We are taking our two teenagers (15 and 18) for their first trip to Europe two days after son's high school graduation. We leave Saturday 8 June and return on Wednesday 3 July.

I've booked 5 nights each in London and Paris. We would like to rent a car in Paris and drive to Bavaria and then back to Antwerp, where we will stay 4 or 5 nights (taking day trips to Bruges, Brussels, and Amsterdam) before returning the car to Paris. We will then return to London to fly home... but whether we spend more time in England before our flight is undecided.

I'm spinning my wheels trying to decide what to do in southern Germany. I would be grateful for suggestions for one or two places to stay for 2 or 3 days each. I'm not really interested in going to any more big cities... we are looking at this as a place to meander and enjoy small towns.

Thank you in advance.

As a point of reference, we were thinking of driving through Colmar and heading to the Bavarian Alps. It's unclear to me how long it takes to get from point A to point B (travel in Norway, for example, was excruciatingly slow).

Your teenagers may enjoy a few days in Amsterdam, rather than just a day trip from Antwerp.

Sorry, can't help on southern Germany as I don't know it well.

We did this also many years ago. We flew Icelandair to Luxembourg, rented a car, drove to Germany, trained a lot of other places, rented a car again, and finished in Paris, trainging back to Luxembourg. The only reason I say all this is that you might want to train to Germany, rent the car and drive, etc. Then train again.

I agree you may be better off renting your car in Germany, and dropping it off in Germany before heading to wherever.
Is there a reason to return to Paris? Why not open-jaw out of say Amsterdam?
Amsterdam is a tedious journey from Antwerp. Boring by car - and it will be a pain to park the car, and cost a lot to do so. Train would be better, but why not stay a few days in Amsterdam? I'm sure all of you would enjoy it and want to see more than you can in just a day.

In southern Germany (Bavaria) you could visit the castles of Mad King Ludwig: Neuschwanstein, Linderhof, and Herrenchiemsee.
Also spend a (half) day in Lindau at the Bodensee.
Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Oberammergau, Oberstdorf and Mittenwald are very pretty towns with nicely frescoed houses.
Take the cablecar upto Zugspitze (almost 3000m high).
I could easily spend more than a week in Bavaria.

I agree about having the car only in Germany when you need it (and you actually don't really need it at all) rather than keeping it all that time, dealing with parking, cities , etc, not to mention having to backtrack to France to return it.

From Paris you could take the train to the middle Rhine Valley of Germany which would be a great area for kids that age. You can get around by train, or take boats up and down the Rhine and Mosel Valleys. There are tons of castles, cute towns. Lots of bike riding opportunities. You really don't even need a car in this area. And - it's close to Belgium and the Netherlands which is your next destination.

I agree that you can do Belgium in 3-4 days (Brugge, Ghent, Antwerp can be seen pretty easily in a day each and aren't more than an hour or so apart by train so one base is fine). But make the Netherlands a separate few days, you can base in Amsterdam or Haarlem if you prefer slightly smaller city that is only a 15 min train ride away. Also worth seeing and very easy to do by train are Delft and Leiden.

I must be looking in the wrong places for train tickets. My inquiry for a train from Paris - Antwerp gave me a shock and a car costs much less. Just now I looked for a train from Paris - Strasbourg and it was much more reasonable: 160 euros (one way) for four.

MyriamC, several of the towns you suggested were on my list for investigation,chiefly because I've come across them on this forum.

As we have two weeks to fill, I'm sure that more time will be booked on the continent and less back in England. (Tickets are already purchased through Heathrow).

Thank you Isabel, this is precisely the type of suggestion I was hoping for. I think we will all be on overload of 10 days in big cities and am looking forward to slowing down during the second half of the trip.