2 Weeks in Germany

katsrad, the middle Rhine area of Germany is well worth seeing ( I like it more than Bavaria). Vineyards, castles, scenic cruises, all the charm you can stand. Rick's guidebook on Germany covers this area well, and gives a lot of good ideas. Head from Paris to Trier (Roman stuff) go down the Mosel to Koblenz and then up the Rhine as far as you want. Or, Cologne makes a good entry as well. If you're having to plan it all yourself, just go ahead and do it - just don't allow any complaining.

Have you looked at open-jaw fares - into Paris, out of Frankfurt, for example. Sometimes saving time is more important than saving money.

I have looked at open-jaw fares. I can get or find fares to Paris for around 700-800 for RT but the open-jaw is running in the 1400-1500 range so the amount of money is too much plus it is further restricted because my boyfriend is not great with flying he wants as few flights as possible so I am trying to keep it to one layover (I live in Kansas, layovers are required off the continent) I am running the tickets for similar dates in 2020 so it could change. And like I said I want a couple days in Paris. He isn't as interested so it could be good time for him to relax at the hotel while I run around the city alone at the beginning of the trip and then a day at the end again. I want to see Versailles, the Catacombs, plus just wandering the city makes me happy.

I thought I would add that I am ok with renting a car. I have driven in big cities (I lived in Seattle for a couple years) and travel interstate so I am comfortable and competent in doing that but I am also ok with public transit. Maybe just use the car to get to the city and then park it while there.

Maybe just use the car to get to the city and then park it while there.

I would reconsider that. Driving into city centers by car is time consuming and parking is expensive. A parking ticket for one day can easily buy a pre-booked train ticket (long distance tickets start from €19.90, regional tickets that cover one or two entire federal states for a day are around €30 for two).
I'd rent a car only when visiting lonely regions with poor public transport.

Nothing wrong with doing a circular trip coming back to Paris. If boyfriend has never been to Paris, he should enjoy that. Then to Cologne for a couple nights, train to Bingen and take a cruise on the Rhine through the scenic stretch to Boppard, visit a castle or two. Then to the Mosel Valley, maybe Cochem for a few days, Trier, Luxembourg, then back to Paris for the flight home. That should fill 2 weeks very easily. All done by train. You can rent a car for a day for castle visits in the Rhine area. Mosel is easy to get around with VRM day tickets.

In your own interest I suggest to change the view: Find things in Germany and Europe you want to visit and do an itinerary around that before planning an arrival airport for 2020. Flight prices will change a lot until that time, so they will for x-country and domestic transports.

I do not want to come up with the possibility that Berlin's new airport may have opened up .

My suggestion: get some inspiration on website of German National Tourist Board and have a rough itinerary, after that a lot of agents or people can help you how to get this for the best possible price.

Maybe it's just being a West Coast person but we prefer driving a car because I can stop to see what I want and go as I please. People caution about having a car in the big cities and that is good advice ( no one in their right mind would want to drive in London, Paris or Rome); but what about accommodations (less expensive with parking and maybe meals) outside of the city in a smaller town or village and taking a commuter train or bus or a river boat into town. Sure Excursion trains up a mountain are fun; but hauling luggage on and off trains through a whole trip is not. If you like beer I hear that brewery and tavern tours are a thing in Germany. If you have family history in Germany their genealogy records are great and you could design your trip to visit your ancestor's home town. Do your DNA before you go and you will be surprised at the details that you can get now.

As a former West Coast person, now a Rockies inhabitant, while I've driven cars in Europe, the need to rent a car while in Germany never arose. The public transit is good.

After Paris, you could think about going to Koblenz and basing there to visit the middle Rhine, the Mosel and day trip to Cologne. Koblenz is at the confluence of the Mosel and the Rhine.

To Bruce: I really enjoyed our road trip to Montana for a family wedding in Missoula a few years ago. Drove back straight to Seattle Metropolitan area on I-90 to Spokane and then Hwy 2 in 8 hrs. Nobody else was on 2 which helped. Some people just like to drive. I do wish we had more commuter trains to Seattle and Vancouver, but I'm not afraid of driving into either.

I have looked at going to Cologne after Paris and thought about just
staying on the Western portion of Germany.

Sounds like a wise strategy, basically, and not only in terms of minimizing ground travel. A logical loop through Germany might include Cologne (just OK IMHO,) the Upper Middle Rhine Valley (south of Koblenz) with a detour from Koblenz up the Mosel River Valley as well. September is wine fest time in this area and a great time of year for hiking and biking to the old-world wine towns and castles in this area. Then south via Mainz, Worms, Heidelberg, Bad Wimpfen and the Neckar River Valley, Ludwigsburg, Stuttgart, possibly the northern Black Forest (Calw for example) and then Strasbourg, FR - and from there you're less than 2 hours by train from Paris. A route like this, whether by car or by train, would give you an incredible variety of options... Besides great scenery and castles, you'll have day cruises, spa towns, grand palaces, auto museums, open-air cultural museums, fairytale towns, WW II history sites, and more to choose from. You won't have time to do everything or see all these places perhaps, but then no one is interested in everything.

A suggestion would be to check out the dates of Octoberfest, which is in September, which increases hotel rates and crowds. You'll either really want to go or really want to avoid. I'm sure there's someone on this Forum who has expert, in-person experience with this event!

I was thinkng the same as Russ - end up in Strasbourg and take the train back to Paris.

