Best Home Base

This is mostly a Germany question, but for Bruges/Brussels/Amsterdam, consider a Home Base in Gent, Belgium. On our first Belgium trip, we were based in Bruges, which was nice, but second trip, we used Gent, which was really nice. And you can easily visit Bruges by train a short ride west from Gent, and Brussels a short train ride east. Antwerp, and Amsterdam beyond, just north. The “G” is pronounced like an “H” to us Americans, so we learned to say it like “Hent.”

eltoepfer, just to narrow things down, your question on this thread is regards to a sightseeing base in the Bavarian Alps, right?

For how long?
What places do you know want to go to in the alps region?
What is "economic" to you? How much are you budgeting to spend per night/day?

At this point, food is secondary. That can be discussed once you get your base nailed down. Lodging/food in your other destinations are also best discussed via separate threads in the London, Belgium, Netherlands and Paris forums. Otherwise, you could end up with a really long, unwieldy thread difficult for people to read through before posting and difficult for you to sort through! :O)

Your questions about those destinations are also most apt to be seen by people with knowledge of them under their specific forums.

If you are starting in London then it may be more practical to do Paris, then the Low Countries, and then the Bavarian Alps. Your proposed route now takes you back and forth and wastes precious traveling time.

In my experience lodging and food in Amsterdam is more expensive than Brussels (I have never stayed in Bruges) but is generally perceived as more welcoming to tourists than Brussels, which can be a bit gritty, depending on what you are used to. Germany is relatively cheap for lodging and food and there's plenty of sage advice on eating/lodging in Paris available on the RS boards.

"We also plan 2- 3 days in Bacharach to tour the romantic Rhine to see Berg Eltz.
What is our best economic logistics for lodging and food."

I'm a price-conscious traveler with a couple of years on the two of you. I don't normally plan out meal stops - they tend to represent a relatively small portion of my budget, and in most German towns there is an ample supply of places where I can find a good meal at a reasonable price. This has been historically true for most of the popular Rhine town stops.

Are you planning to do the hike to Burg Eltz? (Note spelling - BURG = castle, BERG = mountain.) For most people that requires about 2 hours on foot (round trip) from Moselkern (a town on the Mosel River.) If you are still using the train in this part of Germany, you would first need to get to Moselkern, which from Bacharach requires 2 hours (8:04 - 9:57, sample schedule from October.) There are no lunch spots near the castle except for the Burg Eltz food service. If you were to tour the castle and have lunch there as well, then walk back to Moselkern, you would probably be on the 15:01 train back to Bacharach (where it arrives at 17:05.)

Eltz by public transport is possible only on weekends. But what this link doesn't tell you is how to get there from Bacharach as it only covers transport from/to Hatzenport (another Mosel town near Moselkern.) Getting from Bacharach to Hatzenport by train would be the first step - that takes about the same amount of train time as to Moselkern (2 hrs. or so.) The return schedule for the bus from Eltz, according to DB (German Railways,) is very skimpy - leave Eltz on one of only two afternoon buses at either at 13:35 or 16:35 for Hatzenport. then use the train back to Bacharach (for a total trip time of either 2 hours or 2.5 hours, respectively.)

What should be clear from this is that Bacharach is NOT a very convenient base town for visiting Burg Eltz, no matter what day of the week it is.

So... You might consider staying in Cochem instead. By public transport, the train + bus trip takes only 40 - 70 minutes total. And if you are walking, you only need ONE 17-minute train ride to Moselkern before you hit the trail. Cochem is on the main Mosel train line, a lovely town with a greater number of lodging and eating establishments than Bacharach and offers a lot to see and do. Unlike Bacharach, Cochem also has many hotels that provide river views.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGiaFS099bg

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g198637-d5571390-Reviews-Cochemer_Sesselbahn-Cochem_Rhineland_Palatinate.html

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g198637-d1918602-Reviews-Reichsburg_Cochem-Cochem_Rhineland_Palatinate.html

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g198637-d10195864-Reviews-Bundesbank_Bunker_Cochem-Cochem_Rhineland_Palatinate.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnaTBf2Izaw

From Cochem you can take a river cruise to Beilstein (small, attractive village, another of Rick Steves' favorites) - it's about 1 hour in each direction, with frequent boats on most days.

Cochem's castle (3rd link above, right in town) is not medieval - actually a more recently-built palace-like structure. Rick Steves dismisses it as unnecessary, but it has an interesting history IMHO, the views from there are fabulous, there's a shuttle bus from the center of town you can take, and it gets excellent marks from visitor.

Most hotels and B&B's offer breakfast. When booking, scan reviews for comments about the breakfast offerings - some can be truly outstanding.

Haven't been in quite a while, but we loved this Italian restaurant in Cochem.

I would agree that Gent would be best as a base if you insist on one. However, I would recommend Gent for visiting that city and Bruges, then moving on and staying in Amsterdam. I loved staying in Amsterdam with all its canals and nightlife.

Munich would be my choice as a base for Bavaria, it deserves some time, as well as Fussen/Garmish and Berchtesgaden/Salzburg, Austria.

If you just want to stay in the Alps, the go with Garmisch. Don't miss going up the Zugspitze and visiting Oberamergau.

We (me 46, daughter 13) took a train from AMS to Bacharach to see that section of the Rhine. We stayed in a B&B for two nights in Bacharach. So we had one full day there, which we spent renting bikes and riding along the bike path to where a ferry crosses the Rhine. We locked our bikes on the Bacharach side, ferried across, took a train 2-3 stops to Marksburg castle, and walked up to it from the train station. There we managed to join a tour upon our arrival - good timing. We returned to Bacharach the same way, and hiked around the wineries and the ruins on the hillside above Bacharach. Originally we'd thought to take a cruise up that part of the Rhine but were happy with our choice to bike and hike. Marksburg was beautiful, and an interesting counterpoint to Burg Eltz.
The next day we took the train to Cochem, on the Mosel, which entailed some back-tracking (the train goes back north to Koblenz where you change trains to head west to Cochem). We rented bikes there that day and rode to Beilstein. The next day we took to train to Moselkern and hiked up to Burg Eltz. The hike took us about 90 minutes. You start at the train station and the initial bit is on roads but you get to a trail and it is a beautiful hike! I know there is a way to drive up behind the castle but if you can manage the hike, I think this is the way to go! We ate in the restaurant at the castle, which was expensive (captive audience) but an enjoyable respite. So we spent two nights in Bacharach and two in Cochem. I wouldn't have wanted more in either, but we like to move more often than other travelers.
We stay in B&B's or Airbnb's. The former is preferred bc you get breakfast, but the latter is often more economical, so I compare prices and aim for a tight budget. We stayed in B&B's in both places; lovely and inexpensive places. In AMS we stayed in an Airbnb, and you will find prices there significantly more expensive (as they are in Paris and London too, but maybe bc AMS is smaller than those I have found it more expensive). I too would stay in Ghent of Bruges over Brussels.

So we spent two nights in Bacharach and two in Cochem.

Jessica, a wonderful traveler's snap of Cochem and Reichsburg Castle in fog just happed to have been our Sunday paper's "Viewfinders" feature yesterday! I'm looking at the print version as we speak;

https://www.startribune.com/in-cochem-germany-a-castle-fit-for-a-fairy-tale/569900072/