What to do after the Rhine Cruise??
 

I've explained in another post that 4 couples of us are taking a Rhine River Cruise in September that ends in Basel. We have 4 days before needing to be at a wedding in Heilbronn, Germany. We're trying to decide what we can do "together" or separately. Renting cars sounds difficult...following each other might be difficult. We've considered a fast train to Salzburg but that's a long trip the wrong direction from Heilbronn. Strasbourg doesn't hold much interest, although it's heading the right direction. Any suggestions??

Well, besides the attractions of Basel itself which are considerable, there is the whole Alsace region between there and Strasbourg.

You say nothing of your interests so on what you expect anyone to suggest anything?

If you like wine, the Alsace and it's picture postcard villages along the Route des Vins can easily take up your time.

http://www.alsace-wine-route.com/

https://www.google.ca/search?q=alsac...w=1280&bih=687

There is no need to go far from Basel to find all kinds of things to see and do enroute. I would train to Strasbourg from Basel and rent two cars to tour around the region. The wine route follows smaller roads and there would be no problem following each other from village to village. It's not like you are going to do 6 hours of driving a day, it's a half hour at the most from village to village.

Freiburg im Breisgau and perhaps the townships on Lake Constance (Bodensee)?

Lavandula

In four days you can actually learn to differentiate a good bottle from a mediocre bottle of a particular wine type if you stick to one type of wine for all tastings.

The Alsace produces 7 varieties of grape and trying to taste wine from all of them results in not enough time and experience tasting any of them. Pick one; taste 24 a day (that's not as much as it sounds like)and in 4 days you will not be a coniseur of that wine type but you will know a good one when you taste it.

If you've never tried something like that, you'll be amazed how much you can learn in a short time.

For 4 couples, unless someone is tea total, that should be a fun time.

Actually, none of us drink much and a couple of us don't drink at all. That's part of the problem in such a rich wine area! We all live in Louisville, Kentucky, which is the bourbon capital of the world and we've not taken the bourbon trail either!

Don't blame you for not taking the Bourbon trail ashcan, why would anyone?

Whiskey comes from grain. Rye in Canada and Malt in Scotland. Anything else is just a poor man's substitute. Corn liquor, no thanks. Corn is what we feed to the cows here in Canada. Hehehehe.

You still haven't said what would interest you ashcanannie. No one here has a crystal ball you know. You need to provide relevant info if you expect to get any useful answers dontchaknow.

You could still visit the Alsace and tour the villages without having to drink by the way. What about an Alsatian Food tour? Plenty of Alsation specialities.

Or do you all just eat cornpone? Sorry, couldn't resist.

Strasbourg doesn't hold your interest perhaps because the cruise boat probably makes a call there anyway?

The drive in Alsace from Obernai, through St-Hippolyte, Ribeauville, Riquewihr, to Colmar, then to Eguisheim is pretty. There is a also a picturesque mountain top castle, Haut-Koenigsbourg, on the way. If you don't want to drive, there are van tours covering the area that can carry all of you easily.

The other option is to go north on German side as mentioned by lavandula.

A trip slightly shorter than to Salzburg, but with more train changes, is Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Würzburg, Nürnberg area. They are certainly closer to Heilbronn from these cities than from Salzburg.

Hard to imagine Strasbourg as not interesting, medievel centre, bike friendly and with many parts of the the 1890s and 1914 defenses against Germany. Locally the wine region, old castles of the haut Alsace and Mulhouse's museums would fill a week.
http://www.haute-alsacetourisme.com/index.php?lang=en

Renting cars makes a lot of sense or you could use public transport, both easy and efficient

What about Gengenbach?
I loved visiting this small half-timbered town.
Check out the town's website:

http://www.stadt-gengenbach.de/en/tourism/
The Vogtsbauernhof outdoor museum (nearby) is also worth a
nice visit.

Thanks so much for your suggestions. Will spend some time today following up.

Delciusexasperis...no, I don't even know what cornpone really is. In our group of 8, we have 4 Master Degrees,1 RN, 2 highly successful small business owners, and a retiree from a Fortune 500 company. Our combined European travel totals somewhere between 12-15 lengthy, cultural adventures and I personally have been to South America 6 times. Not all Kentuckians eat cornpone. That being said, I take no offense at your ignorance. Hope you can read between the lines and pull from it my humor.

You have several options, according to your interests.

Salzburg is indeed too far away - you will spend two full days just for travelling to and from.

Option 1: Right on the way between Basel and Heilbronn, you can visit the Black Forest. The Black Forest is a mountain chain with lakes, lovely valleys, wooden farmhouses and picturesque old towns, especially in the foothills (Freiburg, Staufen, Gengenbach, Calw...). You can see waterfalls, cuckoo clocks and a historical open-air farmhouse museum. You will find all levels of restaurants and hotels. You can do this by train, but I would recommend to rent a 9-seater minibus.

Option 2: You explore northern Switzerland. Basel is a nice city, Zürich and Luzern are a short train ride away. You will see art museum, history, old towns and a glimpse of the Alps. The train ride from Basel to Luzern takes a little more than an hour and from Basel to Heilbronn 3 1/2 hours.

Option 3: You explore Alsace indeed. Alsace has more than wine - picturesque towns and villages, museums, moutains etc. Also for Alsace, I recommend a rental minibus.

Option 4: You visit Frankfurt/Main, Heidelberg and the Romantic Road before heading to Heilbronn.

The issue with a minibus is the luggage. With 8 adults all with letters after their names and who take Rhine Cruises, somehow I don't see them as travelling light. ;-)

Even with all those letters annie and an ignorance of cornpone,(shame on you) you still haven't said word one about interests. I agree with bilbogurgler, it's hard to imagine Strasbourg as not being interesting. You need to say more about why it isn't and what would be interesting. Hard to do for a group of 8 of course. That's one of the drawbacks to group travel. Can't please everyone all the time.

The drive in Alsace from Obernai, through St-Hippolyte, Ribeauville, Riquewihr, to Colmar, then to Eguisheim is pretty>

very very pretty and neat - I've done it by bicycle - a twisting road at the foot of the Vosges' foothills with wine houses dotting the way - a marked Route des vins Alsace highway from Colmar to the Germany border - the heart of Alsace white wine country!

Ashcanannie, go right ahead and take offense. He's got it coming.

As PalenQ says this part of the wine route is great on a bike and if the road looks a little busy you can always take a step off the road and there is a farm track made on concrete that basically follows the same route. One of my best ever rides has been along this area. Alternatively you can detour off through Colmar and follow the little canals down to the Rhine and ride along that.

I suspect "Masters" are ten-a-penny in Fodors :-)

Two other thoughts are
1) go along to Lake Constance, lots of things to see and food to eat
2) visit Ulm, a wonderful old centre down by the river, great church and old town hall.

We made a special trip from Paris just to see Strasbourg and enjoyed it tremendously.

I too have done it by bike from Strasbourg to Colmar following the wine route PalenQ. They used to rent decent bikes at the Strasbourg and Colmar train stations. You could pick up at one and drop off at the other.

Four of us spent a week biking it and tasting frequently along the way. We had a taxi take our luggage from one hotel to another. Some days, we wobbled up to our hotel for the night. LOL

In case the two wheeler idea becomes interesting http://www.mybikeguide.co.uk/Alsace_Guide.php