Would love suggestions on hotels and transportation for these 3 cities. Recommended day trips appreciated. Plan on traveling late September 2026 for 2-3 weeks. Love trains and public transportation. Retired couple traveling together for first time together in Europe. Love food, drink, culture, and adventure. Suggestions and advice appreciated.
Thank you!
Munich - Hotel Schlicker - in the heart of the old town, walkable to everything, wonderful included breakfast. Don't miss the outdoor beer garden, Viktualienmarkt, great food and products- good place for lunch/dinner - so many options, great soup house. Dachau concentration camp - hire a private guide as you'll learn so much more - we love Tours By Locals or BigHatTours. Don't miss the 3 cathedrals.
Venice - my favorite. Al Ponte Antico Hotel - a small boutique hotel from the 1300s (an old palace). Very few rooms, so RSVP ASAP. Best included breakfast we've had in all of Europe. We take the cheapest rooms. Hire a private guide for a tour of the Jewish Ghetto and St. Marks - don't miss the gold alter.
Get the Rick Steves pocket books for all those towns.
Also, you have this posted in REVIEWS which is a place for you to give us a REVIEW of somewhere you've been. You'll get more responses if you post it in DESTINATIONS Q&A under GERMANY and ITALY
For a hotel in Berlin, look at Hotel Kastanienhof, which is on Kastanienallee in Prenzlauer Berg. It was recommended in the RS guidebook when we visited back in 2018. Smaller, amazingly clean, good breakfast, close to excellent transportation connections.
Side trips from Venice:
Padua: Frequent, cheap regional trains, with 2 per hour taking less than 30 minutes. Pre-book the Scrovegni Chapel. See Rick's guidebook for a bunch of other sights in Padua. Padua is a lively university town not overwhelmed by tourists.
Vicenza: One cheap regional train per hour taking about 45 minutes, plus other departures that are more costly or slower. Good destination for people interested in Palladian architecture.
Treviso: Cheap regional trains taking less than 40 minutes and running in most cases at least twice per hour. Attractive town much quieter than Venice.
There are other options, including two places I haven't yet been to myself--Ferrara or Bassano del Grappa.
Side trip from Berlin
Trains connecting Berlin and Munich stop at (among other places) Erfurt and Nuremberg, both worthy destinations. I've only been to Erfurt. It has a very attractive historic center (with a merchants' bridge) that came through WWII basically unscathed. It's a university town. It would also be easy to insert a stop in Leipzig. I'd tend to want to spend 1 or 2 nights in those places; they aren't tiny little towns.
Late September is Octoberfest, so be prepared for high prices in Munich. Try Hotel Metropol near the train station. On a quiet side street with a fabulous breakfast. Quick ride to the fairgrounds. Day trips: Dachau, Salzburg, Mittenwald, Bamberg. If using regional trains, look into the Deutschland Ticket. Unlimited travel on regional transit in Germany (and a few border towns) for about €65 for a full month. Covers the train to Salzburg.
From Venice, you might consider a day trip to the Dolomites, or an overnight. Should be gorgeous at that time of year.
My favorite place in the world to stay is in Berlin. mittendrin (stylized lower case m!) is located near The Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in the former West Berlin. It is a 4-room B&B in an early 20th century building (with a post-WWII facade). Sabine is the wonderful hostess, and an amazing breakfast is shared around a communal table with other guests. Sabine was a stage actress in Munich who reached an age where it was hard to get parts, so she opened her B&B (my term; she calls it a boutique hotel). She will do laundry for you, if needed. It's a block to a U3 station (Ausburger Straße), 2-3 blocks to Wittenbergplatz U station (U1, U2, U3 + buses), and a 10-15 minute walk to the Zoologischer Garten Station (S/U/trains/buses).
Potsdam is the best day trip from Berlin. Spandau, another distant suburb of Berlin, also has an interesting history, including a Renaissance area Citadel that includes a museum that holds old East German monuments/statues. Leipzig is an option, too -- a 1 hr 15 min ICE train ride away and has some very interesting sites including the Völkerschlachtdenkmal (the Lord of the Rings caliber Memorial to the Battle of the Nations -- Prussia defeated Napoleon at Leipzig) and Nikolaikirche (the church where the Monday Demonstrations that contributed to the fall of East Germany began).
Culture -- Berlin Philharmonic is of course excellent, and there are two opera houses (if you are into such things).
If it is in your budget and if it is of interest and if he is available, a private tour with Robert Sommer is a treat. He grew up in East Berlin, the son of a high ranking East German official. He was a 15-year-old punk rocker the night the Berlin Wall fell and can tell what happened in his home that night (and the following few days). He was a a squatter for a bit as a young adult in the former East Germany but ultimately ended up getting a PhD in history, quite literally writing the book on prostitution in concentration camps and contributing to the exhibition at Ravensbrück. Despite his academic credentials, he is quite down to earth. He offers a number of tours on his website or he can craft a tour for you. I've done a variety of tours with Robert
Robert's website: http://thetrueberliner.com/
If you happen to be interested in or open to a smaller city between Berlin and Munich that is off the typical US tourist radar but on the typical German tourist radar, Erfurt is a great city. It has its own Oktoberfest that is quite different from the one in Munich -- smaller, only one beer tent, more family oriented. It is scheduled for Sept 25 to Oct 11. https://www.erfurt-tourismus.de/veranstaltungen/hoehepunkte/erfurter-oktoberfest-2026/
An excellent hotel in Erfurt is Hotel Domizil. It is located just off Dom Platz, the square where Oktoberfest happens. The hotel is run by a mother/son team. The son is a chef. Breakfast is very impressive. Rooms are clean. I had one of the "Dom-view" rooms during Oktoberfest and would sit in my room at night with the window open, listening to the music and singing emanating from the beer tent. It was quite pleasant.
Erfurt has Luther sites, a gorgeous old town that was largely spared Allied bombing during WWII, a rather impressive Merchant's Bridge, a medieval synagogue, a former medieval Jewish bath house, Anger One (a former Jewish department store "Aryanized" by the Nazis, then taken over by the Communists, and then transformed into a modern shopping complex), and a former Stasi remand prison turned into a museum.
There is a very, very interesting museum at the site of the former Topf und Söhne (Topf and Sons) industrial complex (only a former administrative building remains). Topf und Söhne was a conglomerate that made many products, including the ovens for Auschwitz. The museum explores how a "normal" company with "normal" owners that shielded Jewish and Communist workers from the Nazis became heavily involved in genocide.
You'll notice Willy-Brandt-Platz just outside the train station. Willy Brandt was the first West German Chancellor to visit East Germany, and Erfurt was the site of his visit. The East German government was embarrassed because so many East Germans showed up to cheer Brandt and who shouted, "Willy! Willy! Willy!" to try to get him to make an appearance in front of the crowd. Brandt gave the crowd a small wave of acknowledgement from the window of the Hotel Erfurter Hof, now offices/apartments at Willy Brandt Platz 1.
Of note, Erfurt was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2023 for its Jewish-Medieval Heritage including the Old Synagogue, the ritual bathhouse, and a preserved medieval residential building.
Weimar and Eisenach are good day trips.
