Hello, Does anyone have any advice as to what we should see on a 10 to 14 day trip to Germany this summer? Specifically any good tours? Advice on driving ourselves, train tours etc...We have business for a day or 2 near Leipzig and then vacation. Thanks, Pat

If you decide to head as far south as Bavaria, then I would recommend Landshut (go up to the castle on the big hill over the town) - - about 35 minutes northeast of Munich.<BR><BR>And try to do make a day or two for Salzburg, less than two hours, ESE of Munich. A town that kids love. Oh, and once again - - go up to the castle on the big hill over the town!<BR><BR>And Germany was made to be seen from the comfort of your own car.<BR><BR>Best wishes,<BR><BR>Rex<BR>

Thanks Rex, and I think we'll try to see the castle on the big hill overlooking the town. Meanwhile, would you still recommend driving to those who do not speak a word of German?

No more, no less than walking down the sidewalk. You are going to Germany, right? 25 words a week. Start today.<BR><BR>You can start with Ausfahrt.<BR><BR>und Alle Richtungen...<BR>

For something different and totally German, try to do a 'volksmarch'. That is a 10 km walk (not a race). Try AVA.org as a starting place, or just ask when you get over there

Check out Bavaria Ben's website. There is a trip report by someone named Victor who had 2 children on a Germany trip. I believe I have seen Victor post on this board on occasion.

You should tell us how old your kids are......

I visited the Leipzig area of Germany for 3, two-week vacations in the springs of ‘98, ‘99 & 2000. I used the trains and rental cars to get about. <BR><BR>I didn’t have any problems with the actual driving, even though I prefer not to drive on vacation. (I’ll cover navigating in a bit.) Friends in the States would tell me how terrifying the autobahn was with Mercedes and BMWs flying past you. I didn’t see the big deal. I stayed in the right lane except to pass and made sure I had plenty of room to pass when I wanted to. Which is almost exactly how I drive in Indiana. I don’t think of myself as a particularly talented driver and I still managed. For my own piece of mind I always took the rental car insurance. It was worth every penny to me. <BR><BR>As far as bigger cities, I don’t like driving in any of them. This includes Munich, Paris, Berlin, and heck, even NYC. I drive towards a city center, find parking and start walking. I see more that way and have fewer headaches. If I’m too far from something I want to see, I’ll take a taxi. If I get too far from my rental car and I’m tired, I take a taxi back. Just make sure you know where you parked better yet, write it down. <BR><BR>I think navigating is the hardest part. It helps tremendously to have someone navigating while you drive. The thing I found the most difficult about the autobahns was knowing which direction to go. For example in Leipzig the entry to the autobahn doesn’t say A9 Southbound, or A9 Northbound. It says A9, towards Berlin, or A9 towards Munich. Not a problem in this case, as poor as my geography is, I know that Berlin is north and Munich is south of Leipzig. The problem you run into is sometimes the entry signs will say something closer and less familiar: A9 to Dessau or A9 to Nuremberg. Trying to make a decision based on these two cities can be tougher. Trying to find them on the map while making a decision can be difficult too. You don’t know how big Dessau is or how far away it is. In a case like this it’s best to pull over and decide before you get on. As an aside, watch for double spellings in Germany. Nuremberg in German is Nurnberg, umlaut over the ”u,” Munich is Munchen with an umlaut, etc. My best advice is to get a map and study it a bit before you start driving. Do this at home before you go with a map from a RandMcNally store.<BR><BR>I really liked the rail in Germany. Took a three-day trip to Prague by rail. Actually left the car in Leipzig because it was cheaper with a weekly rental for two weeks, rather than ditching it. In addition, Hertz wouldn’t let us take the car into the Czech Republic.<BR><BR>What to do I’ll put in another post.<BR>

Leipzig is a major passenger rail hub. It has a newly renovated train station/shopping mall that is really nice.<BR><BR>From Leipzig you could train to many places pretty easily if you didn’t want to drive much. As I mentioned Prague, but also Munich, Berlin and Dresden are reasonable distances away by rail. With kids, and if you’re from the States, the train is a fun and interesting way to go that isn’t so easy to do at home. (Not so safe anymore either, just had another Amtrak crash this morning. At the rate Amtrak is going, we’ll catch up with the Brits. ). I found eating on the train to Prague not too outrageously expensive and very nice food to boot.<BR><BR>Prague, Munich and Berlin were all excellent to see. I could easily spend a week in each city, excellent museums, great theater, and pretty parks.<BR><BR>More off the beaten path and enjoyable for me were Dresden, Wittenberg, Bayreuth and Wurzberg. Bavaria has Ludwig’s three castles and I liked them all. <BR><BR>If the kids are young teens Dachau is a concentration camp that would be educational to see. It’s outside of Munich a few miles. Buchenwald is east of Leipzig and might be educational for older teens. Buchenwald was a death camp, Dachau was not. My friends in Germany went to both and regretted taking their young (7 year old) son to Buchenwald; it was too much for him. Dachau is not as horrifying and he did OK there.<BR><BR>Do a search on “Leipzig” here and you can pull up a couple of postings that list things to do in the area. <BR><BR>You should have a great time in former East Germany, it’s not as loaded with tourists as some of the rest of Europe. <BR>

There's a great beginning language book called Signposts:German that concentrates on reading German signs of<BR>all kinds, including roadsigns. <BR>Lots of pictures, explanations of the <BR>abbreviations, the whole nine yards.<BR><BR>Try a web search on the title. They have them for other languages too.<BR>

I would recommend getting an international drivers license. No you don't normally need them but besides the translations they offer international road signs. I've seen people drive through stop signs because they thought that they were yield signs (they kind of look like upside down yield signs). German drivers are very good but they do drive fast. I was doing a little over 160 k/h (100 mph) last year and was being passed so fast that I almost got out to see why my car had stopped.<BR>

