Help with southern Germany itinerary

We always fly to Europe using MultiCity flights- so we don’t have to circle back. We are also fans of a train over a car. All I want to add is if you need a great guide for Dachau, I highly recommend bighattours.com- he is amazing

Honestly, castle ruins and actually old and lived in castles are more
enticing than just flaunting riches castles. Would love suggestions
for that. We also want to see nature, easy hikes would be good. We'd
love to visit small, cute old towns.

You are probably the perfect candidates for a stay in the Middle Rhine Valley, not far from Frankfurt, where you can tour both castle ruins and intact medieval castles and where you can even stay in a castle if you wish.

Check into Marksburg (in Braubach) and Rheinfels (in St. Goar) for tours. For a real honeymoon experience, consider a stay in Auf Schönburg Castle (in Oberwesel.) Liebenstein and Reichenstein are also castle-hotels; alternatively stay on the cheap in the castle-hostel Stahleck in the town of Bacharach. See map link below.

Clickable map of the Rhine castles

There are several cute old-world wine-towns lined up for you on the left side of the Rhine including Boppard, St. Goar, Oberwesel and Bacharach. These towns are all connected by a meandering hiking trail atop the cliffs of the Rhine River gorge called the Rhine Castle Trail (Rheinburgenweg.) The 3-hour segment between St. Goar and Oberwesel is fantastic. The towns are also connected by train - which makes it easy to so you can set out on a hike from your base town for as long as you like and to return by train. Hiking is possible on the right bank of the Rhine as well and elsewhere.

Boppard is a fine town and has the best selection of hotels and restaurants, as well as some waterfront establishments along a handsome riverfront. Boppard-dwellers are given a free rail pass throughout their stay for post-hike use or for any other outings you'd like to take; I recommend booking there and taking advantage of Germany's most scenic railway line, the Rhine Valley line. The rail pass will also get you up the 2nd most scenic railway, the Mosel Valley railway, to the attractive destination of Cochem. You can tour Reichsburg Castle, the one in the photo, which is right in town there. Boppard is a good base town for all the places mentioned including Marksburg Castle in Braubach, the best place to tour a medieval castle. (From Boppard you can change trains in Koblenz to get there, or use the car on the Boppard ferry crossing and drive there.)

Wine, if you like it, can be enjoyed on both rivers and plays a big role in local life. Wine Garden in Boppard:

https://www.deutschlandgourmet.info/bilder/gross/5710-Restaurant-Weinhaus-Heilig-Grab-Boppard.jpg

So yeh, fly into FRA and go straight to the Rhine/Mosel Region. Then hit Rothenburg on your way to Munich and the rest of southern Bavaria.

The seasons can be changing around then, so Berchtesgaden should be at the beginning of the trip. The area is much more than Eagles Nest itself, as the lake with surrounding mountains is beautiful, and you can go out on a boat and / or hike. Eagles Nest closes for the winter, by the end of October.

Open jaw flights would keep you from backtracking, and with the efficient German train system, you don't need a car.

Hopefully you're including Salzburg, with a delightful old town and the Fortress on the hill. iMHO, ten nights on the ground is the minimum amount of time for an international trip, but a few more nights would be better.

I love Rothenburg, and I agree with your skipping Fussen.

This is just a really rough draft, something you can start with, work from, modify-

Fly into Munich, ( have at least one extra day before the concert, as flights can be delayed / canceled),
4 nights -Munich ( day trip to Freising and day trip to Garmisch and concert)
3 nights -Salzburg and Berchtesgaden,
1-Regensburg
2- Rothenburg,
1- Frankfurt - flight out

Safe travels and have fun planning your first trip!

We were in Bavaria last April. We started in Munich 5 nights, then took the train to Salzburg 3 nights. We loved Rothenburg also- 3 nights. I would skip Bacarach, it was the only town we felt didn't come out of Covid well. We usually stay at least 2 nights each town, though we had a much longer trip than you are planning. We also rented a car for part of our trip, and stayed in Belstein on the Mosel, Sarburg on the Sar river is delightful- they both have castle ruins. There are so many choices!

With Pat’s route, I don’t see what the use is going to Frankfurt to fly out. I’d just go back to fly out of Munich.

I would just stay in the south. If you want castles, in Austria Salzburg is good and so is Werfen which also has the ice cave.

First, we have always picked up our car at the Munich airport. Easy and easy to get right out of.

Rental car can be dropped off in another town in Germany without charge or very minimal. It’s when you drop off in a different country from the pickup country that is a big fee.

The only reason I’d fly into Frankfurt was if you wanted to visit the Rhine or Mosel areas.

You could do this:
Fly into Frankfurt
2 nights on the Rhine. (Real castles and castle ruins galore).
2 nights in Rothenburg.
3 nights in the Fuessen area. Or in Mittenwald. You can see Neuschwanstein as an easy day trip.
2 nights in Berchtesgaden.
Last night by the airport in Erding or Freising.

Paul

Im also wondering if we should fly into Frankfurt and end in Munich,
but will renting a car in one city and dropping it off in another be
really expensive?

Normally there is no additional charge for this arrangement. Check with your rental car provider. A surcharge for using airport rental outlets is pretty commonplace, however. Read Rick Steves' comments ("pickup and drop-off fees") here.

For the "Southern Germany" parameter in your thread title, the recent suggestions for Austria (Salzburg and Werfen,) while they are very nice places to visit, are probably better left for some future visit. The German destinations mentioned here already will need to be pared down with just 10 days max. With that in mind, here's one itinerary option for 9-10 nights. It will provide good variety and includes those things you've flagged as most important.

Day 1 - Arrive FRA. Direct train (about 1 hr.) to Rhine town (Boppard, 2 nights.) Pick up car later when you are not jet-lagged. Take the chairlift ride to Gedeonseck for refreshments and awesome views; see the old town zone.

Day 2 - Train to Oberwesel (15 min.) for the old town wall and the hike to St. Goar (Rheinfels Castle tour.) Afternoon Rhine cruise to Bingen (2.5 hrs, St. Goar > Bingen covers the best scenery) + scenic train ride back to Boppard (35 min.)

Day 3 - Train to Koblenz (15 min.); pick up car, tour Marksburg Castle (in Braubach, 10 minutes from Koblenz..) Have a meal in Braubach's old town center.. Drive to Rothenburg (1 night.)

Day 4 - Morning in Rothenburg; drive to Romantic Road town walled town of Dinkelsbühl and continue south to Garmisch (3 nights; day trips to... Partnachklamm, Mittenwald with the Karwendel lift and the Leutaschklamm, Oberammergau, the Zugspitze, all good options.)

Day 7 - Morning drive to Berchtesgaden and Eagles Nest (1 night)

Day 8 - Drive to Dachau and Munich, drop car? (1-2 nights)

Final day and night in Freising. Fly out of MUC.

as chinalake says, all the places you've identified can be easily and comfortably reached by train. A car can be a burden, when you take into account high fuel costs, scarce and expensive parking, and getting lost. You can mix them too - train between cities, car for local use.

This comes up a lot for US travelers who've not been to Europe before, and assume that cars are the only way to get around as they are in the US. You don't say how long you're traveling for. Its easy to think you have time for a lot of detours, small towns and hikes, but just getting from one place to another and logistics (hotels and restaurants) eats up so much time and energy that you wont really have that much time.

Yes fly into Frankfurt and out of Munich. Concert at the end is what I would do (a grand finale)