Hi. My friend and I are backpacking through Italy, Switzerland and Germany for about 15 days at the end of September/early October. We have about a week in Germany, and so far our only solid plans are to visit a friend in Hamburg and fly back home from Frankfurt. We were thinking of visiting Munich, Berlin and Hamburg originally, but now that we have a flight out of Frankfurt we are thinking of exploring that area some. We are looking for recommendations as far as which cities we should squeeze in. A mix of small towns and larger cities would be good. Should we drop Berlin and spend the extra days in Wurzburg of Rottenburg? Any suggestions would be helpful.
Thanks!
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You%26#39;d have a hard time getting further away from Switzerland and Italy than Hamburg while staying in Germany, and the same goes for Berlin. In and around anywhere in Germany should be at least several weeks of excellent things to see and do.
The German state of Baden-Wuerttemberg ( www.baden-wuerttemberg.de ; www.tourismus-bw.de ; and www.schloesser-und-gaerten.de for the excellent castles, palaces, monasteries and gardens operated by this state) abuts both Switzerland and France, and is a little south of Frankfurt. It is a premiere tourist destination for Germany with lots of things to see and do. A few excellent places to visit:
Stuttgart ( www.stuttgart-tourist.de ), the largest and capital city, with many excellent things such as the Mercedes Benz and Porsche Museums (Stuttgart is after all where the automobile was invented), other excellent museums, three large mineral baths associated with western Europe%26#39;s largest mineral waters, Germany%26#39;s largest city with vineyards and such extensive ones are a rarity in Europe for a large city ( www.stuttgarter-weinwanderweg.de ), and many other excellent things such as Wilhelma ( www.wilhelma.de ) Europe%26#39;s largest combination zoo-botanicval garden set amidst the nice Moorish architecture of this former palace, and the world%26#39;s first modern TV tower has an observation deck. The world%26#39;s second largest beer festival and largest fun festival, the Cannstatter Volksfest ( www.cannstater-volksfest.de ), is 25Sept to 11Oct.
15 minutes away by public transportation are: Esslingen ( www.esslingen.de ) with its well preserved medieval center; and Ludwigsburg ( www.ludwigsburg.de )with Germany%26#39;s largest perfectly preserved Baroque palace (in www.schloesser-und-gaerten.de ), the Swabian Versailles, with several days%26#39; worth of things to see and do including the longest and best palace tour that I have been on in Europe, and the special pumpkin exhibition will be on in the extensive gardens with Europe%26#39;s largest pumpkins and squash and large themed sculptures made from these vegetables.
About 50 minutes away by train is Tuebingen ( www.tuebingen.de ), out favorite town to repeatedly visit in Germany with its hilly cobblestone streets, half-timbered houses, castle, interesting nontourist shops, and one of Europe%26#39;s oldest universities.
Well preserved medieval Bebenhausen Monastery (in www.schloesser-und-gaerten.de ) is just north of it.
The Swabian Alb ( www.schwaebischealb.de ) is my favorite area of Germany, low mountains with lots of castles and caves, and excellent cliffside scenery.
Hohenzollern Castle ( www.burg-hohenzollern.com ) on the Alb is fairytale-like and one of the most meaningful castles in Germany being the family seat of the once powerful and influential Prussian Hohenzollern family of Prussian kings and German emperors.
Lake Constance ( www.bodensee-tourismus.com ) is on the border with Switzerland with the Alps just across the lake, with Meersburg ( www.meersburg.de ) being the loveliest town on the lake and also has Germany%26#39;s oldest castle.
The Black Forest ( www.schwarzwald-tourismus.info ) is also in Baden-Wuerttemberg.
There are many other excellent places to visit, but these are some of my favorites for repeatedly visiting.
For 28€ a Baden-Wuerttemberg train ticket can be used to access anywhere in the state for a day for 2-5 people using any means of transportation except the fast IC, EC and ICE trains, and a few places beyond its borders can be reached such as Basel and Schaffhausen, Switzerland. Travel within the Stuttgart metropolitan area is even much cheaper with a group day ticket.
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I see that I got one web address wrong, it should be: www.cannstatter-volksfest.de for the very large beer festival.
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I would go to Berlin. They are having a lot of events to celebrate the 20 year anniversary of the fall of the wall, so it would be a good time to be there. It is an exciting city, one of the great capitols of Europe. There are many small towns around there to satisfy seeing that type of thing. If you only have a week, spending it based in one area and daytripping makes sense. Though you could do this in Frankfurt too, Berlin is just Berlin and I would certainly want to go there this year.
mauerfall09.de/en/…
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