Help! We have decided at the last minute to take our teenage boys for a 10 day trip to Germany in August. I%26#39;ve purchased a couple of tour books but am feeling overwhelmed with info. We%26#39;d like to see as much as we can but don%26#39;t want to be rushing from place to place either. I%26#39;d love to hear recommendations for favorite must-see places to visit. We%26#39;d like to rent a car. Is it difficult to rent and drive a car there? We are rather adventurous and typically only plan out pieces of our domestic trips and then figure out the rest as we go. However, this is our first trip to Europe and wondered if that type of planning works well there or not...?
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Hi oldhide,
Yes, driving here is easy. However, since you guys probably drive all the time in the US, why not make this trip really different and fun? Taking trains is FUN and convenient, and it leaves all of you free to converse, snack, or listen to music during the trip. Taking the trains will also make it more possible for your boys to interact with local residents rather than just folks in the tourism/hotel business -- and that would really make the trip special for them.
Also remember that taking the trains is more green, and that%26#39;s a great example to set for your boys.
In any case, can you tell us where you%26#39;re entering Germany from and where exiting from? Will you be in %26amp; out of Munich, or in at Frankfurt and out at Munich? Also, what kinds of images do you have in mind to see -- all the famous castles, a few of them, the mountaintops, etc. And do you guys plan to do any hiking or walking while here?
We can help you plan a perfect vacation if you can just help us with a bit more information.
Hope to hear!
s
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First, in and around anywhere in Germany should be at least a week or two of excellent places to see and things to do. With over 30,000 castles and palaces alone, you can easily see that there is no shortage of places to visit.
As to driving or taking the train, for urban areas the train is best as these places have excellent inexpensive, frequent, local transportation, and driving and parking in such places can be hard. If you want to mainly see things in more rural areas and small towns, then drive. You can stop where and when you like for as long as you like and almost anywhere will be accessable, and you can just throw your luggage in the trunk and forget about it instead of handling it yourself on the train and to your hotel, and finding a place to store it if you stop along the way. Actually, you don%26#39;t have to commit yourself to one or the other, just use the appropriate means of transportation for what YOU actually want to do that day.
Another thing, many guide books concentrate only on a few places, and using these will ensure that you have a vacation with hordes of your fellow countrymen, when there are many excellent places the equal or better where you can have a %26quot;real%26quot; German experience with few German tourists and almost or no foreign ones. I cringed this last Saturday in Baden-Baden when I heard voices in English of people hundreds of feet away. What a way to ruin an otherwise enjoyable place!
I%26#39;ll give a few websites for my favorite area of Germany, Baden-Wuerttemberg where I live, a prime tourist destination, in SW Germany that abuts both Switzerland and France:
www.baden-wuerttemberg.de German state of Baden-Wuerttemberg
www.tourismus-bw.de Baden-Wuerttemberg tourism
www.schloesser-und-gaerten.de for the excellent palaces, castles, monasteries, and gardens operated by this German state
www.bodensee-tourismus.com Lake Constance with the Swiss Alps across the lake
www.meersburg.de the loveliest town on the lake with Germany%26#39;s oldest castle
www.schwaebischealb.de Swabian Alb, my favorite area of Germany with its low mountains, an abundance of castles and caves, and excellent cliffside scenery
www.burg-hohenzollern.com fairytale-like Hohenzollern Castle, one of the most meaningful castles in Germany on the Alb being the family seat of the influential, powerful Prussian Hohenzollern%26#39;s of kings and emperors
www.schloss-lichtenstein.de (only in German) fairytale-like Lichtenstein Castle on the Alb where last month they finished filming Sleeping Beauty
Hohenneuffen Castle (Fortress) in www.schloesser-und-gaerten.de , the largest castle ruin of the Alb
www.schwarzwald-tourismus.info Black Forest
www.tuebingen.de Tuebingen, our 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
Bebenhausen Monastery (in www.schloesser-und-gaerten.de ) well preserved and medieval, just an excellent lovely place to visit with usually just a handfull of tourists
www.metzingen.de Metzingen, with Germany%26#39;s most factory outlets for some inexpensive shopping
www.stuttgart-tourist.de Stuttgart, with its excellent big city sights including the Mercedes Benz and Porsche Museums, Stuttgart is after all where the automobile was invented
www.esslingen.de Esslingen with its well preserved medieval center
www.ludwigsburg.de Ludwigsburg with Germany%26#39;s largest perfectly preserved (all original, not a 1950s rebuild like so many others) Baroque palace (in www.schloesser-und-gaerten.de ), the Swabian Versailles, with the longest and best palace tour that I%26#39;ve been on in Europe, extensive gardens, four excellent museums (the fashion one has lots of clothes from the 1700s), porcellan sales and manusfacture, and two smaller associated palaces set near a deer park
Thise are just some of my favorite places to repeatedly visit, there are many more. Heidelberg, Ulm with its cathedral with the record height spire, and Baden-Baden are a few other excellent places to visit.
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In my experience, without jetlag to contend with, it%26#39;s perfectly feasible to do it all on the fly. By that I mean set off each morning with only a vague idea of where you%26#39;re going, and find a hotel where you find to be pleasant.
