mama_mia

Family of 4 traveling next year (late May). We will probably fly into Frankfurt and out of Munich. Interested in castles, a few museums, beer and wine (all drinkers), food, hiking and Romanesque/Gothic architecture. (I guess the only thing that does not interest us is shopping.)

Some mix of train and car, but need help figuring out best combination.

Arrive Frankfurt, train (or drive) to Rhine town.
St. Goar/Boppard/Bacharach - 2 nights (We are interested in a short Rhine cruise to Braubach (Marksburg Castle) with return by train, so maybe Bacharach makes the most sense? Advice please.)
Heidelberg - (We would train here, tour town, then pick up car and continue on)
Tubingen - 2 nights (daytrip to Hohenzollern)
Nurnberg - 3 nights (Get rid of car in Nurnberg and day trip by train to Bamberg?)
Munich - 3 nights

Any thoughts about the train vs car issues would be appreciated. My husband does a lot of driving for work and I think the train would be more relaxing, but sometimes it is more costly with four people.

Also would appreciate advice on which town on Rhine to stay in.

Russ

Any of the Rhine bases you mention would work fine for your cruise plan, which is a good one. You can stay in St. Goar or Boppard and catch a train to Bacharach to start the cruise too. St. Goar is a little more scenically located than Boppard and has a ferry that crosses the river, allowing for use of the train station over there.

It's also possible to catch a train to Bingen to start your cruise there - You will have passed through the Bingen to Bacharach scenery by train already, but you may want to see it again more slowly - it adds about an hour to your cruise.

In Germany, train travel actually is quite cheap with 4 people. There are inexpensive regional and national daypasses for groups like yours. The daypasses are good on the regional and local trains, anytime on Sat or Sun, after 9 am weekdays.

Assuming that prices in Euros and the offers themselves remain roughly constant for the next year, you could do your trip by train as follows.

FRA - Bacharach: RMV Mini-group ticket, 30.80 total; purchase from RMV machine at airport station.

Daytrip by train along Rhine in connection with cruise on Day 2: 30 Euros total, Rheinland-Pfalz ticket, a group daypass you can purchase at any ticket machine. Pass is good north to Bonn, south to Karlsruhe on the Rhine, west to Trier along the Mosel.

Trip to Heidelberg: R-P ticket (see above) for Rhine Village - Mannheim + "Ticket 24 Plus" ticket for group, Mannheim - Heidelberg: 14.80. Buy in Mannheim at ticket machine. Total, 44.80

Heidelberg - Tübingen: Baden-Württemberg ticket (daypass like the R-P ticket but for a different state) 29 Euros total.

Tübingen - Hohenzollern: B-W ticket above, 29 Euros total, details here: http://www.burg-hohenzollern.com/dri...irections.html
(The site gives directions from Stuttgart but Tübingen is closer - only 20 minutes from Tübingen to Hechingen by train for the bus to Hohenzollern - and you get a discount on admission with the B-W ticket!)

Tübingen - Nuremberg: 59 Euros total on B-W ticket + Bayern ticket.

Nuremberg - Munich: Bayern ticket, 30 Euros.

Add another one for the trip to MUC, 30 Euros.

That's about 283 Euros, rounding off, for everyone. If any of the days costing more than 39 Euros are Sat or Sun, get a "Schönes Wochenende Ticket" or "happy Weekend Ticket" instead, a daypass good for up to 5 for the entire country for 39 Euros.

I have a hunch that a rental car large enough for the 4 of you and luggage plus gas at $8+/gal plus parking fees will cost 2 - 3 times that much for 10 - 11 days.

If you think you'll spend a good amount of time enjoying all the liquid happiness that Germany offers, you'll want to stay off the roads for sure. On the trains, you can even enjoy a beer or some wine while you're underway.

