Accommodation/itinerary suggestions for my German centered route (v2)

Seems that you underestimate the manifold of sights in European cities and the travel times between them.

Two full days is too less time for Berlin :-)
Also for Dresden you can add 1-2 full days alone.

Also Berlin - Aachen - Heidelberg is huge travel distance compared to value time.

Would help to have an indication why you want to visit places.

• Probably right haha, but I'm relying on high-speed rail for the most
  part so I feel optimistic

• You may well be right about Berlin & Dresden; sometime after this I would love to do a fuller northern Germany tour where I would pick up what I miss this time round in those cities

• I'm not too keen on the distance either, how about if I use one of my days to stopover (1 night) in Eisenbach? Then I could continue to Heidelberg (2/3 nights) and then onto Aachen (at least 1 night)

• I don't really have any ambitious for this holiday other than getting away from work for three weeks :) I've never been to Germany before so I'm fine with just sampling a variety of what Germany has to offer this time around

Hi,

Basically a good itinerary if you have ample time. I would skip the Black Forest.

Dreden to Meissen is done on the S-Bahn. Berlin to Aachen is a route you can do by night train if you want to consider that option to stretch out the traveling days. You take the Berlin to Cologne night train, (major junction point ) , then transfer to Aachen.

I should have thought of Monschau as a day trip when I stayed in Aachen.

I would drop Colmar.

Where are flying back from? Frankfurt?

"...do a fuller northern Germany tour...." Then, in that case, you absolutely can do exactly that.... very doable. Skip Heidelberg, Aachen, Nürnberg, Colmar, Bamberg....concentrate on focusing north of Frankfurt.

Focus and plan the trip around going to Berlin, Dresden, Meissen, Stralsund, Quedlingburg, Leipzig, Hamburg, Kiel, Lübeck,

Schwerin, Eutin/Holstein, Göttingen, Lutherstadt Wittenberg, Celle, Weimar, Naumburg an der Saale, Münster/Westf. Soest/West,

Jena, Minden, Lübeck, Erfurt, Schleswig, Greifswald...choose from these places, all very easily done with some logistical planning.

Bottom line here...there are lots of lovely places, towns and cities in North Germany to visit, explore and to get to know. Whether they are on the American or international tourist radar is irrelevant.

You don't say where you are flying home from, but since your last stop is in Colmar, it is hard for us to know. Colmar is your outlier though unless your departure airport is nearby. It might be wise to drop it.

Your plan does look pretty good, though tight. Aachen is cool, but easily seen in one day as is Heidelberg, and probably Quedlinburg too. If you could get more days in Berlin, you may be glad of it once you get there.

What has drawn you to these particular towns/cities and what are you planning on seeing there?

Now there is a stopover in Eisenach (1 night) between Berlin and Heidelberg. This also flips the direction of travel along the Rhine so now I'm flying out from Dusseldorf. Here is the new plan:

https://imgur.com/7jfWGf7

Based on your replies I'm thinking maybe cut 1 day from Heidelberg (the day trip to Colmar), change Quedlinburg to a 1 night stopover? I could probably save a day at the end too from Aachen by taking a late flight.

As for the Northern German tour thanks for all those places! It will have to wait until next time though .... unless you can sell it to me :)

What has drawn you to these particular towns/cities and what are you planning on seeing there?

I would count Vienna (I like old Austrian authors), Aachen (Charlemagne's sarcophagus & throne), Heidelberg (a friend lives there) and maybe Colmar (Howl's Moving Castle inspirations) as places I had on my list before I started planning. The rest are mostly just places I saw mentioned on lists (and here) as places good to go to. Not really sure where I stand on Berlin; I've heard good things about it but I'm not 100% sure of what I would fill more than 2 days with.

Thanks for the help so far :)