We are an active couple in our 70s travelling by train, our itinerary so far is starting Sept 10th, 2nights in Baden Baden (Huber's Hotel}, 2 nights in Heidelberg, 3 nights in Frankfurt, with a day trip to Rothenberg,, 2 nights in Cologne and 1 night in Amsterdam then fly home to Vancouver.
We enjoy history, architecture and local foods, walking tours (prefer small group or private)maybe a boat trip. We prefer smaller clean 3 star hotels with breakfast that are close to attractions and restaurants also easy access to trains. Any help or comments would be appreciated.

I don't know if you have lodgings in Cologne yet but my daughter and I stayed at the City Class Hotel Alter Markt two years ago. It is located right on the Alter Markt and within walking distance of the station. You pretty much have to walk past the Cathedral to get there. At night everything comes to life in this neighbourhood, the square is dedicated to bars and restaurants but it is not noisy in the hotel whatsoever. It is also a very short walk to the shopping streets and just around the corner from Farina Haus (one of the perfume museums) and the Wallraf-Richartz museum. From there we also walked to the chocolate museum (but have walking shoes, it's a good 15 minutes away). The price is reasonable but if I returned (which I would), I would spring for a slightly larger room. My daughter was impressed with the breakfast, and I agree with her. Neat, small rooms (we would have had the smallest room, there are better ones as I have seen them on booking dot com), double glazing; a family-owned chain; a neat small hotel. There is lots to do in Cologne, we needed more time there.

Lavandula

Frankfurt - Cologne can be done by train in 1 hr.
But it would be much more scenic to do the Ruedeshiem - Koblenz leg by Rhine river boat.
But why Frankfurt? The historic city of Mainz would be so much more scenic!

Thanks Lavandula for the suggestion, unfortunately it is not available on our dates

Lots of lovely places along the Rhine, Pfalz, Mosel. Stay out of them cities and visit the little places. Trains follow rivers true.

Bahn.de
Seat61.com

Thanks for your suggestions about staying away from the big cities. We have booked our stays in Baden Baden,Heidelberg and Amsterdam. But would appreciate any itinerary’s recommendations / accommodations etc. for the middle of our trip. We don’t want to change hotels every day if possible and would prefer maybe day trips.

You could give your trip a theme. E.g. you' re doing a lot of the Roman "limes" from Cologne to Leiden (Amsterdam). You could expand this a little and also visit one more city in The Netherlands: Nijmegen, with the beautiful hiking trails in Berg en Dal.
Or Trier, Luxembourg and the Ardennes before traveling to Amsterdam from Brussels, or even Liege. Aachen and Maastricht can also be convenient and interesting choices.

Rothenburg is not a good day trip from Frankfurt

I think we have a final itinerary
2 nights in Cochem, 3 nights in Baden Baden
4 nights in Mainz, 2 nights in Amsterdam
we are thinking day trip from Mainz
any thoughts appreciated, also suggestions for hotels restaurants, places to see and any day tours
thank you

Mainz gives you a lot of scope - you can zip up the Rhine in a train or on a slow cruise boat and see anywhere from Cologne to Wiesbaden to Frankfurt and all the beautiful villages in between in the middle Rhine gorge. I don't know what sort of hotels you like but there is a Hilton in a good location near the river. There are also a lot of excellent museums in Mainz itself (Gutenberg, ancient ship-building) and a 1000 year old cathedral, the Mainzer Dom. There is also a church with stained glass windows by the Russian-Jewish artist Marc Chagall, the Stefansdom, plus there is a nice old town.

Enjoy!

Lavandula

thank you Lavandula
we like to stay in 3 stars hotel or b and b maybe smaller family run in central areas and on this trip closer to trail stations and restaurants and bars
we were looking at the hotel Top Hammer in Mainz do you know it?

HI again, I don't know that hotel personally but I just had a look at photos - looks to be a nice hotel. In many cities (if not most) I would advise to keep away from the train station district but this doesn't hold true for Mainz. The area is fine, it's clean and safe and there are a number of hotels there that are OK, good even. Locals would recommend that area also.

Lavandula

We stayed at the Top Hammer last year for three nights and were very happy; would absolutely stay there again. It's family owned and they are very present. Breakfast was wonderful too.

We arranged a city walk with a Greeter. She was fabulous -- over a three-hour walk, she told interesting stories about the local culture, and took us to see Roman ruins we would not have known about, as well as the Chagall windows which we thought were very impressive.

Especially considering your interests in architecture and culture, I'd skip Frankfurt and Baden-Baden. Instead, consider Dresden, hands down the most beautiful place in Germany (Including scenic natural parks accessible by the local metro) and Berlin, only because it features quite important archeological museums (Babylonian walls, Pergamon altar, and the most important object, of course, the bust of Nefertiti).