Need info on trains and hotels Germany 2008
 

We are planning a 2 week trip to Germany in November/December to visit friends. We are on a limited budget. We are using ff miles to get there and just found out that the ff does not cover the train portion.

I would like to book everything in advance. I have been on the Bahn.de website and cannot book so far in advance. I cant even get a price for tickets. What is the best advice to purchase train tickets? We will be travelling from Frankfurt to Nuremburg rt. I dont know if we will take the train to other places as our friends will be driving.

We will be traveling to Dortmund. Any advice for good low budget but nice accomodations? While we are there we would also like to visit Koln and a few other places. We are looking for more of the inn, b&b type places rather than large chain hotels.

The best advice for buying train tickets is indeed the Bahn website you already used. Tickets are available no earlier than 90 days in advance. Wait till due time, and you'll get everything you need.

You can check now by entering an earlier date to get an idea of prices, travel times and connections. The timetable stays the same till the first or second weekend in December (that's the annual change, not sure what date it is this year).

And remember that the city's name is NuremBERG, not -burg, otherwise the booking system may misunderstand.

In fact, the city's name is Nürnberg.

Although the Bahn website serves very well as an information website, it is in reality a "booking" website, and they only show prices for tickets they book.

And, actually, the website is usually very tolerant when it comes to spelling. For instance I found I could put in Nuernberg, Nuernburg, Nuremberg, or Nuremburg, and it would still give me the schedule for Nürnberg. Apparently, there is no Nuernburg, so it can make an assumption about what you want. Not so for Füssen, since it can be confused with something starting with Fuss... You must use either Füssen or Fuessen, preferably including Bahnhof

If "Nuremburg" works, the Bahn people have taught their website to understand this misspelling because it is so frequent among English-speaking users who don't get the difference between a mountain (Berg) and a castle (Burg). It remains wrong, though.

The reason "Nuremburg" works is because the system starts with the first letter and reads enough letters until there is only one match. You could enter "Nuremb" and it would work.

Now that we have information about how to properly spell Nuremberg and if it will work at bahn.de, does anyone out there have info on how much tickets will cost and if I should invest in a bahn card or individual tickets.

Any information on decent hotels in Dortmund?

The fares are probably not going to change that much, go out to the bahn.de site and plug in your data for 2-3 months out. I see that that the normal fare one way for 2 people is 98 euros on the faster ICE trains, with a pre-purchase fare of 58 euros for two people, this may be lower if you order enough in advance.

I do not know how many of you. If you are willing to travel a little slower, you can travel by local trains and save some money. You take a local train connection through Kahl. The price to Kahl is about 7 to 9 euros per person. Then you use a Bayern-ticket (29 euros, good for 2-5 people) for the rest of the trip. You can buy both tickets in Frankfurt before departing, staying on many trains.

Use RMV.de to get the prices to Kahl. Use BAhn.de for the schedule of the whole trip. You must use "only local transport" as the "means of tranport" on the Bahn.de website to see applicable trains.

Regards, Gary

There will only be 2 of us.

I would like to book this through their website and was having problems finding Kahl.

Did I understandyou to say that the Bayern ticket is good for 2-5 people? Dos that mean they all can travel for the same price?

Do I book each leg seperately? I would like the slower more scenic route. This is my first time dealing with the train and I am not very familiar with their website.

When you opt for the regional/local trains, you do not book in advance. You'll get your tickets from the machines at Frankfurt airport station.

For going from Nürnberg to Dortmund, only regular/long-distance trains make sense, IMO. So, here bahn.de would be your choice.
You can also check airberlin.com for discount airfares from Nürnberg to Dortmund, as little as €29 pP incl tax&fees.

Dortmund itself is not one of the tourism hotspots... mostly industry, not exactly "quaint". You can check hrs.com for discounted hotel rooms.

We will be flying into Frankfurt and taking the train to Nuremberg. Our friends will pick us up there.

I have long lost relatives in Dortmund and my ggrandmother and aunts are buired there that is why we will be visiting.

Is there a way to book the local segments ahead? There are so many choices for Frankfurt and Kahl. Which one do I choose?

The Bayern-Ticket (Bavarian-Ticket) is a group ticket for 2-5 people, all travel on the single ticket.

Kahl is shown as Kahl(Main) or Kahl on the River Main.

It appears that there is a Regional Express train leaving from the Frankfurt main train station about every hour going to Würzburg. Kahl is stop along this line; you do NOT need to leave the train. From Würzburg you can connect to another Regional Express to Nürnberg. These regional trains are about 1.5 hours longer than the ICE.

Use this window:

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

If you change the "means of tranport" "only local transport" you will see applicable trains.

As this appears to be your first experience and it is complicated, I would go to the ticket window and pay 2 euros more to have a ticket agent sort it out for you.

Regards, Gary

Local trains cannot be booked. They do not have reserved seats. You simply buy a ticket at the station and get on any train. There is no limit on the number of tickets sold. It's just like catching a metro or subway train.

So let me see if I understand.

I take the RMV from Frankfurt airport to Wurzburg which should run around 9 euro.

Then get the Bavarian Ticket from Wurzburg to Nuremburg which will run aroun 29 eruo. Is the Bavarian ticket through RMZ or Bahn?

Dortmund and "charming little inn" are two things that normally go together.

If possible, would you consider staying in the area and heading in to Dortmund from somewhere reasonably close? For example, if you want a charming small town, Hattingen is a good choice...it's one of the few places in the Ruhr Valley that wasn't bombed in WW II, so their picturesque old town is really old rather than rebuilt. Takes about 50 minutes to get from Hattingen to Dortmund with one change (as I recall).

Bochum might also be worth considering. It too is short on charm, but its suburb of Langendreer is pleasant in an understated way. 15 minutes from Dortmund by train.

North of Dortmund (a bit harder to reach and also out of the way for day trip to Cologne, etc.) is Luedinghausen, a pretty little town in the lovely but under-rated Muensterland area. The area is worth exploring. Or Muenster itself, which has an attractive old town and one of my very favorite Christmas markets. Some nice little inns/ B&Bs in both Hattingen and Muenster.

Oops, should be Dortmund and charming inn do NOT normally go together!!

"Then get the Bavarian Ticket from Wurzburg to Nuremburg which will run aroun 29 eruo. Is the Bavarian ticket through RMZ or Bahn?"

A Bayern-Ticket covers the whole state of Bayern (Bavaria) for a single day for 2-5 people. Kahl is on the border of Bavaria. Once you cross the border into Bavaria, the ticket is good the rest of the way to Nürnberg. You can buy both tickets from a machine or a ticket counter at the Frankfurt train station or at the airport regional train station.