May trip through Germany/Austria 2014
Nov 03, 2013, 10:32 AM

Good morning!! After taking a river cruise on the Danube with friends next spring, my husband and I are planning a trip together through some of the areas of Germany. Here is a brief synopsis of our tentative itinerary with lots of questions we have:

May 17 leave Nuremberg and go to Rothenburg: Should we travel by train or rent a car?

Spend the 17 and 18 in the Rothenburg area: suggestions as to where to stay?

May 19: drive some or all of the Romantic Road: suggestions? Is this worth it and what will or should we see along the way?

May 19 and 20: stay in Munich and see that city- would renting car be a good choice or should we wait until right before we leave Munich. Can you see any of this area by train so would that be a better choice? Suggestions as to where to stay in Munich- mid priced hotel $150-$250 per night?

Leave Munich area and go to Salzburg: again a train or car?

Stay in Salzburg/Halstatt for 3 nights: suggestions as to places to stay and what to see and do??

May 24- go to the Fussen/Reutte area to see castles and other sights. What are the must see and do attractions in this area?

May 25- considering Lindau or some other place in the Lake Constance area- suggestions?

Any ideas on traveling the AlpenstraBe Road? Is it worth it?

Where to stay between Salzburg and Lindau?

May 26- leave the Lindau area and we will need a place to stay between Lindau and Mainz.

suggestions? What about Ulm?

Baden-Baden?

Rottweill

Freiburg

We are considering seeing some of the Black Forest- buying a cuckoo clock How and should we spend time in this area?

We are considering taking the day Rhine cruise once we get up to that area- suggestions as to where to get on, off, what to see, etc. Is it worth the five hours? Some people have suggested taking the river cruise one way and the train back. Good idea?

What about Karlsruhe and Mannheim?

We will go the the Frankfurt area on the 29 and fly home to Illinois on May 30.

These are just some of our ideas after doing some research about some areas we are excited to see but know little about. We are open to any and all other alternative ideas, places to stay, and sights to see- even places to stop and eat along the way. We definitely to figure out if we want ot rent a car part of the way, all of the way, or take the train at some point.

Any help with some or all of this will be so very appreciated. Here is my email address if you would prefer that: [email protected]

Thank you so much!!! Melissa

As you are not mainly going to big cities I would rent a car for the whole time. I've done all those places by train/bus too so that is possible too. If you want to know more about the German/Austrian train system - amongst the finest in the world then check out these superb sources to help plan such a trip - www.bah.de/en - for any train schedule in Austria or Germany; www.ricksteves.com; http://www.budgeteuropetravel.com/id9.html; www.seat61.com.

To me the Romantik Road is one of the most overhyped things in European travel - the road itself I mean - nothing romantic about a traffic and truck filled two-lane road - now towns like Dinkelsbuhl and Nordlingen and Rothenburg along it are nice but do not goout of your way to drive the Romantic Road in general - the Castle Road, a similar promotion of the German Tourist Office after ww2, along with the Romantic Road to me is a genuinely lovely road twisting thru a lovely river valley with ancient towns and castles strewn along its course - take in from Rothenburg to Heidelberg (one of the nicest German cities as it was one of the few not decimated in WW2 - some say because the Allies planned to use it as their post-war HQ, which they did and still do in many ways.

But in general the back roads in all the areas you are going to are amongst the most lovely in Europe so for your itinerary I think a car makes the most sense.

Look into Hotel Exquisit in Munich. It is in a good location and is a nice small hotel. I think a car would be burdensome in Munich. the train system is great in that part of Germany. we were able to walk from
The train station to the hotel but we are light packers. I think it is 6-8 blocks.

I will look for the name of our old fashioned inn in rothenburg. It may have had a car park in the back.

Pat

You'll want a car for most of this trip, just not in Munich. See if you can adjust your itinerary to put Munich at the beginning or end of your trip. If you drive from Munich to Salzburg or vice versa, a car makes it easier to stop at Herrnchiemsee, one of mad King Ludwig's castles, located on an island in the middle of a lake. This is well worth seeing; you park and take a ferry to the island.

We drove the Alpenstrasse a few years back. It was not well marked so the navigator (me) had to work hard. IIRC part of this route went through a private forest for which we had to pay a small amount. The route was pretty enough. I'm not sure it was worth the effort. Disclaimer: we come from an area with lots of forests and snow-topped mountains so such views don't blow us away like they might other people.

the name of the hotel (more like a B&B) in rothenburg is Hotel spitzweig and we booked it through booking.com . There is parking in the back-just a large empty lot as I remember. it is in a good
Location.

Pat

You have a nice block of time and some nice destinations in mind. Still, as PalenQ says, the Romantic Road is over-promoted. Some of the towns are great, others not. Following the often-crowded Romantic Road from north to south, town by town, will indeed require a car. As Mimar points out, navigation can be work, and PalenQ is right when he says there's nothing especially romantic about the set of roads the comprise the RR. So why do people do the RR?? Well, most travelers just aren't in a position to decide which places to visit, so they latch on to a "pre-packaged" itinerary like the Romantic Road, when in fact the RR constitutes only a tiny sliver of Bavaria's interesting places.

You, however, have lots of time to hone a plan, one that doesn't bypass so many excellent destinations in northern Bavaria. I would absolutely encourage you to investigate some of the destinations below for the first several days of your trip. You could visit SOME of the RR towns AND some of these places. I will include some links I have handy.

Nuremberg itself (worth some time for most people): http://www.nonstoptravel.net/images/...Nurnberg02.jpg
Bamberg: http://www.bavaria-tourism.ru/data/m...2858e1%7D.jpeg
Iphofen: http://www.stadtbild-deutschland.org...&threadID=2985
Marktbreit and Ochsenfurt: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLUgpoQIFHI
Franconian open-air museum, Bad Windsheim: http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attractio...conia_Bav.html

There is no reason you can't do your entire trip by train, if you like - the only thing that would stop you would be trying to follow the RR town by town. Many RR towns can be reached by train. Würzburg (north of Rothenburg) is a major train hub. Rothenburg, Donauwörth (which lies on a major train line on the way to Munich,) Harburg (10 min. from Donauwörth,) Nördlingen (15 min. from Harburg) and Augsburg are all north of Munich and easily reached by train.

Using the train is very economical. When you are in Nuremberg, for example... On Sat. 5/17, if you take the train to Rothenburg, buy a local VGN "Tagesticket Plus" daypass for two (16.80€) to get there. It's also good for any bus, tram or subway ride to the Nuremberg station. Then you get a bonus travel day on Sunday as well - so you could daytrip by train from Rothenburg to Bad Windsheim or Iphofen for free and return to Rothenburg.

http://www.vgn.de/en/dayticket?Edition=en&p=1

Outside this area, you can use the Bavaria ticket for travel. It's 26€ per day for two persons, probably cheaper than your gas and parking alone would be for many trips.

http://www.munich-touristinfo.de/Bavaria-Ticket.htm

Yes nearly all your rail trips could be done using a Bavarian Pass, bought the same day of travel at stations - nothing to do in advance - just avoid ICE and IC trains which is fine usually since you are not going very far each day.

Local buses also link the Romantik Road towns, along with from May thru Oct or something like that the tourist-oriented Romantic Road Bus: (http://romantischestrasse.de/index.p...tic_road_coach).

Oops I meant to say nearly all your rail trips in the Munich area your first days will be covered by the Bavaria Pass (Lander Card) not all the other places you envision. But Salzburg and Lindau I believe also would technically fall into the Bavarian Pass.