Driving late September from Frankfurt to Celle Germany

Marburg, the university town of Goettingen, Even the town of Celle has a red box around it in my old "Srassen & Reisen" German road atlas, indicating "picturesque town".

Celle is on the Half-timbered route in Germany and is just lovely.

Bergen-Belsen is near-by if that is of interest to you. Plan on spending a few hours to at least half a day there. All the exhibits and text are in English. Have been there twice and find it to be very moving.

Take the fastest route via the A5 and A7. Things to see along the route:
- Alsfeld (preserved old town)
- Homberg (preserved old town)
- Kassel (Bergpark = mountain park, a English landscape park which is a World Heritage Site; city can be ignored)
- Hann. Münden (preserved old town)
- Göttingen (university town with a mostly preserved old town)
- Einbeck (preserved town where the Bock beer comes from)
- Goslar (preserved old town, World Heritage Site)
- Hildesheim (two Romanesque churches which are Word Heritage Sites)

As a stopover I would probably choose the mountain park of Kassel if the weather is nice. If you want to see a preserved town Hann. Münden and Goslar are the best choices, although you can do Goslar from Celle too.
Celle offers a preserved old town with many half-timbered houses + a castle.
If you are looking for day trips forget Hannover or Braunschweig. Very beautiful are Goslar and Quedlinburg to th south (both Word Heritage Sites), and Hamelin (pied piper) to the west. The headquarter of Volkwagen is in Wolfsburg, which offers a good car museum.

One lesson that we learned on our Genealogy trip is make appointments before you go. I sent emails to the towns we wanted to do research and connected with the town historian/genealogy group. We showed up to one place with out an appointment and things got lost in translation pretty quickly. One of the towns I did make an appointment with, the historian found the plans for my great-great Grandfather's saw mill.

Enjoy your trip :)

One lesson that we learned on our Genealogy trip is make appointments before you go. I sent emails to the towns we wanted to do research and connected with the town historian/genealogy group

That would be the Familienkunde Niedersachsen association. The also have lists of familiy names for Celle online.

Thank you everyone for the great information. We will be checking out the towns suggested and also a big thank you for suggesting making appts with the genealogy/historians and who I can contact. So excited!