2023 Southern Germany itinerary by train

You can fly open jaw and go into Munich and out of Frankfurt, or the reverse. In my experience, that doesn't change the price of the flights much, if any.
I LUV Rothenburg!
And- would you consider the Middle Rhine area- Bacharach, St. Goar, Boppard?
Have a great time planning your trip!

PS - What time of year?

The RS Best of Germany tour was a wonderful tour. My husband, daughter, son, and I all went on the tour. This was my husband and daughter’s choice to go on this tour. I wanted to go to Scotland, but I am so glad we went on this tour. Have a wonderful trip to Germany.

Pat, I would consider those towns. St. Goat and Bacharach look great, just not sure how to make it all work. Not sure time of year, but we like off season shoulder season so April would be first choice.

I love the list and dislike the order -

Tammy are you collecting places and then thinking of the order or do you want help straightening out the kinks at this point?

The current list is extremely skimpy on scenery and picturesque villages.

Nuremberg is a good base town for visiting certain very attractive towns - not necessarily villages - as well as the heavily-trafficked Rothenburg...

Iphofen
Bad Windsheim / Franconian Open-air museum
Bamberg
Bayreuth
Regensburg

Staying 5 nights would be insufficient for N'berg and ALL these places - you'd still have to choose.

...but don’t want to move around too much.

Heidelburg and Rothenburg can both be done as seperate day trips from Wurzburg. I lived there and made those day trips without any problem at all. Both can be done by train.

Thanks for the replies. The only for sure on the order of the list is Frankfurt as that is where we will fly into. The rest of the places I just threw out there as possibilities and looking for feedback on the order, and how many nights. Obviously, this list is too long and sacrifices will have to be made. Ideally, I would like 4 places of 3 nights each with an additional 2 nights in Frankfurt for a total of 14 nights.
We want each place we stay to have good day trip options, good restaurants and be scenic. We don't have to stay in Stuttgart, but need to be able to get there as a day trip for car stuff (a must for the DH). TIA!

I personally found Munich to be over-rated, but nearby mountains can be very nice if you can get to them. You might possibly have Dachau on your list?

I don't have Russ' depth of experience, but you might find the section of this Report labelled Fachwerkstraße (multiple posts marked "Day 2", etc.) will stimulate some research. EDIT: Be sure to skip down to the last post, as well, about southern hiking (?) towns.

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/baltic-germany-fachwerke-landesgartenschau

Please give the month of the year if you post again. River boat schedules must be downloaded for the right period.

Our trip to these areas was late April-May. Flew into FRA out of MUC.
Itinerary 14 Nights plus 2 flying: St.Goar 4, Rothenburg 2, Munich 4, Berchestgaden 4.

We enjoy not rushing and having extra time to relax in our base town or city. Like for Rothenburg many folks do 1 N. We chose 2 nights as it’s almost all day to get there from the Rhine. First night we did Nigntwatchman’s Tour and dinner. Second day museums, sightseeing, Walking, shopping, eating well!

From these bases we did day trips using trains and buses. A taxi was needed to get to Remagen but
now I think there’s a bus connection from the train stop.
The travel was Mix of country, city, military, Food & wine, culture, museums, castles, cathedrals.

Itinerary description:
Arrive FRA, Train to St.Goar
4N St.Goar: Our day trips were a Rhine River cruise: Taxi to Remagen Bridge and the Museum;
Trains to Koln; Rheinfels Castle and St.Goar.
During Rhine cruise we hopped off for Bacharach; Rudesheim for wine & apps, Chair lift to Nature Park-Walk-walked trail to Assmanshausen-wine & apps; boat return to St.Goar

2N Rothenburg: Rothenburg; Departure day from Rothenburg train to Munich, stop at Dachua by using the local bus. Our luggage stored in Dachua train locker.

4N Munich: Munich two days with third day for BMW factory and the Olympic Village.

4N Berechestgaden: Buses for same day Eagles Nest and Salt Mine; for Salzburg; for Berchestgaden National Park and Lake Kongssee; Berchestgaden.

Train to Munich Fly home.

Like every country there is much to see and do but to enjoy what time we had choices had to be made.
Enjoy your planning!

Remagen should read, Train to Remagen, taxi to the Bridge & Museum. We arranged a return time for taxi driver To retrieve us. Worked well.

Apologies for my typing errors. We went to Koln same day we visited Remagen. We spent all afternoon in Koln and returned to St.Goar on a 5ish pm train, had dinner in St.Goar.

A taxi was needed to get to Remagen but now I think there’s a bus
connection from the train stop.

