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Germany trip with 3 small children

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We are coming to visit family stationed at Ramstein AFB this December and wanted to take some time to explore the region. We will be bringing our 3 small children. While my husband and I normally prefer to "wander where the wind takes us" when traveling, with 3 small kids this won't be entirely possible. I feel like we need some semblance of an itinerary and then we'll leave each day fairly unstructured. We've had a few cities/locations suggested to us (Trier, Heidelburg, Stuttgart, Hohenzollern Castle, Neuschwanstein Castle, Rothenburg, and Nuremberg) and are wondering:

-which ones would you recommend for kids - they will have little patience for museums but they love to walk around - and which would you omit?

-how many days should we plan on if we are going at a slow pace?

-are we able to travel by train to all of these cities or will we need a car? I know we will need to arrange travel to the castles, but I'm curious about travel to the different cities.

We would love to hit Christmas markets along the way. Besides that, we just want to get lost in charming cities. Any advice you have would be GREATLY appreciated.

Posted by
516 posts

Regarding Christmas Markets...what ages are your kids? There is a Children's Market right by the "regular" Market in Nuremberg. If you want to cross into Switzerland...in Basel we saw a great children's area at the Christkindlmarkt at Münsterplatz . There were "huts" set up for candle dipping, wood turning, etc.--and the spaces provided shelter from the weather. There was also an outdoor fire where families were cooking/heating some sort of food. Perhaps Markets in Germany have some of the same activities. Such a marvelous opportunity for your family to be in Germany at Christmas time--enjoy!

Posted by
6941 posts

I don't necessarily advocate the amount of ground travel you have in mind. Nearby, you have Christmas markets and tons of things you might undertake in December in and near Trier, Mainz, Speyer, Heidelberg, Rothenburg and Stuttgart... All these places can be reached by train except Hohenzollern (bus connection) but with 3 kids I think you'd need to have stuff with you for outings, stuff you'd need a car for and probably would not want to haul around much on foot.

"I know we will need to arrange travel to the castles..."

Hohenzollern is accessible by train + bus but a car would be more convenient. It's not far from Stuttgart. Neuschwanstein's overcrowded 30-minute tour isn't a good reason to travel all that distance. Not far north from Ramstein is Marksburg Castle, open year-round, the only true medieval castle on the Rhine to survive 8 centuries of history nearly untouched. It's in the handsome town of Braubach. You can get there by train and walk up from town if your kids can manage a 20-min. uphill hike. Maybe a taxi ride? (N'stein isn't a castle, btw. It's a palace completed in the 1890's with a fake castle exterior - and the walk up is much longer - and it's hundreds of km away as well.)

If you are interested in palaces, then check out Ludwigsburg, near Stuttgart.

Nuremberg is also really pretty far to stray unless you have some specific goal there.

Your kids may not like museums but they'll think the Technik-Museum in Speyer is pretty cool.

Posted by
3 posts

Thank you both for your suggestions! Russ, would you recommend Stuttgart/Hohenzollern Castle or Nuremberg if we were choosing one or the other. Our primary draw to Nuremberg was the Christmas market. Both seems to be outliers geographically.

Thank you for your advice on Neuschwanstein. We would rather experience authentic castles like you mentioned at Marksburg.

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Den, they will be 8, 6, and 2. The older ones are very interested in learning about other cultures but, as kids, have a hard time sitting still for long periods of time. That is why we are interested in locations we can explore at our own pace. The sites and sounds (and smells!) of the Christmas markets are definitely not something we want to miss.

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6941 posts

"Russ, would you recommend Stuttgart/Hohenzollern Castle or Nuremberg"

It's elephants vs. oranges. I haven't been inside Hohenzollern myself. The N'berg Christmas market can be horribly crowded... Suggest you visit Tübingen for a really nice old-world university town, btw, and not far from Stuttgart and Hohenzollern. Its Christmas market is 12/15-17.

We very much enjoyed the Mainz, Trier and the Rüdesheim Christmas markets.

One more tip for family travel. Use the German youth hostels if you have a chance. DJH is the official organization - they cater to families, especially in winter when things can be slow for them, and many families use them - so your family may have a little contact with German families in this fashion. And of course there are common areas, playgrounds, game rooms, sometimes ping-pong and other recreational stuff. Every year, the DJH hostels in Rheinland-Pfalz, where Ramstein, Trier, Mainz and Speyer are located, have a winter family plan for mid-November to mid-March, possibly with some blackout dates.) You pay €40-€80 total for the whole family to stay two nights in their own family room with bath, with two breakfasts for all, and dinner on the night of your arrival. Both the DIEZ and the BACHARACH castle/hostels participate in this program. TRIER, COCHEM, KOBLENZ, MAINZ, AND SPEYER hostels are among numerous other participating hostels. And there are dozens of others in Rheinland-Pfalz too. Our family did two of these 2-night stays a number of years ago in the Mainz and Diez hostels.

German page for the Diez hostel - see photos: https://www.diejugendherbergen.de/jugendherbergen/diez/portrait/
German page for the Rheinland-Pfalz hostel family offer: https://www.diejugendherbergen.de/familienurlaub/guenstige-angebote/
DJH main page for all of Germany: http://www.jugendherberge.de/en

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