Ideas for vacation to Germany

Old May 27th, 2017, 07:36 AM
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Ideas for vacation to Germany

I'm planning for a trip summer 2019 for my husband, my two kids (at the time will be 13 years old and 20), and myself but not sure where to start. Places I know that the family is interested in seeing include a visit to a concentration memorial (husband and son are very interested in WWII history; I am interested as well but not sure my daughter would be able to handle it so she and I might end up doing something else while they tour a memorial), Neuschwanstein Castle, something involving beer, and the Black Forest. I am planning on about 10 days in country. Would the places I mentioned be doable in that timeframe?
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Old May 27th, 2017, 07:54 AM
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I would start buying a few paper guides and read. This will give you ideas of what is to see in Germany.

It is a big country with a lot of different regions.
Agree that the concentration camps can sanitized I saw Dachau and it was too clean and too peaceful. Auschwitz is quite different

Anyway 13 is old enough.
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Old May 27th, 2017, 07:55 AM
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http://www.thirdreichruins.com/ Great info. Nuremberg would be excellent to visit from Munich for an overnight. You and your daughter can go to the castle there. Beautiful walled city.
I can't do the concentration camps, it makes me physically ill. http://www.uncommon-travel-germany.c...alzberg_2.html

I found this to be enough. The bunkers were interesting and the museum has been enlarged.

Garmisch is my favorite area in Germany.
https://www.tripadvisor.com/Tourism-...Vacations.html

You could skip the Black Forest and concentrate more on this area and see some great scenery and historic areas.
Train it to Garmisch from Munich and if you need to you can rent a car there. Train in and out of Nuremberg is good also.
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Old May 27th, 2017, 08:45 AM
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Two years gives you a lot of time to plan. Just one suggestion -- after your have your itinerary mapped out, look to see if there are village festivals near where you're staying. They can be a lot of fun for the family and are less hectic than the big city festivals.

For example, we attended the summer beer festival in a village outside Nuremberg that was a blast. Great band playing oldies (not oom pa pa music) that had people dancing on the tables. Had a much better time there than we did at Oktoberfest in Munich a few years earlier. There were only a handful of non-locals at the fest and everyone was very welcoming. We stayed at a beautifully restored local guesthouse -- the building dated back to the 13th century but had all the mod cons.
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Old May 27th, 2017, 09:41 AM
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>>> Would the places I mentioned be doable in that timeframe?

I look at this from two levels.

1. Physical possibility. Whether there is any time to accomplish what you are trying to do. This is quite simple.

All the time you are on the ground in Germany.
MINUS
sleeping + eating time
MINUS time to travel from A to B. If by car, www.viamichelin.com. If by train, www.bahn.com.

If you get negative or only a minuscule time available to it is not physically possible.

2. Personal constraints. This is strictly personal. While person A might say you cannot do X unless you have so many hours, a person B might be more than content to spend a fraction of that time. It is you trip, your money, and your time after all.

It is difficult to make progress unless you have a good understanding of your priority list of things to do. You can find out yourself if your combination is realistic. String together your top priority things to do. If you can allocate realistic time to connect between them and be satisfied with amount of time available for that activity, then it is doable. If something in your higher priority cannot be included, perhaps due to timing issue, too far out of the way, etc, substitute something down your priority list.

Regarding concentration memorials, if you want your children to learn something from the experience, the opportunity to do it might be earlier than you think.

If she can comfortably read The Diary of a Young Girl or seen a movie such as The Boy in Striped Pajamas, she might be ready to experience some or all of the memorial site. It is not necessary to see all part of the memorial site. I have been to Dachau and I just visited Auschwitz. The most haunting images were not the crematorium but the piles of what represented humanity: a pile of shoes especially ones that belonged to toddlers, a pile of human hair, a pile of eye glasses, or a pile of pots and pans, a pile of combs and brushes.
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Old May 27th, 2017, 10:25 AM
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You can definitely do all the things you mentioned in 10 days in Germany. To make it doable, though, I would suggest remaining in southern Germany, focusing on Bavaria (Munich) and the Black Forest, which is not too far away from Munich.

If you spend something like 6 days in Munich you'll have your fill of superb beer gardens and beer halls, and there you can also visit the Dachau concentration camp. It's in the Munich metro area, so if your daughter doesn't want to do it, you and she can easily do something else that day in Munich. There are also tours of Munich oriented to WWII and Hitler's connection to the City. Munich is the center of the Bavarian train system, so you can take day or overnight trips to a wide variety of places, like Nuremberg, Regensburg, several towns at the foot of the Alps, Neuschwanstein, and even Salzburg Austria.

Then you can take another 4 days or so to visit the Black Forest, which is a short distance via either train or car. My wife and I recent spent 3 nights in Freiburg im Breisgau and had a lovely time there.

There is lots to see and do in Berlin as well, including WWII and Cold War history, but I do agree with the above posters that adding that area in would be stretching it thin. But given the activities you mentioned, if you focus on Bavaria and the Black Forest you can do it all quite comfortably.
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Old May 27th, 2017, 10:38 AM
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"" Great band playing oldies (not oom pa pa music) that had people dancing on the tables""

Such interesting info... Reminds me of a visit to the Sommerfest in Munich one year. In one of the beer tents the entertainment was a German band playing American country music! They were really good, too. Funny thing was you could tell that the back-up singers didn't know English very well and were singing words that sounded English but weren't quite right. Made for such a fun evening.
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Old May 27th, 2017, 10:41 AM
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The Internet is great once you have learned more about the country.

Guide books are really helpful.
Eyewitness has pictures and map type layouts of palaces, etc.
Othe guides have more history about places.
Some have more logistical advice, like how to get places, use the trains, etc.
Considering the total cost of the trip, two or three guide books at $15.00 to $25.00 each, are a bargain if they make the whole trip better.

Get a big paper map. Not only is it fun, it is easier than looking at small versions on a screen.

You have two years, so do not try to pin things down right away. Relax. Read. Research. Watch movies. Get everybody involved. It is likely that the more you learn, the more you will change your mind about the final itinerary. Enjoy the planning - together.
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Old May 27th, 2017, 04:12 PM
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http://www.thirdreichruins.com/ Great info. Nuremberg would be excellent to visit from Munich for an overnight. You and your daughter can go to the castle there. Beautiful walled city.>

Nuremberg for sure for WW2 relics - largest grouping of Third Reich relics anywhere and except the museum nothing graphically horrid-looking.

You have the stadium and balcony from where Hitler famously reviewed thousands of goose-stepping Nazi troops on the parade ground below- which still can be seen in pristine condition and goes for what seems like miles. Other stadiums too and a museum - macrross gives the website.
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