Germany quick trip

Do you mean 2 nights in Munich, then 2nights in Frankfurt?

Your travel to Munich will take 6 hours, so after dropping bags at your hotel, there'd be just a few hours left in that day for seeing anything... then one full day.

And it will be similar when you travel to Frankfurt. You really don't have time to visit both places with just 4 nights.

I'm thinking there isn't much point in traveling all the way to Munich if this is your plan. If your flight is out of Frankfurt, then maybue you should be looking at things to see/do IN Frankfurt or BETWEEN Hamburg and Frankfurt.

We are open to that! We just want to see as much as we can. Unfortunately, our trip timeline is set due to work and school.

You had another thread:
https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/germany/germany-in-spring

Any reason why posting a new thread with the same questions there: "We will have 2 days in Munich and 2 days in Frankfurt this March. What are the must-dos?"?

There were answers to this question already in. I will add one based on you last question.

Opening more than one thread is not helpful for people trying to help you.

Hi, seddau! First, I think you will enjoy Hamburg! It's a beautiful city with a lot to see and do. With regards to timing, Russ is correct in that it's important to know if you have 2 nights or 2 days in a place. 2 nights will only give you one full day of sightseeing, whereas 2 days means that you are spending 3 nights there. Does that make sense?

So if you (hopefully) have 2 full days (3 nights) in Munich, there is a lot to see and do there. You might start off with this article written by Rick Steves that gives a short glance at all the Munich attractions. https://www.ricksteves.com/europe/germany/munich Dachau is worth a visit, but you may not have time for that.

With regards to Frankfurt, are you flying out of this city? It would be helpful to know where your flights are as that determines a lot. It would certainly save you some time if you fly into Hamburg and fly out of Frankfurt. Is that an option?

And no worries about the double posting. Your other post was from some months ago, so I totally understand posting something new. :-)

I will be happy to make some suggestions for you for Frankfurt, but let me know what your interests are.

Too much time wasted on travel, consider eliminating Frankfurt and spend more time in Hamburg and Berlin.

Yes, we are flying into Hamburg and out of Frankfurt. We are open to anything in between, I just keep hearing that Munich is a must do! We want to see castles, history, mountains, eat good food, etc! Thank you to those who provided helpful suggestions

I just keep hearing that Munich is a must do! We want to see castles,
history, mountains, eat good food, etc!

It's a complete miscalculation on your part to think that Munich has mountains or castles.

You can have castles, history and good food in the Rhine River Valley, a designated UNESCO World Heritage site not far from FRA airport and the destination which I suggested on that previous thread. You will not have "mountains" there but you WILL have some dramatic river scenery. Maybe some pictures will be persuasive.

Map showing the Rhine Valley railway (black/white) connecting Cologne, Bonn, Koblenz, Mainz, and the airport (Flughafen) near Frankfurt.

Map showing the most scenic part of the Rhine just south of Koblenz with castles, smaller old-world towns like Braubach, Boppard, Oberwesel, Bacharach, St Goar, and Rüdesheim. Click on the links to see more and learn more.

Mighty river with steep cliffs, vineyards, castles, old-world towns

Half-timbered buildings from the past can be seen in many of these towns.

View across the river from St Goar

Traditional German cuisine in Braubach's old town

Marksburg Castle tour in Braubach

Rest stop on the Rhine Castle hiking trail

View from Gedeonseck Terrace restaurant near the top of Boppard's Chairlift ride.

Take a day cruise on a boat like this one past dozens of castles

In Cologne: Tour the number-one most-visited landmark in all of Germany: the Cologne Cathedral. You can also visit some museums, including the Nazi Documentation Center, the Chocolate Museum, and others...

https://www.cologne-tourism.com/arts-culture/museums

Russ, thank you for the suggestions. I will look into all of them. Please keep the rude comments to yourself, they are not helpful. Someone asked what we wanted to see, so I answered. I made a second post, because some of our major destinations had changed based on suggestions in the previous post. My second post was a bit more specific and I was looking for helpful ideas for our trip!

Since you "keep hearing" that Munich is a must-see, I'll say that Munich is my least-favorite big city in Germany. And since it takes at least 6 hours to get there from Hamburg, it doesn't fit a short trip very well. Germany is a huge country, which cannot be seen in one week. Among the excellent stops directly between Hamburg and Frankfurt (depending on your family interests) are Bremen, Cologne, Kassel, Dusseldorf, Marburg, Erfurt, Leipzig, and slightly farther away, Berlin, which is good for one week by itself. Leipzig and Dresden as well.

Depending on what "Spring" means, the scenic Middle Rhine valley is at least as popular as Munich, and much more along your way.

Because Cologne is an especially walkable city, you will lose little time learning about the public transit system during your brief stay. It takes three days to "see" all of Cologne.