Public transportation is all I have needed in Germany. The itinerary outlined by Russ can be done mostly by using inexpensive local network tickets that you can buy on the day of travel. However, for tickets from/to Paris, purchase in advance (3-6 months) for significant savings.

For the best choice of accommodations, look at indvidual town websites - usually with the format www.town name.de ( wikipedia usually also has a link).

I loved my visit to the Rhine - stayed in St. Goar and did day trips from there. You can easily spend a week in the area and never get bored. As you refine your itinerary, ask specific questions about locations, there are very good people on this forum who know a lot about Germany (Russ, Jo, Lee). I rented a car while in Heidelberg, but I needed to get to an out of the way place. It was stressful though, in hindsight public transport was just fine for 99% of what I wanted to do.

And since you have time, set up Google fare watches for round trip flights from the hubs you fly out of in the US (Chicago? DFW? Atlanta?) I'm betting that over the next year there will be fares that rival the Paris cost and get you more directly to where you want to go. From quick glance, it looks like Iceland air flies from Kansas City airport - they often have deals. Sign up for airline emails from major carriers that serve your airport.

A suggestion would be to check out the dates of Octoberfest, which is in September, which increases hotel rates and crowds.

Since the OP apparently plans to concentrate on the west of Germany, the Munich Octoberfest won't have any impact on her / his trip at all.

Sorry to repeat my usual spiel, but in relation to Kathleen's suggestion of staying in smaller towns or suburbs just outside large towns:

You need to work out:
Are you actually saving money or will the cost of travel soak up the difference of a cheaper out-of-centre hotel?
How close is the hotel/rental in question to the nearest station or tram/bus stop?
How frequent are the trains/trams/buses? Do they stay that frequent in the evenings or at weekends? When is the last departure in the evening? There's nothing worse than discovering too late that your last train/bus back to where you're staying leaves at 8:30 pm when you were hoping to have a nice evening out.
Or, if you were intending to drive into the city every day, check up on the availability and price of city centre parking. You might have a nasty shock.

Sometimes detailed fare information can be hard to find out if you don't read the local language fluently, as the English-language pages on city transport websites only provide information for tourists who are expected to stay in the centre and only buy city-centre passes.

To CL St. Goar sounds like a good idea. Iceland Air has some decent prices but require a 20 or more layover in Iceland and so the cost benefit would probably be eaten up by the hotel and food cost there.

Philip I took German in college, missing a minor in it by 2 credit hours, while not fluent speaking I can understand it when spoken and then reading is even easier for me.

Does anyone have any recommendations for cruises or ferries we can take down the Rhine? Like start in Cologne and then get off further down the Rhine?

katsrad, read the book published by this company, Rick Steves' Germany. You don't have to but it yet, but you can read it at the library; or you can go around this website for information of the Rhine, or look at some of the videos.

Cologne is many hours away from the scenic part of the river which is the narrow bit with the castles.

Take the train up the river and get on the boat when you are in the good stuff.

Near Cologne (Köln) it is all industrial.

I don’t understand the Icelandair comment. A stopover is not required for good fares.

On the Rhine Ruedesheim/Bingen to Boppard is the prime area for the boat ride. Several boats a day.

Does anyone have any recommendations for cruises or ferries we can
take down the Rhine? Like start in Cologne and then get off further
down the Rhine?

A Rhine cruise is indeed a treat. But the unmissable scenic segment does not require much time or intense advance planning. Have a look at the map below of the Rhine south of Cologne:

https://www.mittelrheinbahn.de/ausflugsziele

If you can find "Bingen (Rhein) Stadt" near the southern end, and "Boppard Hbf" to the north (just south of Koblenz) then you've located the most scenic part (in between.)

Between these locations is where you'll find a solid concentration of castles and great river views - and of course cruise ship traffic. So the idea is to take the train to Bingen, board the cruise ship there, then step off the boat in Boppard (where many of the day cruises terminate anyway.) That takes about 2.3 hours total. While it's possible to cruise south from Boppard to Bingen, that takes 4 hours or so because of the current. Either way, a train ride from your base town is needed before or after the cruise (round-trip cruising is possible but means a lot of extra time seeing the same stuff over again.)

FYI: "Bingen (Rhein) Stadt" is actually the name of the train station nearest the boat dock in Bingen. "Boppard Hbf" is the main train station in Boppard. It's only a few minutes' walk to the dock from either station. "Hbf" is an abbreviation that indicates the main station in towns and cities throughout Germany, btw.

Some people cruise only the Bingen-to-St. Goar segment (takes about 1.5 hours) to save time.

Both St. Goar and Boppard serve as great base towns. Trains here are frequent and dependable and serve both towns, and it will be easy to day trip to other towns nearby. Stay in either - then when you cruise it's a simple matter to take the train to Bingen and cruise back to either town - and then you are "home." Boppard is noticeably larger than St. Goar with a greater selection of restaurants and hotels, as well as a nice river promenade. St. Goar is home to Rheinfels Castle and has the best scenery.

Want to just cross the river? FERRIES like the one in St. Goar make that easy. There's an easy-to-reach train station for exploring east-bank towns in St. Goarshausen, the town just across the river from St. Goar. Boppard's ferry doesn't get you quite as close to an east-bank station.

KD cruises have the most boats per day and offer a 20% cruise discount to passengers using a valid train ticket to reach the boarding dock. Just buy tickets at the dock.