Itinerary help

The regional train station at the airport gets you to Boppard, directly (which is easiest) if you catch one of the Regional Express trains that run every 2 hours or so (at other times you will need to change trains on the way, often in Mainz.) I don't see any reason to head in the opposite direction to Frankfurt... you will just be backtracking through the airport station again the next morning on your train trip to Boppard.

I don't see any reason to stop for the night in Mainz either, even though it's on the way to Boppard... unless you already have a specific reason for stopping there.

It's not too hard to get to Freiburg, a nice city, but that's not really the Black Forest.... if you don't mind the extra time, it's possible. But the BF is a huge area. What did you have in mind to see there?

My experience is limited to one recent trip to SW Germany and Eastern France, so others may have a lot more wisdom & experience to share.

That said, it seems that you are simply flying LHR (or Gatwick) to FRA after you will have spent time in England/London. So that is a short flight and you can get a train from the airport in FRA to Mainz and then to Boppard easily enough, assuming you have a morning flight out of London. You can get a train at the airport without going into Frankfurt. Whether you should spend time in Frankfurt is not an issue I can begin to address.

With 3 or 4 days based in Boppard, you can explore the Rhine, perhaps a bit of the Mosel, castles in that vicinity, Koblenz or Mainz, even. Train, boat or biking are all possibilities for some of that.

I think the Black Forest likely deserves more than a day trip. My wife and I were just talking about our jam packed, travel by rental car day in the BF, which was a 24 hour day. We drove into the Black Forest from Tubingen, a couple of hours east of the BF, via Burg Hohenzollern (the Kaisers’ 19th C. restored and re-envisioned castle) and we spent the night in the central BF, near Schiltach. (We unfortunately had to cancel our dinner Rez, since I was sick as a dog that night but bounced back the next morning, thank goodness) The next day we drove to Freiburg with stops at

• Black Forest Open Air Museum
• Triberg
• Ravenna Gorge for a hike

I learned on this forum that there is a town about a 35-40 minutes drive north of Schiltach, Baiersbronn, that is a food lover’s, farm-to-table restaurant delight … but that was the dinner we had to cancel at the last minute.

We chose Freiburg as a place to spend two nights. Glad we did. The historic center was great. Learned a few things and enjoyed what might have been my favorite market of several that I’ve been to in Italy, Austria, Germany, France, Spain and England.

As for cycling through Alsace, there are a number of cycle routes from Colmar that you can and will enjoy to towns like Eguisheim, Turckheim, Ammerschwihr, Kaysersberg and Riquewihr. Easily two days of cycling among those, and you can spend the night between those two days back in Colmar. If you choose, you’ll be able to arrange some wine tasting, as well. See https://www.ruedesvignerons.com/en/region/vignoble-alsace

Colmar deserves some time for the town, sights, dining, shops snd sightseeing. Rick Steves raves about Unterlinden Museum, but we instead enjoyed some music as part of the Journees de Patrimoine the weekend we were there.

Hopefully you will get some wise responses from others, including Russ, KGC and Mardee who have passions and knowledge re the SW Germany pieces of your potential itinerary.

FWIW, our own relevant TRs are at https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/sw-germany-e-france-alsace-burgundy-pt-3-of-4.

From there you can proceed to Part 2 that includes Freiburg and the Black Forest (plus Mainz and Tubingen among other stops) and Part 1 that includes the Mosel, Koblenz and our peek down the Rhine as we cycled Koblenz-Boppard-Marksburg Castle-Koblenz.

Enjoy your planning and your travels.

Russ, thanks for the sensible advice. To answer your question, I mainly want to find a good cuckoo clock store and/or museum and possibly go to the open air museum. A more thorough exploration of the Black Forest will have to wait until I come back on a Germany-focused trip.

Fred, thank you for the thoughtful response. I found your trip report very helpful as well as enjoyable to read! I’m not sure how I missed it when I was looking up relevant ones during my research.

I mainly want to find a good cuckoo clock store...

The Montag shop in St Goar is just a few minutes from Boppard. Rick Steves mentions it in his GAS book somewhere as well.

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g198631-d17440147-Reviews-Montag_Steins_Clock-Sankt_Goar_Rhineland_Palatinate.html

https://www.steinsandclocks.com/

The homepage above mentions that it was founded in 1973; had I known that in 1973, when I was living in Mainz, I would not have made a special trip to the Black Forest to pick one up for a friend of the family...

Fantastic Russ thanks!
I think I’ll order the RS GAS book.

Triberg in the Black Forest is a good place for cuckoo clocks and a nice place to visit with the waterfall and museum and a scenic train ride to get there.

I have shopped at the store Russ mentioned. Friendly service, they will ship with no problems

With a car the Black Forest from Colmar is easy. Staufen and Freiburg are worth visiting but our loop through the Black Forest was not as enjoyable as our visits to the towns along the Route du Vin in Alsase.

clocks yes, but just to note that traditional Black Forest carvings, such as bears, are called that because of where they were traded, not traditionally where they were carved.

Much of the carving was (and is) done in Brienz at the far end of Lake Brienz from Interlaken, near Meiringen (Sherlock Holmes) in Switzerland.

Mid to late April is a really good time to visit, although you'll hit some cool weather (50's f) and rain. Two years ago we had snow around that time. But the flowers will be starting up and that includes the fruit trees in and around the orchards. It can be a bit "brown" and then everything goes "green". Plus you'll be ahead of the main tourist rush.

I think you're going to find 3-4 days in Boppard a bit long. There's not much to do after they roll up the sidewalks around 6pm. Do what the locals do, take a hike. Myself, I'd stay in Mainz and day trip the small towns, which is really easy to do by train. Or take a boat ride downstream and train hop back. Mainz, at least, has some night life, and there's a lot more to see and do. The other option (for me) would be Koblenz, because that's going to give you both the Rhine and the Mosel.

Colmar, again just my opinion, is probably good for a night or two, but it's basically very small. Unless you actually get out of the old town, which most tourists are not interested in. And the picturesque villages are even smaller. I like them, I go down that way fairly often just for a day, but then there are places I really like that are not on Rick's radar. If you have not already looked at Mont Sainte-Odile put it on your "to do" list.

As noted previously, the Black Forest is quite large. Do you really want a cuckoo clock? Everyone I know who's bought one takes them down pretty quick. They can be annoying. Let me suggest a trip to Pforzheim instead. It's a major manufacturing center for jewelry and watches; 80% of all German watches come from there. You could easily get a watch custom built, and you'd use that more. Plus, a lot of the cuckoo clocks and movements have historically come from this area. If you go to that end of the BF (the north) make sure to visit Maulbronn Monastery; it's fantastic.

But, if you're set on a clock, there's a good place in Mainz, Cuckoo Palace. They have everything from modern to antiques.

You don't say what type of museum's you'd be interested in, but Freiburg has a very interesting archeological museum and an excellent art museum both of which are in historic buildings, and less than 10 minutes walk from each other. (Personally I find Freiburg more interesting than Colmar.) Another option, which if you have any interest in cars you need to add, is the Musée National de l'Automobile in Mulhouse, which is a short drive from Colmar.