Germany newbies

You need to give more information. This is not a travel agency. You may want to call the Rick Steves office for a consultation,

For your Lake Contance part, Meersburg is where I would stay. Nearby is the Birnau church and the Pfahlbauten lake dweller open air museum

How to plan an itinerary: https://store.ricksteves.com/shop/p/europe-through-the-back-door

Places to visit: https://store.ricksteves.com/shop/p/germany-guidebook
or a Lonely Planet Germany guide: https://shop.lonelyplanet.com/categories/europe

And: https://www.ricksteves.com/europe/germany

"I would like a step by step itenerary of what towns and places to go..."

Welcome to the forum. This is a good place to get tips and information. But putting together a personal itinerary for you is probably a request that goes too far for a forum like this. That's because it's personal. Why have you selected Germany in the first place? You probably have something in mind, but only you know what that is. Your interests, dislikes, lodging preferences, travel style, preferred mode of transport, and much more are involved. No one knows how many days you have altogether, whether extra days might or might not be possible, what airports are easiest for you to access from wherever your home is, how many people are traveling, what your physical limitations might be (if any....) etc. etc. Giving you a step-by-step itinerary would surely be a waste of energy.

If you want to review sample itineraries before you create your own, you can look at commercial tours to see where they go, and you can google itineraries that others have done to assess how likely they would be fun for you.

I suggest you have a look through some guidebooks to see what places might be most relevant to you. Don't just go by how many stars this or that place is accorded - read the options carefully to see what's right for you. Assemble a list of places you think would be good for you. Get some feedback here on the forum about those places if you wish. Once you narrow things down a little, the folks here on the forum can help you put it all together - how to get around, how much time to spend here or there... all of that.

Rick Steves has made many contributions to European travel. But (and I think others will agree) his Germany suggestions have limitations. Be sure to access other sources as well as you inform yourselves.

We are spending the month of September in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. If I were planning your trip, it would look like mine and you would spend a lot of time hiking. However, i don't know if you even hike. It is impossible to plan a trip for someone you don't know. The Rick Steves Germany book would be the place to start He highlights what he considers the "best of Germany". Once you have targeted what interests you, then come back and ask specific questions. Having said that, I do advise you to make your reservations for Oktoberfest ASAP. This is our second trip to Oktoberfest, and prices skyrocket and things fill quickly. We actually stay on the edge of "district 1" in Munich in Ottobrunn and ride public transit in.

Yes, you need to make your Oktoberfest reservation right now. I have found a great place to start is to watch tv shows of areas I am interested. There are quite a few videos on this website under "Watch, Read, Listen". There are a lot for Germany and Austria. I say Austria, because from Munich you can easily and inexpensively get to Salzburg, Austria and I believe other places. Also, a lot of libraries have extensive travel material and you will find videos produced by other people.

Consider doing the Romantic Road from Wurzburg to Fussen. It includes wonderful medieval cities like Rothenburg on the Tauber and Donauwurth that were not seriously damaged in WWII. Most of the big cities in Germany were seriously damaged. The Frauen Kirche was rubble and put back together using the same stone blocks.

Also consider Salzburg, Austria and neighboring Berchtesgaden. In between Salzburg and Munich is Chemse Palace.

The Black Forest is great to see if you have time. Love Friberg, Triberg and Baden Baden. Lake Constance (called the Bodensee in Germany) is nice and you can take a boat ride. Also, see the Rhine Falls.

Nurenburg and Regensberg and great cities to see in Bavaria.

Rothenburg on the Tauber ... not seriously damaged in WWII.

While I agree that RodT is a beautiful town, with a huge town wall (and a few tourists looking for that iconic photo) I would disagree that it was not seriously damaged in the bombing of the Second World War. To me 40% or more is quite a lot of serious damage and a lot of what you see, including that iconic photo on everybody's cameras, is actually restored. Restored well, but not original.

There are other walled towns not a million miles away, like Iphofen, Bad Wimpfen (altstadt) and Dinkelsbühl and Nördlingen which are beautiful and original.

Rothenburg, 1945

If people based their travel choices on WWII destruction, there'd probably be far fewer visitors to Munich, Berlin, Dresden and Cologne and others. To me it matters more how the city was rebuilt. While the cathedral in Cologne, which largely escaped WWII destruction, and is absolutely lovely and worth a visit, I was disappointed that much of the heavily bombed Cologne was rebuilt in more modern and boring architecture. It is my understanding that many of the historic buildings in Munich were reconstructed based on the originals. It is also my understanding that much of Rothenburg's ancient architecture was reconstructed as well.