You can get to Remagen by train. I am thinking maybe you meant to say that you took a taxi from the Remagen station to the Bridge at Remagen Friedensmuseum or "Peace Museum." I'm guessing that you found this museum a good experience. I know I did. It tells an interesting LOCAL story with English-language displays. From the station it's a healthy walk to the edge town, but IME it is a fairly easy and pleasant walk along a developed waterfront (cafes, restaurants) if you have the time.

During Rhine cruise we hopped off for Bacharach; Rudesheim for wine &
apps, Chair lift to Nature Park-Walk-walked trail to
Assmanshausen-wine & apps; boat return to St.Goar

4 nights in St. Goar might seem like a lot of time to some, but I think your day trips took pretty good advantage of that time.

Your choice of cruise segment (St. Goar > Rüdesheim) gave you the best scenery on the river. Sounds like you had a great day as well. One comment for visitors who are more pressed for time: From St. Goar, it's possible to enjoy that same scenery more quickly by eliminating the southbound cruise:

• 30-minute train ride south to Bingen Stadt station (opposite R'heim.) Make the stopover by train in Bacharach if you like.
• 1 hr. 40 min. cruise from Bingen back to St. Goar from there (1 hr, 40 minutes.)
  

(Tip: show your train ticket at the KD boat dock for a cruise discount of 20%.)

Cruising round trip as Diane did from St. Goar to Bingen (or Rüdesheim) requires roughly 5 boat hours: 3 hours on the southbound boat plus 1 hr. 40-55 minutes for the northbound return cruise.

(It is the strong river current which accounts for the difference in travel times for the same stretch of river.)

Rüdesheim on the opposite riverbank is indeed a nice outing from St. Goar; to visit both R'heim and cruise the river in less time, you might try this:

• Use the St. Goar ferry crossing (runs all day long) to reach St. Goarshausen.
• 25-min. train ride to Rüdesheim
• 2-hr cruise back to St. Goar

@Diane: If/when you have a chance to return to the area, I suggest a visit to Marksburg Castle in Braubach - a never-destroyed castle from the Middle Ages which offers tours in English at certain hours.

no matter if you day trip or stay (I see your request for fewer stops with which I concur, me too) you actually could visit most of your list.

My order to eliminate backtracking and zigzag would be

Frankfurt -2nights
Heidelberg
Stuttgart-2 nights (keep the hubby happy quickly and he will be putty in your hands for the rest of the time)
Augsburg
Munich-3 nts
Nuremburg or small town near by 2 nts
Würzburg
Rothenburg ob der Tauber, a really easy daytrip from Würzburg
Back to Frankfurt

I'm with you in spirit

Thank you again for replies. We are planning mid to late April of 2023. This is what my further research has let to me and now would like to know if this looks good and easy to use trains to get to these places? I am a train novice. We have 14 nights. Want slower travel and although we would love to go to Berlin, I'm afraid it will have to wait for another trip.

Fly into Frankfurt-2 nights
Rothenburg-3 nights day trip into Nuremburg
Augsburg-3 nights day trip to Munich?
Garmisch-2 nights (good place for the Alps)?
Heidelburg-3 nights IS it easy to day trip into Stuttgart from here?

Is this a good order? Scenic places and good restaurants? Still working on this. Help please.

"S it easy to day trip into Stuttgart from here?" - Yes.

If you want to slow down a bit, work on 3 bases instead of 5.

Yes Gunderson, but what to cut?

I'm off to sharpen my shears, then I have to go out. I'll send you a private message later.

As soon as I saw you initial post (a few minutes ago), I immediately noticed something, but there have been a lot of post since. I don't know if anyone else mentioned this.

You show going from Augsberg [Augsburg] to Würzburg. You also say you would like to do Rothenberg ob der Tauber, but "don't want to move around too much".

The direct route from Augsburg to Würzburg goes through Steinach (by Rothenburg odT), and it's only a 15 minute local train ride from Steinach to Rothenburg. If you left Augsburg on the RE at 8:28, you could stop in Rothenburg for 6 hours (10:51 - 17:05) and still get to Würzburg by 6:16 PM. Or better yet, you could make it an overnight stop without adding much time to your schedule.

Thank you Lee. We definitely want to stop in Rothenburg for one night to do night watchman tour. How would you do a southern Germany itinerary for 2 weeks with 3 night stays?

Heidelburg-3 nights IS it easy to day trip into Stuttgart from here?

It depends. Heidelberg Hbf is around 3 km outside the old town (Altstadt) zone where I think most would prefer to stay. So use Heidelberg Altstadt as the station name for your day trip searches if that's where you stay.

