My family and I are going to spend a week in Bavaria this summer (there are five of us). We intend on doing daytrips to Fussen, Rothenburg, Nuremburg and Salzburg. We are looking at the two following possibilities for accomadations:
1 - Staying in Munich and using railpasses to get around
2 - Staying outside of Munich in a castle and renting a car
Does anybody have any recommendations on either of the above, and any suggestions for a good castle to stay in?
Thanks!
I can't really speak to your main question but I wanted to make sure you knew about Bayern Passes if you choose to travel by train.
http://www.bahn.com/i/view/USA/en/prices/germany-regional/bavaria-ticket.shtml
We spent a night in Munich which was fun, but then we went to Garmisch-Partenkirchen for a week which I really enjoyed. We did two days trips from there.
Unless you want to visit things in the countryside, a car is more a hindrance than a convenience.
With those regional tickets of the Deutsche Bahn travelling as a family is incredibly cheap: one day travelling for the whole family at a mere EUR 45 or so (see: www.bahn.com/i/view/GBR/en/prices/germany-regional/bavariaticket.shtml).
Staying in a castle with 5 people for an entire week might be a major expenditure; I'd expect rooms to go for close to $200 double/night. There aren't a whole lot of castle-hotels in Bavaria, and to find one that will be just right for your day trips across Germany's largest state... I doubt it.
Bavaria is generally too large to visit from a single base town. You're better with one in the north and one in the south.
I suggest you look into a Ferienwohnung (vacation rental) for 3 nights in the north.
In the south it's still a trick to cover all the ground you want to cover from a single base town. Munich-Salzburg-Munich takes 4 hours just for transport. Munich-Neuschwanstein-Munich takes 5. Prien is a good location half-way between Munich and Salzburg - it's about 1 hour to each destination and - and it's a beautiful place with major attractions of its own, one where you can find rentals. With 3-4 nights in a rental there you'd have a lot on your plate.
Prien accommodations: http://tportal.toubiz.de/prien/ukv/result?map=1&page=0
Herrenchiemsee (Ludwig II's palace) in Prien: http://www.herrenchiemsee.de/englisch/n_palace/
Mountain lift near Prien: http://kampenwand.de/index.php?rex_resize=835h__panoramakarte_sommer.jpg
View over Chiemsee Lake and Prien: http://www.bayern.by/data/mediadb/cms_pictures/%7Bbcf4b563-5769-1485-2747-fafba2b773d4%7D.jpeg
Direct trains run between Prien and Munich or Prien and Salzburg. 5 adults costs €41 round trip with a Guten Tag Ticket (day pass)
For day trips in the north between Rothenburg and Nuremberg and Bamberg there are even better day pass options like the VGN Tagesticket plus:
http://www.vgn.de/en/dayticket?&Edition=en&p=tagesticket-plus (€19/ 2 adults + up to 4 kids.)
The Bayern Ticket or Bavaria Ticket Carol mentions would be your best option for traveling between your northern and southern base towns.
I'm not sure why some people are so fixated on staying in a castle. To be an authentic experience, it should be like it was in medieval times, when the only heat was a fireplace and the toilet was an outhouse suspended over the moat.
It you really want to stay in a castle (but one with modern amenities), one of the few never destroyed castles in Germany is in Harburg (Schwaben) on the Romantic Road between Donauwörth and Nördlingen. And it has a hotel on the grounds (I think in one of the original buildings) with double rooms for less than 100€. They have one room for up to 5 people. It rents as a double for 97€/night; I would imagine the fare for 5 people is more.
A thing of concern to me is that the rates given on the website do not say that breakfast is included, and the restaurant does not open for breakfast.
Harburg is reachable by train, but there is no public transportation in town, and the Bahnhof is 1 km (5/8 miles) from the old town under the castle. It's a non-strenuous walk from the Bahnhof into town on a mostly flat road along the Wörnitz river (I did it in 2007, at 63), but it is a bit of a climb up to the castle. Unless you pack light, you might want a car for that part.
If I were doing it, I would take the train to Nördlingen and stay there for several nights. There is much to see in Nördlingen; it's kind of a small, less touristy version of Rothenburg, with a walkable wall, a church tower you can climb to the top of, and lots of Fachwerk buildings, but no Christmas shop or Crime & Punishment Museum. Nördlingen sits inside an ancient meteor impact crater. Our Apollo astronauts trained on the crater walls because the were thought to be similar to the lunar serface. There is a museum in town featuring the crater (Ries).
From Nördlingen, take a partial day trip by train 15 minutes south to Harburg and tour the castle.
You can also take a bus an hour north to another medieval walled city, Dinkelsbühl.
