though lübeck is a great destination, i would go east to the island of rügen. beautiful landscape, small villages, several towns with 19th century resort architecture (binz, putbus). on the way back stop at stralsund for the town hall's wonderful gothic brick architecture. i suppose, you won't have time to go elsewhere.

you should allow up to two hours travel time between warnemünde and rügen each way. an alternative could be a visit to the darss peninsula which is closer to rostock/warnemünde and has a national park, too. anyway, i prefer rügen.

Ruegen is definitely beautiful, but I'm not sure I would recommend it as a day trip from Warnemuende, especially since the best parts are at the far north/eastern end. It seems like you would have very little time to actually enjoy the island. Luebeck for a day sounds much more reasonable to me (I personally would not try to squeeze both Luebeck and Rostock in together). You can see pictures of both at my link at the beginning of this post - maybe they will inspire you one way or the other!

lübeck is as far from rostock/warnemünde as rügen. since wlbox posted they "love history and nature, driving is not a problem", i think rügen and a brief stop in stralsund is the better option. however it is clear that a few hours would give them just a glimpse of what the island really has to offer.

hf- the ruegen and lubeck pics are inspiring with the scenary and the roofs. what time of the year did u visit them? distance would a problem here. Eric

cubes - we went in October. The weather was perfect and there were very few visitors on Ruegen (it is really more of a summer resort attraction).

Holly76 - I agree that Ruegen might be the more attractive destination, but I just can't see driving there and back in a day and seeing much of anything. A leisurely train ride to spend a few hours in Luebeck (with a meal at the Fischergesellschaft, for instance), on the other hand, seems much more reasonable as a day trip.

may be next time. tx.

Thanks for all the help. I have one more night to fill my trip
between or around Celle and Magdeburg. Any suggestions?
H. Abroms

I have decided on Goslar and posted a new message for info.
Thanks for the help.

I just remembered making this post! We wound up skipping Berlin as we have been there twice before and there were time constraints. We went to Quedlinburg, Luebeck, Schwerin, Buckeberg, then swung south to the Rhine and stayed at the schloss-hotel Liebenstein, crossed over to Bacharach (our 3rd time), Meersburg, Andech, Regensburg, Weikersheim Castle, and the Wuerzberg Residenz. All in all a good trip, but as you can see we got all over, not just the north. I was disappointed in Luebeck, but liked the other places. Regensburg was a pleasant surprize, the old city, the Nazi parade grounds, and Befrieundshalle, outside of town, all were good.

Oops, I conflated Regensburg and Nuremberg. The Befriungshalle is outside of Regensburg and is well worth seeing, but it was Nuremberg where we enjoyed the old city and the Nazi parade grounds. Plus, I forgot we went to Eltz castle also. Oh, and another disappointment was the Andech monastery.

Hi, nice that you came back to report. You certainly did cover a lot of ground! But I think that's good - there are so many differences between north and south, and you would have been able to compare readily. Did you enjoy Quedlinburg? And what didn't you like about Lübeck? I really enjoyed both of them.

Lavandula

Quelinburg was okay. We were with some people who didn't want to pay to enter the castle, which was a shame. I just don't remember Luebeck having all that much to see. The city gate was nice and there was a building in the old town that had an unusual green glazed brick exterior. I was surprized to find that it was on an island in the middle of a river. However, the river you cross to access it is narrow enough that you don't feel as if you are crossing onto an island. Schwerin was much more interesting, it has a really nice castle on a lake that you can self-tour and there was a large lake that seemed almost like the sea with a square with lots of outside cafes on it fronting it.

THanks, This info will be helpful for my upcoming trip in Oct-Nov