Digidog1

We will be traveling to Switzerland with my husband in late June..he will be there for business and then we're taking five additional days to travel in Germany. We will be flying in to Geneva and flying out of Frankfurt. The conference is in Gstaad..our daughter is 10 1/2 years old..she and I will be taking several day trips and will have a Swiss Pass..not sure what to purchase for rail passes to get in to Germany..also need suggestions for things to do in Germany..we were planning a Rhine River boat trip..would like to tour a castle..lodging suggestions? We will spend our last night in Frankfurt..any help would be appreciated. We will have a total of 12 days split evenly between Switzerland and Germany and would like to pack as much in as possible..

Thanks

PalenQ

Swiss passes are often a great deal even with relatively limited travel on trains, boats, buses, etc. But unless you are doing more than traveling from say Basel or Zurich to Frankfurt the German railpass would not be a good investment - now if you are going other places maybe. Anyway for loads of great info on Swiss and German trains I always spotlight these IMO fine sources - www.budgeteuropetravel.com; www.seat61.com and www.ricksteves.com.

longhorn55

I think the Rhine Cruise will be a bit of a bore for your daughter. We were living in Germany when our daughter was that age and we went on a Rhine Cruise when my sister and her 10-year-old son came to visit. The two cousins could not have been less interested in the view along the river--even the castles. There's not much room on these boats when they are full, so the kids can be pretty much stuck in their seats. Even I have to say, having done it twice, that a Rhine Cruise is not all that interesting. (But we felt that our kids sometimes had to put up with doing things we wanted to do and since my sister really wanted to go on a Rhine Cruise, we did it.)

The most famous and, arguably, most interesting castles are the King Ludwig castles of Neuschwanstein, Linderhof and Herrenchiemsee. But these castles are nowhere near your path between Geneva and Frankfurt. Instead, look at Burg Hohenzollern and Burg Eltz. We visited both of those and they are not far from your route.

http://burg-eltz.de/en/home.html

http://www.burg-hohenzollern.com/startpage.html

Camporico

I'd recommend a visit to Rothenburg o.d. Tauber which is not far from Frankfurt. Yes, it can be full of tourists during the day, so I'd recommend an overnight stay. Walking along the top of the city walls is interesting as are many of the shops. The giant Kathe Wohlfarht Christmas store will surely enchant your daughter. Also, I'll bet she enjoy eating one of the famous "schneeballs". If you stay in the evening, you can take the city walking tour with the Night Watchman which is given nightly in English at 8pm.

PalenQ

I recommend looking at Cochem, on the Mosel River, which many find even more gorgeous than the Rhine Gorge - Cochem also has the castle of your dreams popping out of vineyards in the town center (this is also a primo Mosel wine district with wineries right in town.

Cochem teems with family-run guesthouses - this is a family resort with folks from Holland and Belgium as well as Germany flocking here in summer - lots of things for kids. Cochem has good train service to Koblenz and the Rhine Gorge - less than an hour you could take a train to Rudesheim - in many ways the perfect dock to start a Rhine Gorge boat trip and end up in Koblenz and take the train back to Cochem. Cochem, via Koblenz also has mainline rail service to Frankfurt/Frankfurt Airport.

PalenQ

If not traveling around Germany then the German Railpass is not a good deal usually but within regions look for Lander Tickets - good for unlimited travel on public transports like S-Bahn, U-Bahn, buses, trams and regional trains (not on fast trains however) - these can be very cheap - 29 euros for up to several folk all together for the whole day (on weekends sometimes the whole weekend I believe!) - look at www.bahn.de for more details.

PalenQ

things to do in Germany..we were planning a Rhine River boat trip..would like to tour a castle..lodging suggestions?>

The classic Rhine cruise goes between Rudesheim and Koblenz and you can get on and off the boat at any dock - for the castle of your dreams get off at Marksburg to trek up to about the only castle on the Rhine or Mosel (except Burg Eltz) that has not been destroyed by marauding armies thru the ages - an authentically old castle that will fulfill you castle fantasies!

http://www.marksburg.de/english/frame.htm

https://www.google.com/search?q=mark...=1600&bih=1075

Marksburg also has train service to Koblenz and Rudesheim.

Russ

"not sure what to purchase for rail passes to get in to Germany..also need suggestions for things to do in Germany..we were planning a Rhine River boat trip..would like to tour a castle..lodging suggestions? We will spend our last night in Frankfurt"

Your route from Gstaad to Frankfurt will take you via Basel and Freiburg along the Rhine. Finishing up on the Middle Rhine with a (short) cruise and at least a day to actually tour a castle and see a village or two makes sense. A cruise between Bingen and St. Goar takes only 1.5 hours and the scenery is terrific. St. Goar's Rheinfels Castle is easy to reach and great for kids and adults;

http://www.st-goar.de/17-1-rheinfels-castle.html

You can actually stay on the Rhine your final night, either in one of the villages (Oberwesel is 1 hour by direct train from FRA) or in Mainz (20-25 minutes from FRA - almost as close as Frankfurt itself to the airport.) Oberwesel is a cool old town where you can wander the old town fortifications from tower to tower:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...chsenturm1.jpg

Other nice Rhine villages:

http://www.welterbe-mittelrheintal.d...php?id=274&L=3

But there are also many good options for the first few days between Basel and the Middle Rhine Valley.

Maybe a stop in the Black Forest? Gengenbach is a superb old walled town. From there, trips by train to the Vogtsbauerhnhof open air Museum (near Gutach) and to other Black Forest villages are possible along the scenic Black Forest Railway.

http://www.stadt-gengenbach.de/en/tourism/old-town/
http://www.black-forest-travel.com/p...t-railway.html
http://www.black-forest-travel.com/p...bauernhof.html

Gengenbach is a good base for visiting Strasbourg, FR as well.

The whole family would probably enjoy the falconry exhibition at Burg Guttenberg, near Heidelberg, illustrated here in Bavaria Ben's recent trip report:

http://www.bensbauernhof.com/germany2012.html

PalenQ

https://www.google.com/search?q=burg...=1600&bih=1075

http://burg-eltz.de/en/planning-your...tz-castle.html

If in the Cochem area then Burg Eltz will surely fulfill your dreams of a dreamy castle - one of themost famous in all of Germany - it once graced the back of the 500 Deutsche Mark banknote!

And unlike the Ersatz medieval castle in Cochem (built in the late 1800s as an imitation of a medieval castle) Burg Eltz, like Marksburg is an authentically ancient castle - this one lovingly set in a thick forest overlooking the Mosel Valley far far below.

From Cochem you can take a train to Moselkern and do a 3-mile gentle enough uphill trek to the castle or go by waiting taxis - or you could bike to Moselkern from Cochem and experience as well one of Germany's primo biking venues with nice paved paths just for bikes hugging the Mosel Valley the whole way!