Germany-13 nights travel plan- Feedback appreciated please

Day 1: You cannot expect yourselves to be up for all that sightseeing and on-the-go travel after an international red-eye flight. A driver does not increase the number of hours in a day, which you would need to do for a plan like this. This day borders on the absurd. And you can't just see Nuremberg by driving around it - much of it is dedicated to pedestrians only anyway. Suggest you travel by train to Nuremberg and spend the afternoon/evening/night there. See the sights in whatever time you have. On Day 2 you can head straight to St. Gilgen or wherever, whenever, however you wish to get there. See Herrenchiemsee later when you travel to Garmisch (if by train, the Prien station has lockers for your bags while you visit H'chiemsee.)

Days 12-13: Stay roughly between Stuttgart and FRA airport - no need for the detour to R'burg or D'bühl.. There are tons of good places to visit... most along the scenic Neckar River... below are just a few. All can be reached by train.

Ludwigsburg
Besigheim
Bad Wimpfen - it's a handsome place!
Hirschhorn
Heidelberg
Ladenburg
Heppenheim and the other Bergstrasse wine towns

Frankfurt doesn't exactly fit your "quaint villages" profile. You don't necessarily have to stay there. The 7:30 train sequence from Heppenheim, if you overnighted there, would get you to FRA in 1 hour. It's about the same from Heidelberg as well.

While Russ and others have conclusively proved that a car is not necessary to see any part of Germany, I sometimes find one convenient. But it seems odd that your car is associated with so many "city" stays. The car is likely to be an expensive and time-consuming obstacle on those travel days, and will not be useful for a day of sightseeing. As a concrete example, we stayed at the very end of the Frankfurt S4 line, at a luxury resort with (just barely) enough parking. We only went to downtown Frankfurt one day, using the S Bahn. (We needed a flashlight to walk back to the hotel from the S-Bahn stop, but I suppose we could have called a taxi.) Even that far out, we encountered rush hour traffic on the way home from a day of rural sightseeing.

You should fly to Salzburg. The problem is that you'll then be renting a car in one country and returning it in another, which is expensive. It may be too late, but if you could use a vendor like United or partner Lufthansa, you could probably fly open-jaw (through any of their hubs) to a midday arrival in Munich, and rent the car there, for ten dollars more than a round-trip to Frankfurt. (Note that your profile conceals where you're coming from. See how mine shows where I live.) Another option is to fly to Innsbruck, even more attractive than Salzburg, but I'm not trying to get you to change your itinerary list. We trained from Innsbruck to Salzburg, and thence to Munich, returning from Vienna. No car involved. Yet we somehow got to the bus tour pickup and Hellbrun gardens!

Dear Russ and Tim- thank you so much or your valuable input. i was being too ambitious i guess- case of too many places to go and see in such short time. I will have to stop being greedy! Lol. I will re plan my routes and have to return to Germany for part 2 of our holidays in future:)

If your goal is to see Bavaria/Salzburg you should really fly into Munich and not Frankfurt. Flying into Frankfurt then driving to Salzburg is the same as flying to Philadelphia then driving to Boston.

You can easily arrive in Munich then take a train to Salzburg using a Bayern ticket to start your holiday off with less stress. From there you could make your way across southern Germany by train or car to the destinations you suggest (leaving outs Baden Baden and Frankfurt) and loop around back to Munich to depart.

DJ

Hi DJ! You are absolutely correct in suggesting to commence tours from Munich. Unfortunately our tickets have been purchased. I have decided to save Bavaria and Salzburg for another time. I am going to resend my revised travel plan..

Thanks so much!