Help needed with German Itinerary
 

Could you please give me suggestions for German itinerary. We have 3 nights in Munich from 10 to 12 September and leave from Frankfurt on 20 September to return to Australia. I was hoping to travel to Nordlingen and Rothensburg for family history but also would like to go to Strasbourg for steam train enthusiast husband to see and then do a river Cruise from Mainz to Koblenz perhaps spending a night or two in Worms and get back in time to Frankfurt to leave. One of the main problems is that we are traveling by bus or train and I don't seem to be able to find a tour or connection to Nordlingen, Dinkelsbuhl and Rothenburg. I know we can travel from Munich to Stuttgart and then to Strasbourg. But, I am having difficulty making it all fit together smoothly.

Perhaps we are trying to do too many things.

Hope you can help.

Patricia

No train connections? I wonder where you checked. Raileurope or something? There is but one website that should be consulted for train connections in Germany: www.bahn.de , the site of German Railways, because it has the complete timetables including the local trains.

Also remember to use the correct names and spelling:
Dinkelsbühl or Dinkelsbuehl (the Umlaut must be substituted by inserting an extra e if you cannot type it)
Nördlingen or Noerdlingen (ditto)
Rothenburg ob der Tauber

Listen to quokka, because, for example, there are several just plain "Rothenburg"s in Germany, including one near Poland.

Thanks for your help but still having problems. Do I have to include the Umlaut when searching the train timetables?

You have to either include it or substitute it by inserting the extra e, as I just explained...

Thanks again for your help. Have found it now. Maybe a little less criticsm and patience with plebs would be nicer.

If you overnight in Worms, you could save time by making your Rhine tour a daytrip. But you have to get organized.

You plan to do "a river Cruise from Mainz to Koblenz", but this is an unnecessarily long trip. If you start the cruise from Mainz, it's nearly 2 hours before you reach the scenic part of the river, and if you go to Koblenz, you'll have spent 5.5 hours. Too much time. Take the train to Bacharach and start your tour there (the train follows the river between Bingen and Bacharach, so you'll see a few castles even before you get there.) Have a look around adorable Bacharach before getting on the boat. It's two hours from Bacharach to Braubach, the most scenic section, with lots of castles; once in Braubach, take a tour of Marksburg - www.marksburg.de . Then head back to Worms.

Thanks so much Russ, that is just the sort of info I was needing. Your reply is so welcome and helpful. Obviously I have never been to Germany before and really am quite unsure of the times it takes to travel between places. I have sorted out the trains now (and learned to spell correctly!) but am not sure now whether it would be better to get a German Rail Pass or use our Eurail Pass for all the travelling whilst in Germany.

It can be expensive to add rail days to a Eurailpass or to get a separate German railpass.

Cheap ways not to use a railpass day for your destinations - long trips:

Rothenburg to Strasbourg: Advance sale tickets are available 92 days out and can be had for 29 Euros each (if you jump on them right away) from the German railways site:

http://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/en

Strasbourg to Worms: 19 Euros each with adv. sale tix, same site.


Worms - Middle Rhine and back: A Rheinland-Pfalz Ticket (daypass for two) will let you use the regional trains (not the superfast IC, ICE, EC trains, however) and costs 24 Euros. Good after 9 am weekdays.

Short trips:

Rothenburg to Dinkelsbühl: Get a "Tagesticket Plus" for 15.60 Euros from the VGN (local transit authority) ticket machine in Rothenburg at the train station. It's a daypass that's good for two adults and gets anywhere within the VGN network on regional trains and buses.

Rothenburg to Nördlingen: Get a "Bayern Ticket" from any ticket machine for 29 Euros, a daypass good for regional trains and buses in all of Bavaria (after 9 am weekdays) for 2-5 people.

The Bayern ticket will work if you're going to try to visit both places in one day, which is probably a trick, given the connections. Here's a map that shows the train lines (no buses) in Bavaria (blue lines are rivers):

http://www.bahnland-bayern.de/conten...ennetzplan-pdf

So I think all that running around should cost under 200 Euros for the two of you.

Personally, I would not do that much running around in the time you have. I would probably drop the lengthy trip to Strasbourg, which left me relatively cold, and see a few more things around Rothenburg (Würzburg, Bamberg, Nuremberg, Bad Windsheim, Weikersheim are all possibles and connected by train - use the Bayern ticket, or the VGN Tagesticket Plus for Nuremberg) before moving on to Worms. Rothenburg to Worms would probably be available for 49 Euros/2 advance sale.

Apologies for trying to help you with your question. I won't do that again.

patricia - Sometimes tone doesn't come across well on message boards. I don't think quokka was trying to be critical. He/she gave you some really good information.

A lot of people make the mistake of checking Rail Europe and other sites for train routes and fares and get imcomplete information. How is asking if you used one of these sites and then giving you a link to the best site critical or unhelpful? Same with the information about the umlaut, which he/she was nice enough to tell you twice - how is that critical?

Thanks again Russ I will certainly take your advice re rail passes etc. The reason for going to Strasbourg was so that we could visit a steam train venue at D'Abreschviller near Sarrebourg, but it seems that I cannot find enough information on how to get there. We can travel by train to Sarrebourg, D'Abreschviller is still about 14 kilometres from there and I can't find a bus timetable etc for it. I would love to go to Würzburg, Bamberg etc. so will certainly think about those as well.

Quokka and November_moon. Thanks for your comments. Perhaps I was a little hasty in taking offence, but I had been particularly careful (I thought) to spell the names correctly and didn't realise the importance of the Umlaut. I was merely looking for some help. I was finding the train sites etc. very frustrating at the time and admit I took your comments to heart.