My husband and I will be flying to Dusseldorf (arriving the morning of June 2nd and leaving the evening of June 23rd) to celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary. We will spend the first 4-6 days in Dusseldorf, Cologne and Koblenz with our former exchange student and her family.

What are some places (cities, museums, etc) that are a must see while we are there. We are renting a car and have no problem driving around. We do plan to spend a couple of days in Salzburg, Austria. Two of my "must see" items are Weitersborn, Germany (where my great-Grandparents and Great-Greats are from) and Hanover, Germany (where my grandmother lived during WW1).

Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated. I am trying to pin down our itinerary and look at lodging. Prefer smaller guesthouses, bed and breakfasts, etc. Any places you have stayed that you would recommend would be great too!

Thanks!!!

Consider skirting around northern Bavaria with the car: Wurzburg, Bamberg, Regensburg, Passau on the way to Salzburg.

With a car you can get nice places not directly in the centers - - maybe in the surrounding countryside (using booking.com look for places rated 8.0 or even 9.0 or above - - try the map function to survey the area surrounding town centers).

Great food, great beer, great prices, lovely drives.

My list of "must-sees" will be different than others but here goes:

1. BMW Museum in Munich
2. Porsche Museum in Stuttgart (might as well do to the Mercedes Museum if you're in Stuttgart)
3. Nazi Documentation Center, Nuremberg Trials Memorial, and "the fortress" in Nuremberg. There's also the Deutsche BAhn museum.
4. The Dom in Cologne. And the Roman ruins. And the Klosch beer.
5. The reconstructed Roman border fort in Bad Homburg.
6. The beer and Biergartens in Franconia. And the
7. DachauAecht Schlenkerla Rauchbier in Bamberg (gulp it, don't sip).
8. The V-1 & V-2 rocket museum in Peenemünde.
9. The Black Forest.
10. Rothenburg ob der Tauber (must sees are the Holy Blood Altar by Riemenschneider in St. James Church and the city museum which has an amazing collection of arms and armor all collected by a local factory owner)
11. Hedeby Viking Museum in Haithabu-Dannewerk
12. Weißwurst Frühstuck in Bavaria.

My husband and I live in Bavaria, and I think the biggest mistake that our visitors from out of country make is to try to do too many things in their time here. I know that they want the make the most of their vacation, but they plan stuff that is literally from one end of the country to the other. If I were you, I would plan my sightseeing around where you have already planned to go:

Near Dusseldorf/Cologne is Aachen, which has the cathedral where Charlemagne was crowned. Very cool.

If you are going from Koblenz to Salzburg, take some time to visit the Roman ruins just outside of Frankfurt (Bad Homburg). Although you might want to visit Weitersborn at that time--it is really out of the way though, I would plan an extra day on the route if I was to visit there on the way to Salzburg.

Hanover is the wild card in your vacation deck. You will need at least two days to get there and back onto the route of the rest of your trip. But if it is that important, go for it.

One thing to think about--check out school holiday schedules because it will affect traffic in a major way. You will be missing the Pfingstferien in Bavaria by a few days, but make sure that you don't travel to Salzburg on a holiday weekend (they differ from state to state and country to country)--it will double your travel time, as we found out when we took our friend to Salzburg last year.

For me the best way to find a place to stay is to look at the town website, usually www.(town name).de

Düsseldorf and the region around has much to offer. Düsseldorf is an attractive city with many museums and a lively riverfront. Visit the Neanderthal Museum nearby in the Neander Valley (Mettmann). Visit Köln with many first-rank attractions and, of course, the cathedral and the historic city hall in Aachen.

Driving time from Düsseldorf to Hannover (spelling!) is about 3 1/2 hours.

Although I am often in Hannover for business, I do not find it overwhelming attractive. The baroque gardens in Herrenhausen are the main attraction in town.

However, Celle is nearby - a picturesque historic town. But perhaps the best idea it to drive to the Harz and see the historic towns there. Quedlinburg and Wernigerode are incredibly beautiful.

Hi cookerhook,

DH and i did a driving trip from Hannover to Stuttgart last September, so I think that it will be possible to work Hannover and the Harz into your itinerary as well as spending time with your friends and seeing the south.you will just have to be disciplined!

After the initial 4 days, I would go straight to Hannover [you'll need at least 2 nights if you want to see the Herrenhausen palace and look for where your family lived - the centre is not terribly interesting but the Dome of the Town hall is well worth going up, if only to experience the weird sensation of travelling in a curved lift!] if you want to see Celle - i'm sorry to say we missed it - you'll probably need another day there.

Then you could do what we did [click on my screen name for more details on my TR] and travel to the Harz via Goslar -a lovely little town. Quedlinburg seemed to us to be more charming than Wernigerode, but the latter has the huge advantage that you can get the train from there to the top of the Brocken [the highest peak in northern Germany] without having to drive, and it only takes about 1 ½ hours. Try to get there from Quedlingburg and it's either a 5 hour train journey or you have to drive - which rather defeats the object, IMO.

From there you could head south, either poolting about like we did, or if you want to spend more time in Bavaria/Austria, hitting the Autobahn.