We are staying as a home base in Maastricht, Netherlands. Day trips and a few overnights enable us to leave all but a backpack back in Maastricht so we don't have to lug things on to trains/busses/etc. We are thinking of going to Koln, Trier and Luxembourg. My husband thinks we should go from Maastricht to Koln for a day trip and head back to Maastricht to spend the night. Get up next day and take bus to Luxembourg/Trier. Spend the night in one of those and the next later afternoon head back to Maastricht. My idea is to go to Koln, spend the night there. Get up early next day and travel to Trier. Either spend the night there or go to Luxembourg and stay overnight. Tour Luxembourg city the next day and leave later to go back to Maastricht. Thoughts on whether either one of these ideas/scenarios will work. We have no definite plans of things we want to see - just tour around the cities, sightsee touristy things and have some meals. Thanks
Posted by
City of Seattle
1959 posts
You're going to be about 3 hours Maastricht to Cologne, maybe a little less. But then transfer time to train stations, and arriving early enough to safely not miss your train. Call it 3.5hr each way. That's 7 hours in the day dedicated to travel.
And then the next day you'd be 5.5hr to Trier from Maastricht.
Cologne to Trier on the other hand is only 3 hours (or even 2.5 on direct regional train), and also travels a more scenic route encountering the Mosel Valley here and there. You could get off the train in Cochem for instance and see a pretty town with a neat castle nestled in the valley between steep vineyards.
Luxembourg City is a cool place, great TI. You can do a solid walking tour in a couple of hours, so a good stopover on the way home from Trier.
Do the loop that you propose. The extra money you spend to stay a night in Cologne (or elsewhere - Cologne is a really easy/good city to see as a two-three hour train stopover) will be well worth it both in terms of efficiency and quality of scenery/itinerary.
Maybe stay in Koblenz - pleasant little city - or overshoot Koblenz just a little and stay in Boppard in the Rhine Gorge then backtrack 20 minutes to Koblenz the next morning. Or stay in Cochem and rent a bike first thing in the morning for a couple hours pedal up the Mosel and back.
Anyway the loop is the right idea!
Posted by
8322 posts
Agree with Hank, don't base out of Maastricht, stay in the places you visit.
Also, when visiting Luxembourg, don't miss Vianden, on the German border.
http://vianden.lu
Posted by
Huntsville, AL, USA
8337 posts
Maastricht to Koln is just over 60 miles, so a day trip is possible. A local train takes about 2 1/2 hous to get there.