You won't find much information online from RailEurope or the other railpass agencies - they're busy hawking their very expensive wares and would prefer that you remain naive about the regional offers, but I assure you they're genuine. Read about some of the ones I mentioned here:

http://www.bahn.com/i/view/USA/en/pr...r-ticket.shtml

http://www.bahn.com/i/view/USA/en/pr...d_ticket.shtml

PaulHahn

Train or car depends on where you are going and what you want to do along the way. Of course, a car is not useful in big cities. If all you want to do while in travel mode is get from city to city, then trains are great. If you want to make planned or unplanned stops along the way or visit towns and sights that are difficult to reach by public transport, then a car is the way to go. Or, as you point out, part of the journey by train and part by car can be ideal--again depending on what you want to see and do.

Anyway, Bamberg is ideal for beer lovers--plus it is a very historic and lovely city. It is the center of the German beer universe, and rivals any other location in the world.

Russ

"If all you want to do while in travel mode is get from city to city, then trains are great. If you want to make planned or unplanned stops along the way, then a car is the way to go."

Depends on your style of travel. Impromptu travel decisions are very feasible with regional daypasses in hand; you are riding on slower regional trains that stop in nearly every town along your route, and after hopping off you can hop back on in an hour or two using the same ticket. A car is a good luggage locker, however, and real lockers are not always available at small stations, a consideration for those who don't travel light.

mama_mia

Thank you both for your responses.

Russ, thanks for going to the trouble of figuring out those fares! Are you suggesting that, if we were to do just train travel--which is a possibility--it is better to purchase tickets on a per trip basis, rather than getting the German rail pass? Would the rail pass cover the routes mentioned above? My sons would be eligible for the youth rate at $311 for 10 days and my husband and I would be eligible for the twin at $668 for the two of us. Those rates are close to the numbers you come up with. We might make an extra trip or two by train while in Munich(My son wants to go to Salzburg)which seems like it would come out about the same as if we did it per trip. Yes? (This is for second class--good or bad idea?)

Also, if we were to splurge on first class and the rail pass--how does that work with reservations?

Thanks for your help and patience.

Russ

"My sons would be eligible for the youth rate at $311 for 10 days and my husband and I would be eligible for the twin at $668 for the two of us. Those rates are close to the numbers you come up with. We might make an extra trip or two by train while in Munich(My son wants to go to Salzburg)which seems like it would come out about the same as if we did it per trip. Yes? "

Not really. That's nearly $1,000 total for the passes; what I outlined was about $400 total. If you add a daytrip to Salzburg, that's 29 Euros for your family with the Bayern Ticket. If you stay overnight, that's another 29 Euros for the trip back on a subsequent day. If you travel somewhere else within Bavaria for a 3rd time from Munich, add 29 more. So you might be able to add $125 to the $400 estimate I gave you with extra trips.

The German railpasses will speed up your trip on some of the connections since you'll have access to faster trains on some routes. Whether the extra expense is worth the saved time is a judgment call you can make by looking carefully at the train schedules: http://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/en . Find the regional-train-only train schedules by checking the "only local transport" button under "means of transport."

Buying first class passes won't get you there faster than the 2nd class passes. They will probably provide you more open space or a compartment to yourselves, since few people travel first class. There isn't much difference in comfort level of the compartments. I don't travel first class, and I never make train reservations, so I can't advise you there.

I've taken my own family on trips using the daypasses and local/regional trains; the trains are normally clean and comfortable, like the faster trains, and there are no real drawbacks aside from the small amount of extra time you may spend on some segments and some minor inconvenience from changing trains here or there, where you wouldn't need to if you were on the faster equipment.

mama_mia

Thanks again, Russ. I misunderstood your earlier posting and thought that was a per person price for each trip. That's a pretty impressive savings,then, over the pass and is probably the way we'll go.

Russ

mama: If you do your trip this way, feel free to post specific questions about tickets, machines, lockers, etc. Also, there's a website put together by a gentleman named Larry (or "Lee" as he's known on the ricksteves.com boards) who has put a great deal of effort into making the local travel deals in Germany more transparent. His pages:

www.germantravel-info.com/

If I don't get back to you or can't help, at T/A, a German poster named "abalada" understands the German rail system intimately and routinely responds with excellent advice to the most detailed of detailed questions:

www.tripadvisor.com/members-forums/abalada

PeaceOut

Is the Bayern pass still available? It was incredibly cheap for our family of four to buy it for day-trips from Munich to Salzburg and to Fussen. This was a few years ago, though.