The Altstadt station feeds the main station (Heidelberg Hbf) and thus adds a mandatory change of train whenever you day-trip to Stuttgart or to certain other places. It will take you around an hour each way if you include high-speed trains. Flex-preis (walk-up fare) is €31,20 so this choice means a round-trip fare for two of €125. Pre-purchase of saver fare tickets (which are train-specific and incur penalties for refunds) should provide some savings.

But day trippers typically use day passes like the Baden-Wuerttemberg ticket (€31/ 2 adults) for flexibility and savings. The exclusion of high-speed trains from these passes means longer travel times, however. The 1-change option to Stuttgart with the day pass suddenly becomes a 3-hr journey one way. 2-change journeys are available and closer to 2-2.5 hours. But even then you are spending 4-5 hours on the train altogether for your Stuttgart outing.

In addition... what happens when you head off from Heidelberg to Augsburg? Your train sequence makes yet another backtrack move to Stuttgart first.

So if you are looking to streamline your trip, Heidelberg isn't looking like a good springboard to me. If you expect a full day in Stuttgart, I would just make Stuttgart a one night stop. A smaller-town option nearby is the very handsome town of Esslingen, from which Stuttgart Hbf is a 10-minute ride on pocket change using the RE train.

Nuremburg or small town near by 2 nts
Rothenburg-3 nights day trip into Nuremburg

There's a LOT to choose from in Franconia for sure - the two places above, Würzburg, Bamberg (UNESCO World Heritage old town,) Iphofen (small wine town with artist contingent on main rail line between Würzburg and Nuremberg and with direct trains to both.) See Iphofen photos. Bad Windsheim is a fine place too - for me, the open-land museum there is a must-do. Lots of dining options there including the Wirtshaus (#12 on that page) at the museum itself.

So I see your addition of one night in the region as steady progress. I'd go for four nights or more. The most convenient base town for the area is probably Nuremberg, which offers more accessible destinations with fewer changes of train, but the lean toward a smaller place is fine too, though Rothenburg is not so convenient (3 trains one way to Nuremberg, 2.5 - 3 hours on trains that day altogether.) A Bamberg, day trip from Rothenburg requires 3-4 trains each way and 4.5 5 hrs. For Iphofen it would be 3 trains each way, 3.5 hrs total.

On two separate occasions I have made my Franconian daytrips from a Neustadt base. Neustadt's full name is Neustadt-an-der-Aisch, Aisch being the river it's on. It's an attractive but very untouristy, sedate little old-world town. See photos:

https://www.stadtbild-deutschland.org/forum/index.php?thread/5806-neustadt-an-der-aisch-galerie/&postID=182279#post182279

I had a couple of very good meals at this place, which has been there for 450 years:
https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g1085599-d5809299-Reviews-Gasthaus_Zur_Sonne-Neustadt_an_der_Aisch_Middle_Franconia_Franconia_Bavaria.html

Train times to places I wanted to visit were very reasonable from Neustadt:

Iphofen: 16 min.
Bad Windsheim: 20 min.
Nuremberg: 27 min.
Würzburg: 42 jmin.
Rothenburg: 1 hr. 14 min.
Bamberg: 1 hr. 30 min.

I've never overnighted in Bad Windsheim, but BW is close to Neustadt and similarly close to the day trip destinations named above; I had plans to stay here a few years ago but had to cancel. You might check Bad Windsheim out as a base option. Maybe look into Iphofen too, which also is near Neustadt. If you have concerns about missing the Nightwatchman thing, note that there are trains from Rothenburg that leave at 10pm for Bad Windsheim.

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Tourism-g198421-Bad_Windsheim_Middle_Franconia_Franconia_Bavaria-Vacations.html

Most of your day trips in the area can be handled by the Tagesticket Plus day pass - super good deal!
https://www.vgn.de/en/tickets/all-day-ticket-plus/

(Tip: show your train ticket at the KD boat dock for a cruise discount of 20%.)

I've been searching the K-D website for confirmation that the 20% discount for showing you Bahn ticket is still available. I haven't been able to find it, but maybe I haven't looked in the right place. (I was looking at the online ticket prices; you don't need a ticket to get to that webpage.) It might still be available.

What I did see, however, is that there is a 30% discount for seniors (over 60).

I don't think the 2022 Brochure is out yet. The 20% discount for a Bahn Ticket was mentioned in the 2021 Brochure, so it will probably be included in the 2022 Brochure.

Thank you Russ, Lee and Gundersen. I may be back with more questions, but doing further research right now.