kbiscuitt2010

Need suggestions for a trip to Germany at the end of august. This is the first trip abroad post-pandemic, and obviously somewhat anxious, it is also my first time in Germany, although I lived in Europe for over 10 years for some reason I never visited, so very much in an unknown territory. Any help, suggestions would be so welcomed.

1. Land in Berlin August 30, then to Münster for a wedding on 9/3, staying until 9/5
2. I have no idea afterwards on where to go, before departing from Berlin back home on 9/12.
3. I will be with a friend, both seniors and would like to travel by train. Is this a good idea and doable?

lavandula

Travelling by train in Germany is really excellent, and generally a very predictable, high-quality experience, so good for the traveller. Start with the website Man in Seat 61for information about train travel in Germany.

If you just want to stick around somewhere not far from Münster (which by the way is a lovely city) I would spend about 3-4 days in Berlin and possibly also see some of the towns in the Harz Mountains, which is in between Münster and Berlin. So you could do a little research on Goslar, Quedlinburg, Wernigerode, the Brocken, Wolfenbüttel with the library, and maybe Göttingen and tiny Duderstadt. You can do most of these by train, not sure about Duderstadt though. There are various train tickets where you can do several stops in a day which might be helpful here, although you are on the border of Niedersachsen and Sachsen-Anhalt (I think). When you have done some research come back and ask more questions and we can help refine.

Good luck!

Lavandula

lavandula

I should mention that those tickets are called Länder-Tickets and are specific to each state ('Land'), but sometimes allow part of your travel to encroach into the next state. They are good for a day and sometimes allow more than one person of the same ticket. There are a number of different kinds of ticket so read widely. Also look at the German national rail site www.bahn.com for more information. If you still have questions ask here because the German website www.bahn.de has more fine-grained information about the tickets than the English site.

Lavandula

lavandula

Here, what you want is the Niedersachsen-Ticket plus Ostharz: https://niedersachsenticket.de/infos...t-plus-ostharz (use Google Chrome to open this page to see the English). It allows you to do all those places above plus for example Wernigerode, Quedlinburg, Aschersleben and Nordhausen (all in the eastern part of the Harz).

Lavandula

swandav2000

Hi kbiscuitt2010,

I live in Southern Germany and love to take trains, so I hope I can help (though I've never been to Münster).

Maninseat61 is a good site -- but really all you need to know you can find at the German rail site itself,

www.bahn.com

For me, the best thing to know is that you can extend the time of your connections. The default is 10 minutes, I think. But as I grow older, I appreciate having extra time to locate the elevators at the platforms and line up, if need be. Also, it's nice to be able to get a sandwich or coffee at a transfer station. And sometimes trains can be 10 or 15 or 20 minutes late, and you'll be thankful to have the extra time. So I usually choose connections of 20 minutes.

I also like to go first class -- just to have more room. If you buy your tickets around 60 days in advance (bit too late for that now though), you can get great deals on first class.

If I were you, I would probably head a bit south before going east again to Berlin. I loved Aachen (Charlemagne's headquarters) and Köln, so I would go there. Then maybe Leipzig and definitely Dresden.

Have fun as you plan!

s

WeisserTee

We have relatives in the Muenster area and it’s one of our favorite places in Germany. Muensterland, just south of Muenster, is absolutely lovely and one of the country’s lesser known gems. Full of pretty small historic towns, gardens and castles (100 of them; it is sometimes called the Loire Valley of Germany)

https://www.muensterland.com/en/tour...e-munsterland/

You could check with the tourist office to see they could organize a day excursion to the area for you or if there is local transport for easy exploring. It would be a shame to not see this beautiful area so close by.

kbiscuitt2010

All the places I want to go, definitely Dresden.

kbiscuitt2010

Weisser Tee, Thank you