Last minute trip to Frankfurt
 

A friend and I are planning a last minute trip to Frankfurt. We are both seasoned travelers and are taking advantage of great airfare sales. We will have 6 full days and fly in and out of Frankfurt. Since we don't have too much time to plan, I would love to the thoughts of the forum to help us with our trip. We love quaint towns, hiking/long walks. Should we home base somewhere or spend a night or two in a few places. Thoughts? Thanks in advance.

I may be biased, but basing in Frankfurt may be your best plan.
From here, you can do day trips in various directions. All of these towns are with-in an hour by train. For hiking you can go up in the Taunus mountains and visit towns like Idstein, Kronberg or Bad Homburg. Heading east you can visit Gelnhausen or Büdingen. Heading north and west you can visit Marburg or Limburg, both of which are fairly hilly, and of course the Rhine with all of its' castles. My favorite town is Eltville and the neighboring monastery, Eberbach. Favorite castle is Burg Rhinefels overlooking St. Goar.

Thanks so much for the reply and all the great info Mainhattengirl

Just north of Bad Homburg is Freilichtmuseum Hessenpark.
One quick hike is between Niederwald to Hotel Jagdschloss. You go up aerial gondola from Rüdesheim to Niderwald, take a hike, then come down Seilbahn above Assmanshausen down to Assmanshausen, then train back to Frankfurt.

Frankfurt is hardly a quaint town. Cochem on Mosel is easy to get to by train and is more quaint without being too small to have no much else to do. The hike down from Burg Eltz to Moselkern with a lunch stop at Landhotel Ringelsteiner Mühle is a good hike on a dry ground day. Not recommended when wet as the path is steep at times and slippery.

"We love quaint towns, hiking/long walks. Should we home base somewhere or spend a night or two in a few places."

greg has suggested the Rhine River town of Ruedesheim (a good place to visit) and Cochem / Burg Eltz as well (also good.)

http://www.bensbauernhof.com/burgeltzfrommoselkern.html

You can see the location of these towns on this train line map. R'heim on the lower right, Cochem (Mosel River town) on the lower left:

http://www.vrminfo.de/fileadmin/data...zplan_2016.pdf

But in between these 2 towns are half a dozen or more other towns you will find interesting. Boppard, St. Goar (Rheinfels Castle), Oberwesel, and Bacharach are all old world towns on the west bank of the Rhine (see the middle train line.) You can hike around and between these towns on the Rhine Castle Trail:

http://www.romantic-germany.info/index.php?id=2942

Braubach (on the Ruedesheim side of the Rhine, see train line) is the home of Marksburg Castle - http://www.marksburg.de/en/

Koblenz is the train hub but it is not a quaint town. For a single base town I would pick Boppard or St. Goar (St. Goar has a ferry that's convenient for train users who want to cross the river and use trains on the other side.)

Day passes that cover trains, buses and some ferries are cheap: http://www.vrminfo.de/en/tickets-and...eisure-ticket/

Quaint towns near Frankfurt? I'm going to let you in a secret, but don't tell anyone else: Wertheim.

Thank you all, vincenzo32951, Fussgaenger, greg for your information and the links. So helpful!