Hello seasoned travellers,
My husband and I are spending 12 days in Austria/Germany at the end of September, early October. We start in Frankfurt/St. Goar and working our way along the Rhine, Mosel, over through the Black Forest, Fussen and area and then final stop, Salzburg.We have heard it is best to prebook and purchase castle tour tickets to alleviate standing in long lines upon your arrival. Can anyone point me in the direction where I can find a wedsite to do so and are there certain castles that absolutely we should do this for in the areas we will be travelling? I have been searching and any help would be greatly appreciated.

I would think it very surprising if there were long lines for castles in the areas you mentioned at that time of year. There may still be crowds at Neuschwanstein, although I somehow doubt it. I have visited Burg Eltz, perhaps the most popular of the castles on the Rhine and Moselle area, in early October, and there were absolutely no lines at all. I think that tours ran evry 15 minutes or so.

Burg Eltz should certainly be on your list, as should Rheinfels. Heidelburg castle is worth a visit too.

You mentioned that you wanted to make your way through the Black Forest to Füssen. This can be a very scenic drive, and you can visit Hohenzollern castle on the way. If you want to make a slight detour into Alsace, Haut Koenigsbourg is a great castle to visit.

An alternative, however, would be to make your way from Heidelburg to Würzburg and then down the Romantische Strasse to Füssen. No castles as such, but wonderful walled towns such as Rothenburg, Nördlingen and Dinkelsbuhl. The Residenz palace in Würzburg is certainly worth seeing.

Nearby Füssen, there's Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau, and Ehrenburg in Reutte across the border in Austria. IF you plan to get to Salzburg via Munich, don't miss Linderhof palace on the way. Of course the fortress of Hohensalzburg is a must too.

Well at Neuschwanstein you'd be surprised. Was there in November and long lines - lots of GIs and their families from nearby bases. Not as suffocating as summer but long lines. Now at Burg Eltz you'll probably have the place to yourself.

hi there,
Pal is right. At Neuschwanstein You will find a lot of people in every season. Try to visit not an a weekend. All other castles I guess You dont have that problem, ex. there is a special exhibition.
My favs in this area:
Wuerzburg ( a must, dont forgett the chappel)
Hohenzollern (beautiful landscape, lot of historie)
Neuschwanstein (well)
Herrenchiemsee (castle on an island, nice)
Linderhof (havent been there, just seen the pics)
Heidelberg (well)
Ludwigsburg (like Versailles, beautiful garden and porcelan manufacture in a perfect baroque town)
Karlsruhe (of the beaten track, nice museum)
Stuttgart (the old one, different architecture styles, nice museum)
Sigmaringen (a pearl in the beautiful valley of the river Danube)
Koenigsburg (a little to touristic)
Wissembourg (not too bad, but not shure if it's open for public again)
Rastatt (nice castle, nice war museum )
Teck/Kirchheim (breathtaking view
Lichtenstein (for it's fairytale history)

have fun
Gar

Went to Neuschwanstein on the Friday before O-fest in Munich and had no problems getting my ticket. We took the train to fussen then the bus to the castles and arrived between 10 & 11 and our first castle tour was around 1. Thankfully the pouring rain we arrived in let up just in time for us to start the trek up the hill.

The wait was not so much the line for buying tickets, but the 2 hours before our tour was actually scheduled to start, but for that we just went to one of the hotels and had a couple beers and torte. Make sure you go to both castles if you have time, I actually liked Hohenschwangau better than Neuschwanstein.

Here is the link for Neuschwanstein pre-order tickets.
http://www.neuschwanstein.com/english/

Just in case, here is the e-mail address for Neuschwanstein & Hohenschwangau. [email protected].

I made reservations for our trip in September.

Have fun. geordias

assuming you want tours in English I would suggest you double check with the web sites of each castle you plan to visit. some of the smaller ones have only 1 or 2 tours in English per day.