Frankfurt has a lot of very historic sites to visit, covering various eras. Holy Roman Empire for example as this was the chosen city for the elections of the Emperor, later the coronations. There are remnants of a palace from 680 which was connected with the church built at the same time. The Jewish community is very old, going back to at least 1074, with a wonderful medieval cemetery. The Judengasse museum there is very unique as it sitting on top of the medieval Ghetto and you can go into the cellars. Next to it and surrounding the cemetery is the Jewish Holocaust Remembrance Wall, with the names of almost 12,000 Jews deported and killed in WW2.

There are several medieval churches in the city center, (Kaiserdom, St. Leonhards, Deutsche Orden & the Alte Nikolai) or you could head to the neighborhood of Höchst which is part of the Half-Timbered route in Germany. Here you will find probably the oldest original church in Germany, the Justinus church, consecrated in 850. Small palace with a dry moat, wonderful Farmers market 3x a week, and some of my favorite Frankfurt style restaurants on the square next to the palace.

Visit the Kleinmarkthalle, a large market hall filled with tasty pastries, cheeses, exotic fruits, sausages, and so much more. On Thur, Fri. and Sat. there are large Farmers markets in downtown Frankfurt. Super popular with the residents for a glass of wine, cheese plates, etc.

The Paulskirche is where Germany held its' 1st freely elected parliament. The Alte Oper is gorgeous. The Palmengarten is lovely and their butterfly house is my favorite thing there.

I would visit the Karmeliter Cloister with its' beautiful wall paintings from the 1500s. There are dozens of museums to choose from, depending on your interests.

No mountains here, but the Taunus mountains are a 30 min. train ride away. Here you will find towns like Kronberg, which has a lovely Staufen castle, or Bad Homburg which has the only original palace from the Kaisers Wilhelm i and Ii. Idstein is a gem of a town in the Taunus too.

There can be a lot to see around Hamburg as well. We had a good time on our adventure in Northern Germany. I know you won't get the mountians, but it is still worth exploring.

We really enjoyed Kiel (Uboat and WWII bunker, stayed at a Hotel called Kalifornia on the beach, we were hoping they wouldn't let us check out...iykyk), Lübeck (Hansa Archecture, marzipan, and Shopping), Lüneberg (Wandering the town, chuches, staying at a working farm from the 1500s in the Heide complete with the special sheep that live on the Heide), Stade (more Hansa archecture and mud flats), Cuxhaven (hearing sea faring ships being announced as they exit the Elbe river into the north sea a really cool light house at dusk), Bremen (family reunion, historic old town, art museum, Focke museum), and Bremenhaven (emmigration/immigration museum).

Loved the eel soup, didn't care for the herring. We were there during Spargel season and gorged ourselves on white asparagus. (May) Ok now I was Spargelsuppe (asparagus soup)!

Granted we had a car so we were able to get a little more off the beaten path than normal.

Have you considered the sleeper train from Hamburg to Munich? There is service leaving Hamburg at about 8 PM and arriving in Munich about 7 AM. www.nightjet.com.

With respect to Munich vs. Frankfurt, I have traveled to Germany many times and usually use the Frankfurt airport because it has direct flights at a good price, easily connecting by rail to other German cities. Frankfurt is primarily a business center. Yes, it has museums, restaurants and an old town, but so does every city in Germany.

I would spend as much time in Munich as possible, only arriving in Frankfurt the night before my flight home. You can get a train direct from Munich central station direct to the Frankfurt Airport, about 3.5 hours, more than once every hour, all day long. www.bahn.de.

The best day trips from Munich are:
- Fussen and the castle region. Many day trips to choose from via various bus services.
- Salzburg Austria. A little less than 2 hours by train. You can explore the city yourself, take the Sound of Music Tour, or do the hop on hop off bus tour.
- Berchtesgaden: Eagles Nest and Konigsee.
- Dachau, half day bus tour.

I hope this is helpful!

I'll say that Munich is my least-favorite big city in Germany

In my case, Munich is my favorite big city in Germany. In fact, it's the only big city in Germany that I really like. I grew up in Los Angeles, and whenever we had family vacations they were to places like Grand Canyon, Yosemite, the Redwoods, Crater Lake - all natural places. I've never considered visiting a big city to be a vacation. But, somehow, Munich doesn't seem like a big city to me. Maybe it's the old architecture.

Although Munich is not in the mountains and there are no original castles in Munich, you can get to real castles like Harburg or Burghausen in 1 - 2 hours by train, or to the mountains at Mittenwald in less than 2 hours by train or to Garmisch-Partenkirchen in less than 1½ hrs.

However, much as I like Munich, there is too much there to see in only one day. I'd save it for another trip when you have more time.

you should be looking at things to see/do IN Frankfurt

The Community Guidelines don't allow her to promote it, but I can. Our own Ms Jo does run a walking tour of Frankfurt, Frankfurt on Foot. She's been a valued contributor on this site for decades. Check it out.

I think I would rather take a 6 hour ICE train late afternoon than an 11 hour night train. The night train stops about once per hour during the night. Leave late afternoon and arrive at night and check into a hotel that has a room that stays in one place and does not shake, rattle, and roll all night.

So if you really want to go to Munich, just go. I never post my itinerary on this site because I will get 28 opinions about what I should and should not do. But hey, you asked.