KrisTiki

Your trip will be fantastic! Just be sure to look up the hills at all the castles as you are on the train! They are also great at night, all lit up.

Missed any comment that you can speak or read German? If not--be sure to take the email thread with you and ask someone for help with the RMZ machines (those german train ticket machines) --I knew some german, but for the life of me could NOT get the ticket I wanted without a frustrated german behind me helping...

ahhh travel stories

mama_mia

Thanks for the additional replies. I broke out in a sweat figuring out the machines in Italy, and my Italian is much better than my German. But I have a year to work on it, or perhaps leave the work to the other members of my family who have studied German. I will check out Russ's links and hope for the best.

I will see what I can find out about the Bayern pass that Peaceout mentions.

And we will look for all the castles. I was not too excited about this trip originally--I am soooo into Italy--but the more research I do the more excited I get.

michele_d

We absolutely loved Germany. Like you, I too didn't know what to expect and didn't know if we would like it but it is one of our favorites now. The Rhine and Mosel are gorgeous. Pictures can't do them justice. You will have a fantastic time.

Russ

mama: Bayern pass = Bayern Ticket.

PeaceOut

I found this:
"Bayern ticket

The Bayern Ticket is a Deutsche Bahn rail ticket which is valid for rail and bus travel throughout the whole of Bavaria. The ticket can be used between Monday to Friday from 9am until 3am the following day. On Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays it can be used the entire day until 3am the next morning.
Ticket Types
The Bayern Ticket covers up to five people and costs €28 when bought via the internet or one of the automatic ticket machines at the station. It costs €30 when bought from a human at a ticket counter. Sons, daughters and grandchildren under 15 years of age of travellers sharing the ticket as well as dogs (who don't need to be related) travel for free instead of an adult (but with maximum 2 children).
The Bayern Ticket Single has the same conditions as the group ticket, but is valid for only one passenger. It costs €20 from the machines and online, and €22 from the ticket counter.
The Bayern Ticket Abend is valid on journeys between 6pm and 6am the following morning. It costs €20 for up to five people (€22 from the counter).
The Bayern Ticket Single 1. Klasse costs €30 and is valid for one person in first class. This is especially useful on busy trains (e.g. Friday and Sunday afternoons/evenings) where seats are limited.
The Bayern-Böhmen Ticket has the same conditions as the Bayern Ticket but also includes the Bohemia region of the Czech Republic - as far as Plzen. The group version costs €33 (€35 from the counter) and the single version €23 (€25).
Validity
The Bayern Ticket is valid on all non-Intercity trains; in other words, on all RE, RB and IRE trains but not on IC, ICE or EC trains. It is additionally valid on all S-Bahn, U-Bahn, tram and city-bus routes throughout Bavaria, including the MVV in Munich, the Verkehrsverbund Nürnberg (VGN), the Augsburger Verkehrs- und Tarifverbundes (AVV) and many more. It is also valid on virtually all rural bus services in Bavaria.

Train times can be found on the Deutsche Bahn website. Select "Only local transport" ("Nur Nahverkehr") to limit your search to trains on which the Bayern Ticket is valid.

The ticket is also valid as far as Salzburg and Kufstein in Austria, as well as Sonneberg in Thuringia and Ulm in Baden-Wuerttemberg. It is also valid on the Zugspitzbahn between Garmisch-Partenkirchen and Grainau, on the Lindau to Memmingen stretch via Kißlegg and on the Außerfernbahn between Garmisch-Partenkirchen and Kempten via Reutte. It can additionally be used to gain reduced admission at over 100 attractions in Bavaria."

Russ

The prices in the text posted above by PeaceOut are not current. The online translation pages seem to be updated rather slowly. This one for the Bayern Ticket and the other Länder Tickets is up to date:

http://www.bahn.com/i/view/GBR/en/pr...r-ticket.shtml