Hi all,

My husband and I will be visiting Germany for the first time in August 2017, I have a few questions and hope to get some help with regard to them.

1. We have booked Accomodation in Berlin from 9-12 August 2017 and we plan on hiring a car on the 12th to drive through to Bergen Belsen to visit Anne and Margot Franks grave site. We plan on spending the 12th in Bergen. From the 13th to the 18th we have set aside for the romantic road. We will be using the rental car. My question is, do we have to prebook accommodation or is it safe to wing it? If we have to prebook please assist with names of places that will make an ideal base to visit the villages of the romantic road. Your suggestions on which villages to visit will be appreciated, we are interested in culture, history, scenery and architecture and would love to stay in places that are less touristy but well connected. Is August considered high season in Germany?

2. We are South African, this will be the first time that we will be renting a vehicle let alone in a foreign country, do we need an IDP, if so where in South Africa do we apply for one?

3. Is it very expensive to hire a car in Berlin and return it in Munich?

We are pensioners and as such that makes us budget travelers, all of your opinions will be greatly appreciated... many thanks in advance.

BrendaO

Car rental, one way should not be expensive as you are staying in the same country, but use some one like autoeurope to make the booking, they are a broker, and tend to be able to get the best prices and sort out any nonsense with local dealers/brands. I don't know if you know best practice with car hire, but photo everything at pickup.

You are traveling down the "romantic road" ( a made up marketing image) and you don't want to visit anywhere touristy.... does this make sense to you?

Would I wing it? Probably not in high season. If you settle down with booking.com, or tripadvisor or best of all the local town website you can get to stay in lovely little B&Bs which are great for getting to meet people and see the real thing. Most town websites are the name of the town followed by .de so are easy to find.

I think you need an IDP.

I would reserve in advance. We are in the age of Internet, people prebook (and cancel too) so you'll be left with what people didn't book. Budget travelers or not, the best quality price will be gone.

August is high season. School holiday.

Thank you for the responses, I will consider everything that you have suggested, please excuse my ignorance. I will definitely look at autoeurope for the car hire and will heed your advice about the photos. As for the IDP, I contacted our AA with no such luck, they have no idea what I need, so I will have to research abit more.

I normally book our accommodation through booking.com, but I will also look at the town websites, for the romantic road, are there by chance any other areas that are not so touristy but still has charm,history and architecture that we should rather consider instead of the romantic road....is it even worth the trip or should we just consider something else? Where is the best base on the romantic road to base ourselves. Apologies for the barrage of questions!

From our research we found, Wurzburg, Ochsenfurt, Nuremberg, Rothenburg o.d.t, Nordlingen and Fussen to be lovely...but we are stuck....don't know where to base ourselves and if the five days are even enough to see all these places. We will be staying in Cochem from the 18th to the 20th as hubby wants to visit the green hell and thereafter we will be staying in Gengenbach to visit the black forest from the 20th to the 23rd of August.

Please, what are your thoughts?

Well, if you opt for a car rental, I think the best way for you to find the cheapest deal is to compare car hire deals. You need to be very patients to find the best deal for your budget. This might help you http://www.tripindicator.com/car-rental.html

triangled

Romantic road, I've not done it as such but I generally like visiting Germany and Wurzberg for instance is lovely. This might help

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...antic-road.cfm I'd stick with your plan and see who else comes along with advice, we have a few German experts who drop by every so often who know the place far better than I do.

Cochem is the busiest town on the Mosel, perfectly fine just a bit "busy" (see wiki for details). From memory there is Ernst and Klotten on either side and they might be a little nicer (I think one is on the left and one on the right bank and only one has good railway links) they are growing towns driven by the flood of people visiting Cochem.

Thank you so much for all you advice, I will welcome more advice/ ideas as per your suggestion...I will be certain to research the car hire....thank you for the link Tripindicaror10.