You DO need to know that X is an industrial town and Y is a pretty, olde-worlde one, of course, and that going in this direction leads you to mountains (or whatever) and in that direction leads you to an industrial region.
If you%26#39;re thinking of something like that, bear in mind Germany is quite unlike US, so there do not tend to be motel chains on expressway junctions, nor loads of chain restaurants. I%26#39;d advise you to borrow or buy a Michelin hotel guide to carry in your car so you can have an idea of hotel prices and facilities if you land up somewhere you%26#39;ve no idea about.
Train is perfectly possible, but you would need to decide on your itinerary- at least each day before setting off!
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Wow! Thanks for the great info and suggestions! I have always booked my own travel arrangements. Is there any advantage or disadvantage to using a travel agent for this trip. I%26#39;ve talked with one and she strongly suggests trip insurance which I have never purchased... I%26#39;m also afraid that I%26#39;ll miss a tax or something if I book myself. I am booking air travel this week and we are looking at either flying in/out of Frankfurt or the fare seems to be a little lower flying into Amsterdam and then home from Frankfurt.
I%26#39;ve also noticed that there will be a few Bundesliga football games going on while we are there. Are there better sites than others to try to buy tickets? That would make a perfect trip according to the boys!
We are hoping to see a mix of city and country...mostly country with castles, mountains, small towns. I%26#39;m looking forward to going to some of the websites you guys have suggested!
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Bundesliga soccer fixtures can be found at …go.com/fixturesleague=ger.1%26cc=5739 . It is probably much easier to purchase tickets with better seats for games for teams that have done poorly or there are no intense rivalries. The soccer seasoon opens with third place Stuttgart playing first place Wolfsburg at home.
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%26gt;I%26#39;ve talked with one and she strongly suggests trip insurance which I have never purchased... I%26#39;m also afraid that I%26#39;ll miss a tax or something if I book myself.
Believe me, if you have to pay a tax you will pay it - no matter how you book.
A travel agent is good if you have no idea what you are going to do. You have a good, well thought out plan so there is nothing more a TA can do - here is a secret: what travel agents do is nothing you couldn´t do yourself. Only they want to be paid for it.
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Don%26#39;t know if I would bother with the trip insurance. I would suggest flying into Frankfurt and back home from Munich. This lets you get the best of Germany in... Heidelberg, Black Forest, Bodensee, Fussen, Munich, and many of the other sites Marco Polo referred to in his post. Flying in to Amsterdam will let you see Amstedam and some of Holland but don%26#39;t know that you would have sufficient time to do justice to southern Germany.
Holland is nice, but not like Germany!
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Hi there - my husband, teenage daughter %26amp; myself did much the same spur of the moment trip as you are planning, in Dec 2007. We wanted to see the Christmas markets. We decided on Frankfurt - Wurzburg - Augsburg - Heidelburg - Frankfurt as a general itinerary, which is basically the romantic road route.
We arrived Frankfurt, looked around there but prefer to be in quainter, smaller towns. Took the train to Fulda for a day trip, which was a great town, but never had enough time there! Wurzburg was nice too %26amp; so was Bamberg (also took a day trip by train). We missed going to Rothenburg which we hear is special - medieval walled city. We especially enjoyed the old towns and the castles on our trip, even though the castles were basically closed in Dec. We were still able to wander around at will. Heidelburg was so beautiful and that castle is a must see. If you plan on going there, allow quite a few hours as the castle is huge with much to see. We even went on a solar powered boat cruise there - inexpensive even for us with our South African Rand / Euro exchange rate!
We hired a car (large van) which my husband found stressful to drive (for us on the wrong side of the road)and in icy conditions which we aren%26#39;t used to, but having a GPS navigator was definitely the way to go - even while on foot, we never got lost.
We had such a fantastic time, that we will be going again this December - without car hire, as train transport is so convenient and easy. Buy a Bayern ticket (for Bavaria)which is for up to 5 people travelling per day, which will cost about 28 Euro now if bought at the machine at the station. There were always people to help with the selection.
So, I%26#39;d say wing it as we did. Take a map along and figure it out as you go!
Enjoy your trip.
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Wow!! Were do I start?! FYI Deutsche Bahn has a great web site, some of which is in English. There are a variety of Family plan train ticket options as their desire is to get people out of their cars and using public transport. IE; State wide day tickets for up to 5 adults/kids for 29 Euros. Check out the deals at RAILEUROPE but be careful to make sure you don%26#39;t purchase more ticket than you really need.
My favorite part of Germany is Munich south, Munich is full of great museums and a favorite place for Germans to retire. Bavarian Alps are bucolic and will provide something for everyone. FYI there are a lot of day tours available from Garmisch to as far away as Venice. I wouldn%26#39;t go to Venice in the summer, but even from Munich you can get great day trips. Munich has a great tourist web site.
Good Luck!!
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One of the easiest trips I took to Germany was a week in Cologne, travelling every day to different destinations by train. You could stay a few steps away from the train station, and every day after breakfast take off. You could go to Aachen, to Trier, to Duesseldorf, to Bonn, to Muenster, to Brussels, etc. If you go to this link bahn.de/p/…MDB58548-ice_2009.pdf
and print out the map of Germany, it shows all the high speed Intercity Express train routes, which is much more helpful than just a map of Germany.
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