instance in the case of Heathrow, Windsor Palace.
In the case of Frankfurt, some other excellent options are taking the S-bahn from the airport in the other direction to either Mainz or Wiesbaden. These places vary considerably from each other, and you might like to do an image search using these cities as the search term. It%26#39;s also possible to take a train to Bingen or Rudesheim and take a boat ride down the most scenic part of the Rhine, and perhaps visit a place or two, before returning by train to the airport.
So there is quite a lot you can do whether your stopover is in Frankfurt or London. One thing I have to say, if the airport is London Heathrow, personally I would avoid it, immigration takes a long time compared to the almost not noticeable immigration at Frankfurt. And if it isn%26#39;t Heathrow in England, the train ride will be very expensive, or even from Heathrow if you choose to use it as it is much quicker.
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For 10 hours I wouldn%26#39;t bother with London. You will only be disappointed as you won%26#39;t be seeing much of the things that you might want to see. And also the distance from airport to the centre is a disadvantage. Frankfurt airport is only about 15 min to the city centre and within 10 hours you will have enough time to see the main sights. City centre, river Main promenade, maybe the Botanical Garden or the Zoo, grab breakfast and/or lunch and/or dinner and you will have an enjoyable day.
I am unfortunately not familiar with the suburbs or the surrounding country side so cannot comment if it%26#39;s worth going anywhere.
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Going into Frankfurt is fast and easy and cheap. There are a whole lot of things to see and do here, but not sure I would put going to the Zoo at the top of my list when I only had a limited amount of time in a city.
Historical sites, beautiful old churches, lovely turn of the century architecture in all of the neighborhoods, open markets, art galleries, applewine pubs and gardens are just some of things that I would suggest.
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Definitely Frankfurt, especially if you%26#39;re planning to go to London on a future trip. Am assuming that you%26#39;ll be landing in Frankfurt am Main airport (not Frankfurt Hahn). There are train connections aplenty, and lots of destinations worth exploring within a 30-40 minute train ride. Limburg, Cologne and Heidelberg may be a bit far given your time constraints, but all suggestions previously made by others are good. I have a personal preference for Mainz and Wiesbaden, especially if it%26#39;s a market day.
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THANK YOU all, for your helpful postings. Reading all there is to do in the Frankfurt area, we are now considering flying to Frankfurt, staying a night, and then taking a train to Munich and flying home from there. This would enable us to have a full day in Frankfurt at a minimum, and perhaps we%26#39;d even spend a good part of the second day there. We have fixed accommodations for Sunday to Sunday in Munich, and were going to get a hotel in Munich for that first (Sat.) night, but now we are looking into spending that first night in Frankfurt or Heidelberg. If anyone has thoughts to share on which would be the best base for 1-2 days of sightseeing (possibly including Weisbaden, Limburg, Cologne as well), please let me know. Staying in Heidelberg would be closer to Munich, but we%26#39;re wondering if more direct/faster trains leave from Frankfurt. Again, thank you all for the wonderful suggestions - without them we would have limited ourselves just to the Munich area. We%26#39;re now excited about the prospect of spending time in the Frankfurt area! :)
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THANK YOU all, for your helpful postings. Reading all there is to do in the Frankfurt area, we are now considering flying to Frankfurt, staying a night, and then taking a train to Munich and flying home from there. This would enable us to have a full day in Frankfurt at a minimum, and perhaps we%26#39;d even spend a good part of the second day there. We have fixed accommodations for Sunday to Sunday in Munich, and were going to get a hotel in Munich for that first (Sat.) night, but now we are looking into spending that first night in Frankfurt or Heidelberg. If anyone has thoughts to share on which would be the best base for 1-2 days of sightseeing (possibly including Weisbaden, Limburg, Cologne as well), please let me know. Staying in Heidelberg would be closer to Munich, but we%26#39;re wondering if more direct/faster trains leave from Frankfurt. Again, thank you all for the wonderful suggestions - without them we would have limited ourselves just to the Munich area. We%26#39;re now excited about the prospect of spending time in the Frankfurt area! :)
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%26quot;spending that first night in Frankfurt or Heidelberg. If anyone has thoughts to share on which would be the best base for 1-2 days of sightseeing (possibly including Weisbaden, Limburg, Cologne as well), please let me know. Staying in Heidelberg would be closer to Munich, but we%26#39;re wondering if more direct/faster trains leave from Frankfurt. Again, thank you all for the wonderful suggestions - without them we would have limited ourselves just to the Munich area. We%26#39;re now excited about the prospect of spending time in the Frankfurt area!%26quot;
Hi Jerseygirl
If you have just 1 or 2 days in the Frankfurt area, it might be a bit much to take in Frankfurt, Heidelberg, Wiesbaden, Limburg and Cologne. If you base yourself in Frankfurt, you%26#39;d be able to take in Heidelberg on one day, and then take in some of the sights of Frankfurt when you return. The next day you may wish to head up one of your other nominated cities. I would spend a whole day in Cologne if you can. If you head up to Limburg, you may wish to have a look at Idstein on the way there/back, as it%26#39;s also very pretty, or else half a day in Limburg, half a day in Wiesbaden. Or combine Wiesbaden with Mainz (just across the river, and a day ticket for one should also cover you for the other, as their public transport systems are linked).
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