I am planning a trip to Europe with my family for next summer. The travelers would include 5 people: myself, my wife, and 3 children (16, 14, 10). We were thinking of June 2013 for about 14 days.
My wife has purchased tour guide books and maps that we have been pouring over. We have also been reading a lot and watching some of Rick Steve's videos.
I lived in Eastern Germany for two years 20+ years ago, so I know I would like to spend some time in that area, but the rest of the trip is wide open. My daughter has wanted to visit Stone Henge, so we've played around with making a jump to England at the end of the trip, but am not sure that will be reasonable.
Anyway, here's what we were thinking:
- fly from the US into Berlin. Spend a day touring Berlin. I want to see anything historical related to The Wall and the old DDR. Checkpoint Charlie, Brandenburg Gate, etc. any suggestions?
- rent a car for at least part of the trip in Germany
- travel to Dessau to stay with old friends. not sure there's much to see here, but maybe plan this for a Sunday, attend church in Koethen, and visit old friends
- travel to Frieberg...maybe stop in Leipzig??? I have memories of getting out at Leipzig Bahnhof and walking the pedestrian zone, eating, seeing old church where Bach is buried, etc.
- visit the Mormon temple in Freiberg.
- visit the small town of Seiffen in the Erzgebirge where the Nutcracker originated. I remember touring a toy museum, visiting small wood carving shops, and stores, and riding on an alpine slide.
- visit Dresden. I remember the jousting arena, the opera house, the Frauen Kirche, etc. I think it would be fun to spend a day in Dresden exploring the pedestrian zone. Any ideas???
- visit the Saechsische Schweiz. I remember enjoying this area and feeling like we were out away from the busy cities...the old bridge and castle were amazing.
- visit Prague? It remember hearing that this is an amazing city to visit. It looks like it would be on our way to Bavaria and would be an easy stop. What do you think? My daughter really wants to visit a lot of countries and get here passport stamped, but I have heard that Europe is pretty open and does not have border crossings to stamp passports. Any chance we can get passport stamps anyway? 
- visit Bavaria. Where should we go and what should we see in Bavaria? I hear good things about Rothenburg and we thought we would check it out. We have of course heard of Neu Schwanstein, and are interested in it. What should we see and do in Munich? What other places are worth a visit?
- dip down into Austria, Lichtenstein, and Switzerland??? Spend some time in the Alps?
- other places in Germany???
- budget air over to England??? I've seen that you can fly cheap in Europe. If we tried one of these cheap flights, could we check our luggage and fly home from England?
We are not sure about the rest of the trip. We plan on flying into one city and flying home from a different one. We will likely have a rental car for part of the trip, but would like to let my children experience some train travel.
Anyway, I'd love to get some expert advice, so thanks in advance!
Gary
Need help planning trip to Germany and surrounding countries
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How many months do you intend to travel? For 14 days this is far too much.
I agree that you've bitten off way more than you can chew--however, since you'll be in the neighborhood of Berlin/Dresden/Leipzig, I suggest that you make a detour to Quedlinburg, a wonderful town near Dessau. You will be astonished at the changes--improvements--in towns like Quedlinburg in the past 20 years, since the reunification of German, and Quedlinburg has a great Fachwerk museum that has before and after pictures of buildings in the town.
I suggest that you stay in Germany. You'll be lucky just to see some of the German stuff. p.s. Germany has Alps.
drop england for this trip.. stick to germany and maybe a forray into austria and switzerland... plenty to do in G... dresden requires a couple of days.. watch for advice from ingo on this..
All that in 2 weeks? You better do a major scaling back!
To get some perspective, get your self a good road map of Germany and put a pin in every place you want to visit, then - - - -
Go to www.bahn. de (the website of the Deutsche Bahn/German Railways) and see how much time it takes to get to places by train. For the time being, forget about costs, just figure the time. There are always special deals you might be able to use to reduce travel costrs for 5.
Or, if you panto go by car, get yourself a good road map and figure that without sightseeing, you will average 80km/hr maxiumum on regular roads, 100km on autobahns. In big cities, like Berlin and Dresden, a car is a complete nuisance.
For cities like Berlin, you will need a minimum of 3 full days, Dresden 2 days.
Once you have scaled back your plans to reality, list them on this forum and let people comment on them.
If you are going to Dessau you might consider visiting the English garden in Woerlitz. A friend of mine went because it fed into his research interests (academic) and as I understand from him it's quite a gem, and probably very undervisited.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dessau-W%C3%B6rlitz_Garden_Realm
Lavandul
Definitely too much for two weeks. You need to make a list of places that you *must* see on this trip, then come back to this forum.
I second the idea of Wörlitz - a must when in Dessau. Leipzig is a good idea - an overnight would be better. There are lots of castles between Leipzig and the Erzgebirge mountains (Colditz, Rochlitz, Rochsburg, Gnandstein, Kriebstein etc.) which are worth to see, more of them in the Erzgebirge region (Augustusburg, Lichtenwalde, Scharfenstein e.g.) not to mention beautiful towns like Annaberg, Schwarzenberg e.g.
I'd also recommend you spend some more time around Dresden, including Meißen, some more vineyards with wine tasting (Radebeul), palaces and castles (Moritzburg, Weesenstein, Pillnitz, Rammenau, Stolpen). The National Park Saxon Switzerland deserves at least two nights - fortress Königstein is a *must*, ditto Bastei viewing point (the "bridge" you mentioned), I'd also suggest a hike near Bad Schandau.
Two nights in Prague are maybe doable on top of that, but not more.
Thanks so much for all of the quick responses. There is a lot of great information here for me to start looking through.
You've all confirmed what I have also been feeling. I think we will stick to Germany and maybe a little bit of Austria and Switzerland if we can swing it. I'll have to start doing more homework to figure out distances and travel and check out some of these great towns that have been suggested.
I want to see some key sites in some of the cities, but don't feel that we need to see everything, thus the day here and day there. If you can help me know what things can't be missed for some of the destinations, that would help me know how long we should stay in each place.
Thanks again. I'll do some more homework and then re-post.
Gary