The night train stops about once per hour during the night.

That's kind of a half truth. Yes, it does stop 7 times in 11 hours, once every 1H22m, on average, but the stops are not evenly spaced. The night train leaves Hamburg Hbf at 8:10pm. It makes 7 stops between there and Munich, but 4 of those stops are before about 11pm (11:03, exactly). After that, it only stops twice (Würzburg for 15 minutes at about 1:30am and Nürnberg for 1H21m at 3:15am (I don't know why it stops for so long in Nürnberg, probably just to keep from getting to Munich too early in the morning). It then stops in Augsburg at 6:24am for a few minutes before going to Munich at 7:06am. You'll probably want to be getting up by the time you get to Augsburg anyway, since it's only 40 minutes to Munich and you probably want to have breakfast (included). So it actually stops only twice in 7H21m and doesn't move in Nürnberg for over an hour.

When I was in college in the sixties, I made three 3 night trips from my home in Seattle to the school in Albany/Troy, NY, and I had no trouble sleeping on the train, and then in 1987, on a business trip to Europe, I finished the first week in Belgium and had to be in Heidelberg the following Monday morning. I left Belgium Friday night on a night train that was 3 hours late because this was before the chunnel and they had to wait in Ostende for ferries coming over the channel in a storm. I was supposed to get into Heidelberg at around 7am, so, naively thinking that they would make up the time overnight, I set my alarm for 6am and woke up in Koblenz and couldn't get back to sleep, but it wasn't because of the train that I didn't get much sleep that night.

I've never had trouble sleeping on trains so I like the idea of night trains. You spend time between after dinner and morning, time you would spend sleeping anyway, getting to your destination, and then get to spend the time you saved on touristy things.

I second the suggestion on taking the night train between Hamburg and Munich, have done this several times, always had a
satisfactory experience. You will too. No problems at all. Keep in mind this night option does sell out.

If you use Hamburg as a radius and junction point, you can easily reach Schwerin, Lüneburg, Lübeck, Kiel, Stadt, Husum , Eutin/Holstein, and even Celle. What are you after in North Germany? Culture, architecture, military monuments and memorials, war museums, natural history museums, regional museums?

Keep in mind that Hamburg is the culture center and junction point of North Germany. I focus most of my travels re: Germany in the North and now in the East, which I've passed up for too long.

"We want to see castles, history, mountains, eat good food, etc!"

It should be clear by now that any plan which hinges on MUNICH as a base town will at a minimum mean...

• a 6-hr train ride to Munich on Day 1
• a 3.5-hr train ride to FRA on Day 4

Also clear: For any day trips you tack on from Munich to Burghausen (2 hrs one way) or Berchtesgaden (2.5 hours one way) or the Füssen "castles" (2.5 hrs. to Neuschwanstein) or Salzburg (1.75 hrs) you must double that transport time. A day trip on Day 2 and another on Day 3 will likely add 9-10 more hours of train travel.

Besides the fact that rolling down the tracks for 18-20 hours might be wasting your time, you should actually be prepared to spend MORE time than that. Train schedules are hypothetical these days in Germany. One out of every three long-distance trains is late, which can result in missed connections and much longer delays. Cancellations, train-replacement bus rides, train re-routing, and delays due to track repairs are commonplace. The LESS train travel you plan, the lower your chances of having your precious travel time shortchanged.

It is hard to for me to imagine that a visit to the Middle Rhine Valley and Cologne on the way to Frankfurt would disappoint you. Frankfurt and Cologne are only about 4 train hours from Hamburg. And of course, the castles, vineyards, and cute towns of the MRV (Germany's most scenic train ride, btw) lie between these cities.

https://www.seat61.com/places-of-interest/rails-down-the-rhine.htm

"We want to see castles, history, mountains, eat good food, etc! "

Castles: As has been said in numerous places on this and other threads, there are tons of castles, both more modern palaces and older castles, that are near Frankfurt and even Hamburg and in between. You can't swing a dead cat along the Rhein without hitting a castle or a ruin. I won't rehash what I already suggested in the other thread or the good advice you have already been given.

History: Again, you'll find that anywhere. Hamburg is full of history, as is Frankfurt--and any number of places in between. Of course that includes everything from the Romans to medieval to Renaissance to more modern to WWII . . . . Without specifics I can't be more helpful than the posters on here have been.

Mountains: Is your interest in the Alpine Lederhosen-and-yodeling style or are you wanting to walk up hills? Germany has numerous mountain ranges across its center, but the Mittelgebirge are not big, dramatic mountains--mostly lower, older mountains. Munich is in the pre-Alpine plain, so it isn't exactly mountainous. The tiny sliver of Germany that is actually Alpine is both very small and not representative of Germany per se. You want German mountains? Try places like the Harz, the Taunus, or the Erzgebirge.

Eat good food: Any city will do.

It sounds like you want to go to Munich and don't want to hear what people on these threads have said. So just say that!

Anyway, you've had some good suggestions. I'd add the surfers to Munich.