Art's post just reminded me. Germany has this right-hand turn, right-of-way rule that was unusual to me. <BR><BR>At intersections of equal sized roads without stop signs, the person making a right-hand turn has the right-of-way. This means that people are pulling out directly in front of you as you are driving down a street. But these people do have the right-of-way.<BR><BR>I wish I'd never told my navigator this rule. He kept piping up at inopportune moments about right-of-ways. The key is "equal sized streets." If you are turning from a side street onto a main street, you do not have the right-of-way. Virtually all of the main streets have stop signs or stop lights. It really only happens when driving on small streets in residential areas.<BR><BR>It works rather nicely at keeping your speed curtailed in residential areas since a car can pull out in front of you at any intersection.<BR><BR>Also Germany uses photographic evidence for some traffic violations. Running red lights and speeding, especially speeding in construction zones. When they put up a speed limit sign, it's best to heed it. Don't think you're safe in a rental car either. The rental car agency will track down who had that car rented when the ticket was given and forward the cost on to you. Trust me on this one, I know.

Thank you all for the tips and advice. So far so good. We'll definitely get the books first. Our children are 9, 7 and almost 5. We travel a good deal in Canada and the US and last summer we took them to the UK and Ireland and Paris and managed to have a great time. Our kids love to travel and learn about other places etc, but I think we'll take your advice and avoid the concentration camp for the sake of our younger ones. I'd love to hear more tips and advice. Would it be advisible to spend several days in eastern Germany and the remainder in western Germany? If so, is it a good idea for us to travel by train from that station mentioned at Leipzig? Thanks, Pat

Some general tips:<BR><BR>Your whole family can ride the regional trains anywhere in Germany on Sat or Sun for just 28 Euros/day total by purchasing a "Sch&ouml;nes Wochenende" ticket (daypass) at any station. No need for potty stops (or coins for the stalls) on the train! My one daughter has the back seat of the car to herself, but she infinitely prefers the train, where she can wander around, people watch, sprawl, and not worry about her cookie crumbs too much. The train's nice for spousal interaction, picnics, and enjoying the asphalt-free scenery without worrying about navigating, traffic, or road signage. Travel light so you can manage your coming and going, and it's a breeze.<BR><BR>Youth hostels are becoming a better and better option for families. The German youth hostel association (DJH) has been working on attracting families in greater numbers and made lots of changes to the hostels and the way they operate. There are 600+ around the country, many with family rooms (hard to come by anywhere in Europe for 5, outside of hostels) and private baths. Breakfast is almost always included, and adults accompanied by kids are welcome at a the reduced children's rate in many regions. Most hostels are well-kept and well-equipped. Kids like the informal experience of the communal dining room and common rooms, some with TV, usually frequented by German kids their age and their families (my 10-year-old daughter enjoyed trying out her German phrases to ask for sugar, etc, and generally enjoyed the people watching!) There is often playground equipment and an open grassy field, at a minimum, for outdoor stuff. Hostels are usually far more available in late July and August, oddly enough - by that time, school is out and the school groups are no longer taking their week-long outings in the hostels (these can be nerve-jangling), leaving a lot of free beds for families and other travelers. There are numerous hostels housed in castles and fortresses - often popular, but fun places for most any kid. We've had one or two noisy hostels, but some of our most enjoyable and memorable stays were in hostels, too. The German hostel site (www.djh.de) has lots of info on individual hostels in English.<BR><BR>You might look into the "Fairytale Road" towns to the northwest of Leipzig in western Germany - Hameln among them - as possible destinations. Hameln itself gets a lot of tourist mileage out of the Pied Piper fable, with reenactments of the Piper's feat staged in the town square, Marzipan rats in the candy stores, etc., but it is a fun place, and the town is quite scenic, filled with half-timbered houses and cobblestones.<BR>The hostel there is right on the Weser River with a short walk into the old town area.

I whole-heartedly agree with visiting the Fairytale Road locations. We used to live just below Frankfurt. We drove easily one late Saturday morning (around 9a.m.) up to Hameln to see the Pied Piper outdoor performance on Sunday. We stopped along the way at the Sleeping Beauty castle and had coffee and cake in the afternoon then stopped at the Rapunzel castle for an outdoor festival on the way home on Sunday. We stayed right in the heart of Hameln. I will look back at my saved websites but our hotel was great, with timbered ceilings and serving scrambled eggs with breakfast and a great evening meal. What a wonderful weekend and so much we saw in just two days! Found the website, http://www.hameln.com/english/index.htm.We stayed at Hotel Zur Krone. Many castles to visit along the Fairytale Road and not just the most famous ones.<BR><BR>Rothenburg is also great with children, the Rhine River area (don't miss the Marksburg Castle), and of course Bavaria. Many locales in Bavaria dress in traditional clothes and traditional dance is offered as entertainment at various restaurants. Have a great trip.

If you are going to be in the Rothenburg / Munich area of Bavaria please take in the Roseburg Castle Museum and Bird Show (check your encyclopedia). It will top all US bird shows.

Hello, thanks to all of you for the fantastic ideas and advice. I am saving all of your notes to aid in the planning. As we are supposed to go later this summer if you think of anything else I would love to hear about it. Otherwise, I just wanted to say thank you and I will certainly post a report on the trip upon our return if anyone is interested. Best Wishes and God Bless, Pat

Planning a trip to eastern Germany and looking for suggestions on places to stay-other than city hotels. Any advice, sugestions, insight, website info will be appreciated. Hope David reads this and will provide some info. Thanks in advance.