My husband and I are travelling to Germany in May 2010 and staying overnight at the following places - Kelsterbach (near Frankfurt airport), Dinkelsbuhl (on Romantic Road), Lindau - Oberreitnau (near Lake Constance), Stuhlingen-Lausheim (edge of Black Forest), Esslingen (near Stuttgart).
I am having no luck in searching for laundromats in these locations. Can anyone enlighten me? I understand that laundromats are not very common in Germany.
Not sure why you are staying in Kelsterbach, hope it is not just because it is close to the airport, but there are laundromats in Frankfurt, Mainz or Wiesbaden.
If you can find a copy of the Let's Go book for Germany (don't know if they carry that in Australia), they'll list that information for each town.
You can also try maps.google.com (or .de) searching for waschsalon near: , , Germany, e.g., "waschsalon near: alter kirchhainer weg 35, marburg, germany" (no quotes). I'm sure it's not perfect, some might be missing and some hits might not be laundromats, but it might be a start.
It's true they aren't common. Small towns aren't likely to have one.
I handwash small stuff almost daily and find a laundromat every couple of weeks to wash everything.
I think if you email your hotels or B&B's and ask them they will be able to give you accurate help about locations. They may even let you do laundry there if it is a small guest house. Or perhaps charge you a small fee. Might be worth asking.
Do you already have you accommodations reserved? If not, particularly for a multi-night stay, you might want to look for a Ferienwohnung (vacation apartment). That where German families often vacation, and a lot of them have a washer and dryer. They also come with kitchen "nooks", but usually don't include breakfast.
Why would anyone want to stay over in Kelsterbach, when the heart of downtown is as close to the airport? One half of Kelsterbach is a mega construction site as they're building a new airport runway (all thru 2010) and the other half is an industrial area (especially chemical industry). And then you go home and tell everybody you didn't like Frankfurt... Here's a good website about what you're missing when you're staying in Kelsterbach instead of Frankfurt http://frankfurt-on-foot-cityguide.blogspot.com . But it's not too late to cancel and rebook yet ;-) You can find very low rates with free cancellations at www.hrs.com and my new favorite, www.travel-iq.com
Thank you all for your assistance. I'll see how things workout. Just to put your minds as rest I'm only staying in Kelsterbach for one night to recover from 30 hours of non-stop travel! Probably think of you all while I'm doing my handwashing!!
The German word to google is "SB Waschsalon" and then name of the town, i.e. Kelsterbach or so. If you follow Jo's suggestion and stay at the train station in Frankfurt there is one just around the corner (although the area isn't really that nice). There might be one in Kelsterbach, too, Nowak's but from what it looks like on their German website they might be full service only.