Absolutely agree - having lived near Coventry in England for a long time - about cities being rebuilt as abominations rather than sympathetically as has RodT. No question.

Just questioning that so much damage can be called not seriously damaged.

Interesting that Rothenburg took donations to help rebuild the wall. You donated x number of Deutschmarks and you got your name inscribed in one of the blocks. The large number of blocks with Japanese inscriptions is surprising, given that they had a bit of bomb damage themselves.

Just returned from a 3 week trip to Germany, Austria and Sued Tirol (Northern Italy). We originally planned on 8 nights in Bayern and Tirol, but ended up spending 9. Our original plan was to spend two full days in Muenchen, however, it turned out to be 3. There are many interesting sights in Muenchen, and depending upon the personal interests you may invest more time than you originally planned or in some cases, less. Rick Steve's walking tour is an excellent basis for deciding on how to attack Muenchen. We stayed 5 nights in Unterschleissheim, and intended to tour Rothenburg ob der Taube and the King's Castles... we never made Rothenburg and only had time to tour Hohenschwangau. In Muenchen, the Marienplatz townhall and The Residenz consumed our first day. On the second, we spent the better part of the day at Schatzkammer, die Alter Peter, Viktuellen Markt and the Hofbrauhaus. My group opted to spend the third day mostly shopping in the Hauptbahnhof District and Kauflingerstrasse. (There were lots of decent, affordable places to eat in the train station). We got a late start departing our Unterschleissheim hotel and opted to by-pass our plans for Salzburg, but we spent the afternoon on Herrenchiemsee. (loved it.) We crossed into Austria using a rural Bundestrasse and spent a wonderful night in the idyllic alpine town of Sankt Jakob. The next morning, we left early, and made a stop in Innsbruck. (if you like Olympics history), Innsbruck should be on your list. From Innsbruck, we headed south through the Brenner Pass, and stayed at an AirBnB two-bedroom apartment with a magnificent vista of the Alps near the Racines (Ratschings) ski resort in Vipiteno (Sterzing), Italy. My only regret is that we did not stay a week! During our two-day stay, we drove to the Austrian side of Zugspitze, and took the less crowded (and less expensive) gondola to the summit of this famous mountain. The trip up and back set us back 42 Euros each. The vistas from the top are breathtaking and should be on everyone's Alpine bucket list. The second day was spent doing a walking tour of Sterzing, shopping and random stops of churches and vistas along the Brenner Pass. On the final day, instead of driving directly to Baden-Baden, we deviated, and headed for Lindau (am Bodensee). (I was surprised that 50% of the A12 is tunneled!) We walked most of the gardened circumference of Lindau Island. Although, it was nice, it was not as nice as the painting my wife did of Lake Constance two months before the trip. IMHO, the cleanliness and maintenance of the park was not up to the usual demanding German standards. We spent a few hours enjoying lunch and the churches in Zentrum Lindau. We met a group of Lutheran seminary students and chatted with them. They provided some insight into the history of their Lutheran outpost. We also discovered two very interesting antique shops a block away from the two churches... and found some great bargains on silverware and other nicknacks. We left the island around 4:00 PM, headed north on A96 and were in our Gastaette in Lautrach before 5:00 PM. In retrospect, I wish we had more time to explore Konstanz from the Swiss side of Lake Konstanz. I'm glad we rented a car, but driving in Muenchen is pretty much impossible. My advice is to purchase the Muenchen XXL Day ticket for 5 PAX to ride the rails and busses. At 16.10 Euros, it is a deal that's hard to beat. Franz Josef Strauss Airport is indeed a 5-star airport. We spent half a day exploring the airport before our return trip to Colombia.

I like two sources for beginning to plan a trip. One is the Michelin Green Guide and the 2nd is the ADAC road atlas that highlights places to visit. Then I visit town websites and Wikipedia to see what fires my imagination. I like Rick’s books but they are very limited in the number of places described.

We try to mix very popular sites like Rothenburg with lesser known places like Straubing. We like to move every 2 days; other folks like to home base and make day trips. One of our favorite stops is. Augsburg, which you might find to be a good base for going to Oktoberfest.

We, or I should say, I am newbie as well; but hubs hasn't been to Europe in 20 years.
We're spending 3 weeks in Austria/Germany and 3 days in Italy.

We will spend most of our time hiking, riding bikes, anything outdoors we can find. We aren't into museums, although I so look forward to the architecture!

In other words, figure out what your interests are and google, google, google. Use this forum, among others, and plan. Do you plan travel by train or rent a vehicle? Stay in AirBnB or hotels?

Planning is half the !fun