Amsterdam to Sprantal to Munich

Are you just looking for places to stay in the Bretten area or Munich and Amsterdam? For Sprantal (part of Bretten), the best place to look is on the town's website in the tourist menu. There you will usually find a list of Ferienwohnung (holiday apartments) and/or hotels to choose from. Here is a link to the Bretten tourism website - https://www.erlebebretten.de/geniessen-und-uebernachten

Sprantal is about 3 miles from the city of Bretten, which is about 6 1/2 hours from Amsterdam by train, with changes in Franfkurt and Karlsruhe. Bretten is something of a hidden gem (per the internet) with lots of half-timbered buildings. You will need to rent a car for a day to get to Sprantal. Then it is about 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 hours by train to Munich.

Hotel Krone in Bretten looks nice.
https://www.krone-bretten.de/

Welcome to the Forum.

So to be clear... this is what you have in mind?

7/23 depart A'dam for Sprantal... then Munich, with a day for Dachau... then Hamburg with departure out of Hamburg on 7/28? And what time is your flight out?

What area do you mean by "the area" when you say you're visiting castles on 7/25?

On the surface it sounds like a whole lot of ground travel for very few days.

Also, I can't figure out how we'd recommend places to stay if we don't know roughly where you plan to be on the nights of 7/23, 24, 25, 26 & 27.

I agree with Russ--we don't have a lot of information here. What (besides Sprantal) do you want to see? Are you trying to squeeze in castles, Sprantal, Munich, and Dachau into five days? Will you be driving? What castles are you visiting? How big / active / comfortable traveling is the family?

I wonder--is there a reason you are particularly going to Munich or Dachau? Because on this trip I would actually not recommend that. You could instead go to Bergen-Belsen on your way back up to Hamburg from Sprantal. If your great grandfather emigrated, he likes came via Hamburg; in that case you could see if you could find his records here. The emigration museum might also be a good stop.

More information would help us make more relevant recommendations!

Thanks for the guidance! We are flying into Hamburg on the 14th, staying with our exchange student in the Aulrich area for a few days, then heading to Amsterdam to stay with our son who lives there (July 18-23). We have the 23rd - 27th free and I mostly want to see where my grandfather lived in Sprantal. (Taking the train for all of the days of July 14-23.) Thank you for the tips on where to stay in Bretten!

We will rent a car when we leave Amsterdam. My dilemma is that I am not finding any available rental cars in Amsterdam? Could that be possible? I did look into the train from Amsterdam to Dusseldorf and then renting a car so we can travel down to Sprantal/Bretten area. What's my best course of action for renting a car?

Would Munich be too far out of the way? I would like to take my kids to see the Neuschwanstein Castle, if we have enough time. Flight leaves in the afternoon on the 27th. We were planning on spending the night in Hamburg on the 26th. I hadn't thought of looking for immigration records in Hamburg. That's a great tip. Thank you!

Definitely rent the car in Germany. It would be quite expensive to rent a car in the Netherlands and drop it in Germany. I would rent the car in Karlsruhe. There are Sixt and Europcar agencies right by the main station. Let Deutsche Bahn do most of the driving for you. Second choice would be Frankfurt with Europcar and Avis in the main station and Hertz across the street. You can get a direct train there from Amsterdam Centraal.

In your original post you fly out on the 28th. Now it's the 27th in your most recent post.

Either way, with Sprantal and later Hamburg in your sights, you are going to spend 2 of your 4 or 5 free days making extremely LONG ground trips. Going to Munich puts you in transit on yet another LONG journey. And you can't find a car. And even if you do find a car, it's going to cost a fortune, then add gas at $8/gal... So this is no way to spend your time, really, and it's no surprise that your planning is sort of at ground zero - I would be in the same shape with those ideas in mind.

The following is a template for you to work with which includes Sprantal, castles, and the long southbound then northbound journeys that must be made.

7/23: Amsterdam > Karlsruhe, 8:06 > 13:47 by train; pick up car, drive to Bretten/Sprantal for afternoon and evening night.

7/24: Visit Sprantal area in morning; return car to Karlsruhe within 24 hrs.; train from Karlsruhe > Rüdesheim (14:00 > 16:35) for 2 nights there.

Rüdesheim is a gateway town to the castle-studded Rhine Valley Gorge, Germany's most scenic train route and a UNESCO World Heritage site. There's no better place to see/visit castles on the way north to Hamburg, or in all of Germany, really.

7/25: Morning river cruise past vineyards and Rhine Castles north to St. Goarshausen 9:00 > 10:45; catch train north (22 min.) to Braubach for lunch and Marksburg Castle tour.

Braubach's old town (scroll through photos) is a nice for a stroll and lunch. Uphill walk of 25 minutes for the castle tour.

Return to Rüdesheim by direct train in afternoon.

7/26: Check out; train north to COLOGNE for a stopover of several hours... See the cathedral, the NS Doc center, museums, whatever interests you. Catch an afternoon train to Hamburg. Total time on the train this day will be around 6 hours.

Thank you so much! I really appreciate the guidance. We've been to Europe several times, renting cars and traveling without much of an agenda; but, I think times are different now due to covid/war in Ukraine!

It sounds like Sprantal is well-preserved, but have you used at least Google Street View to make sure there is actually some remnant of the family's residence there to be seen? Just so you're not disappointed after paying $200 a day for a car rental!

There is an awful lot of redevelopment in exurban Europe, especially the kind of prosperous country that encourages what we call .... developers.

It appears you are experienced travelers. I personally don't care for Munich, and its a lot of travel time. And alas, Dachau isn't the only Camp. It's wordy, but I covered several places south of Frankfurt in this Trip Report. Skip down to the Fachwerkstrasse sub-heading:
https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/baltic-germany-fachwerke-landesgartenschau