Cozaar

Hi guyz,planning for my Germany spring tour<BR>from 31st March to 17th april(14-16 days excluding flight).My interests are <BR>1)Castles,palaces<BR>2)Architecture especially Gothic,Baroque,Rennaissance.<BR>3)Small ancient medieval towns /hamlets with half-timbered houses <BR>4)Museums especially those with paintings from the medival era/religious themes.<BR>My confirmed stops are-<BR>Wurzburg--&gt;Rothenburd--&gt;Dinkelsbuhl.<BR>Kassel--&gt;Han-Munden.<BR>Hameln as a base(day trips to Goslar,hildesheim,+?Bordenwerder)<BR>If time permits,l'like to include Bamberg,Ludwig's N-W/HH castle,Marburg,Gottingen.<BR>l'll be flying into and out of Franfurt.<BR>l look at my map and find there's quite a distance to cover.1)How should l plan these stops in a circular route without backtracking using train/buses only?<BR>2)How long should l stay in each town and would the German railpass/Romantic road Europa bus help to save money?<BR>3)Is it advisable to do these places in 14-16 days<BR>or should l just visit the RR or FT route instead?<BR>Cheers!

Get happy

You are going to want a car for all this.<BR>

Christi

Hi Cozaar,<BR><BR>I have been living in Stuttgart (2 hours South of Frankfurt) for 3 years now so I can share my thoughts with you. First of all, it will be best to do all your travelling by car as the German autobahn system is quite easy and the trains here are expensive and not that flexible. I have a couple comments on your itinerary--I agree that Wurzburg and Rothenburg are great cities but I would skip Dinkelsbuhl as it is very similar to Rothenburg and I think you could use your time better elsewhere. If you are interested in castles I would recommend Heidelberg because the castle ruins are beautiful and the town is quite lovely. I would also recommend seeing Neuschwanstein castle and do try to see Hohenschwangau castle as it is in the same area. If you are looking for quaint towns I would highly recommend visting the Bodensee (Lake Constance) area of Germany and visiting the towns of Meersburg and Lindau. Also, the town of Colmar in France has many half-timbered houses and interesting architecture. The whole &quot;Route du Vin&quot; (wine route) in the Alsace region of France is amazing--many quaint towns are only a few miles apart on this route and the architecture is beautiful and there are also several castles and castle ruins nearby. I can't comment on the towns of Kassel and Han-Munden but I can tell you from my experience that I greatly prefer Southern Germany and would really concentrate my time in that area. I would also recommend reading many guidebooks to give you lots of information. Another neat area is the Rhine river, it is very popular to take a boat ride down the river and there are numerous castles along this river for you to visit such as the ruins of Rheinfells in St. Goar and Marksburg castle just to name a couple. The castle of Burg Eltz near the Mosel is reported to be one of the top castles in Europe too so you might want to look into that. If you have more questions please feel free to contact me. <BR><BR>Christi

Liz

You absolutely CAN do this by train. Are you traveling alone? That makes train travel more economical than a car.<BR><BR>You might want to try an itinerary at www.railsaver.com to see if a Railpass makes sense.<BR><BR>

Russ

Cozaar: You have laid out an interesting route that will allow you to see the things you are interested in and which will be very easy to manage by trains, which in Germany do indeed allow great flexibility (from 4:30 am and 8:00 pm, for example, there are trains every hour from W&uuml;rzburg to Rothenburg.) Your destinations are situated along the main north-south train route through Germany, making travel even easier. I don't think you need to worry about your itin and should ignore advice that tells you to re-do your plan and spend your time elsewhere or to rent a car.<BR><BR>Railpass: it sounds like you'll be using the train almost every day. I think I'd get the 10-day Germanrail pass at $315; at $31.50/travel day, you have tremendous flexibility; you can use any train on any day at any time and travel as much as you like (cool for impromptu sightseeing when it rains!) The railpass is only a little more expensive per day than the daypasses, which limit the hours, the trains, and the regions you can travel. And you'll never have to stand in line for a ticket. You can supplement this if you need more days by getting the regional daypasses for travel in Hessen, Bavaria, and Niedersachsen (Lower Saxony) at 21-25 Euros per day (or the happy weekend daypass at 28 Euros/day.)<BR><BR>With that many days, you'll have no trouble covering both routes, IMO.<BR><BR>Varying your route:<BR>You're destinations are aligned in a fairly straight line, and you're starting in the middle, so there weill probably be some backtracking. <BR><BR>In the North: If you are travelling to Marburg, then you can vary your route a bit between Frankfurt and Kassel by taking the train in one direction via Marburg and in the other via Fulda. You can also vary your route between Hameln and Kassel; there is a north-south route to the west of Hameln (Bad Pyrmont, Altenbecken) that heads back to Kassel as well as the main north-south route east of Hameln that passes through G&ouml;ttingen.<BR><BR>In the south, do the RR route south to F&uuml;ssen, then head back to Frankfurt via Ulm and Stuttgart. Take a detour through the pretty Neckar River Valley (change in Stuttgart, travel via Heilbronn and Heidelberg.)<BR><BR>Your railpass will come in extremely handy if you are doing these loops in the north and south - every day costs you the same, no matter how far off the beaten track you choose to detour, and no slow trains are involved.<BR><BR>Enjoy your trip.<BR>Russ<BR>

Cozaar

Hi guyz,thanx for the superb input!<BR>l forgot to highlight that l can't drive(sigh!!)so only public transport where l can admire the on-route scenery.<BR>l'm alone on this trip and more inclined to save the Wineroute/rhinecastles route(and of course to stay in the castles as well),Marksburg,Eltz castles etc. for my next trip.It seemed most people here vote for the south,but maybe there are also <BR>people who support the less-touristy North as well?l'm thinking of not doing the Ludwig's castles because it seemed very south and l would have to backtrack a lot to Franfurt.Is Linderhof<BR>castle nearer Franfurt?Or any other castles nearer Franfurt/the FT route?<BR><BR>To Russ,it's nice to see u again.<BR>l 'm quite hesistant on the $315 pass,it seemed out of my budget tour.Maybe have to consider other cheaper pass,or taking local buses,any websites to start off?l'm trying not to<BR>spend too much time travelling around as this would defeat the purpose of sight-seeing,even though ICE can whisk me from Franfurt to Fussen in 4 hrs,correct?<BR>Also ,l never have a good impression of Heidelburg because it seemed that it only has the castle ruins,correct me if l'm wrong.<BR>1))Are they any festivals from 1st April to 17th april,any websites to check?<BR>2))Any bus that can bring me from Kassel--&gt;Han-Munden--&gt;hameln?<BR>Any websites on Local buses?<BR>3)Wandering how's the temperature in Celsius,amount of rainfall at that time?<BR>l managed to confirm my air-tickets today and at a promotional price 30%<BR>less than the norm,great is n't it!<BR>l'm already starting to enjoy the trip!<BR>Keep the posts coming,thanx guys. <BR>Cheers!<BR>

CharlieB

Cozaar - Linderhof is close to Oberammergau in the southernmost part of Germany. All festivals and other events - craft fairs etc. can be found at germany-tourism.de/. Simply check of what type of event you are interested in and the time frame (leave location blank)and all available events will be listed. Great site for other info. Have fun planning and enjoy your trip!