Just back from a 23 day trip to Europe-I have some comments and suggestions on my experience

I'm not sure how your plan for the rest of your trip report goes, but many people would simply keep replying to this thread for a continuous story, just hopping it up because of the character count limits of each reply.

I'm really keen to see the rest of your report....

Thanks Nigel, my wife and I traveled to Berchtesgaden in Bavaria, the Black Forest, Salzberg, Austria, and then 4 days in England. In Germany, as far as the transportation, we relied only on public transportation, regional transportation and buses. The trains were all on time. For us, no major delays. I remember only one time a train being late about 25 minutes. From Munich to Berchtesgaden, there were construction projects all along our way. I signed up for construction email updates with the Deutsch Bahn, and that was helpful, The DB updated construction along each portion of the lines fairly often. Three times we were transferred to busses to complete our journey around the construction; once from Bad Reichenhall to Berchtesgaden, second time was near Freiberg, and the third time was a short bus ride around rail construction near Ravensburg- that's the train that was late 25 minutes getting to our replacement bus ride, and to my pleasant surprise, the bus was waiting for us! We purchased the Deutschland Ticket for 49 euros each, and using regional slower trains, as well as the local busses in the towns it was a great bargain. Our hotels throughout Germany gave us a guest card which entitled us to some small discounts at gift shops as well as additional free local bus rides around each town that we overnighted in. Before we left on our trip, I was nervous about the DB and train service-reading about the train service being late, people having missed connections, and the downgrade of service compared to years past, but I guess we were lucky.

Another item I might add on the trains was the major construction going on at Munich Hauptbahnhof (Hbf). On our way to the Ludwig castles near Fussen, we had a transfer at Munich, and because of the construction work, our train getting into Munich delivered us about 2 city blocks before the actual station. We had to walk with our luggage, to the Hbf, maneuver through the crowds and make our way across the station to the track outside-opposite side of the station. We only had 13 minutes to do this. Of course we missed the train. But I remembered what RS said in one of his videos, "...if you miss a connection, simply wait for the next train...", so I kept my cool, and went over to the Deutsch Bahn counter at the TI center. The customer service there was great! They found us a train having a direct route to Fussen and leaving in one hour.

Glad you had a successful trip. My August trip was also done by regional trains only and was mostly incident-free, though overcrowding was bad at times.

Replacement buses: Their only job is to be there when your train arrives. They will always wait. If they show up, that is. One of mine did not back in May and left quite a crowd of us to fend for ourselves.

Guest Cards: Which specific towns/hotels offered these? Did you find them useful?

IME they are very useful... I don't do much shopping normally, but I've used them quite a bit for bus AND TRAIN transportation. Offers vary a lot by area. Also for discounts on admission fees... but IME they are not available universally around Germany - only very spottily - and maybe never to be found in larger cities like Munich and Freiburg. Certain Austrian destinations offer such cards as well.

Russ, those guest cards are given out at most all hotels. RS has the info about the guest cards in his books on each country as well as I think Europe Through the Back Door. At some hotels you may have to ask for it, we did at our hotel in Berchtesgaden, not because they didn't want to give it out, but the guy at the desk forgot to hand it to us.
One thing I did notice was when ever we took the local bus, and no matter which town we were in, the drivers didn't even look at the card, everyone spent the time digging their cards out, but the driver just waved us on without looking at the card.
At Fussen, during the ride up to the Ludwig Castles, the drivers did check, but several younger guys were showing the card to the driver, getting on the bus and then handing the card out through the open window to their friend outside to use. Several people got on this way with one card.
If the DB and local transport are losing revenue, this could be one of the reasons.

Probably the biggest problem I had was at the Black Forest. We rented a car in Freiburg for one day to drive through the Black Forest for a day trip. I thought I would take my time, drive leisurely on the High Drive Road and maybe stop for a short hike. On the open stretches of the road the speed limit was posted at 100km/hr., which is fine, and I had no problem driving at 100. However, cars continued to come up from behind me faster than 100, tail gating me very close, trying to get me out of their way, several people would use hand jesters meaning get the hell off the road. In the small towns along the way, the speed was posted at 30km/hr and sometimes 40 km/hr. Cars behind me did the same thing. I felt as if I was going to cause a wreck if I either didn't speed up or get out of the way. With those roads having hardly any shoulders or turnouts, it was very difficult. Finally ended up turning around and not continuing with the drive, I drove back to the rental agency and turned the car in. If ever I go again, I will not rent a car again, at least in the Black Forest area.

In Germany there have been hotels I stayed in where the hotel offered me a free pubic transport card to be used in the city'e pubich transport system. This was was in Düsseldorf and Hamburg, pre-pandemic.

Russ, those guest cards are given out at most all hotels. RS has the
info about the guest cards in his books on each country as well as I
think Europe Through the Back Door.

Thanks for your reply, dhb60. I like the guest card scheme a lot and have employed it for many years on my trips to Germany. I actually keep a bookmarked list of towns, tourist organizations, etc. which do offer Guest Cards... Before my recent stay in Singen, Germany, not far from the Swiss border, I looked into local guest card info and came up with this guest card; sadly, my time was too short to make use of it, but I expect to be back there again sometime.

So my list contains both places that I have visited as well as places that I have not been to before but hope to visit someday. I keep this list because at this point in my travels, as in the case of Singen, I rarely stay in any of the relative handful of destinations that Rick Steves covers in Germany - which is why I don't own a recent edition of the Rick-Steves-Germany guidebook and do not expect to purchase one anytime soon. For this reason, I was hoping to learn which towns you stayed in so that I can study and bookmark their offerings. I'd still be grateful if you can provide those town names.

Sure Russ, from the towns that we stayed in with the guest card, first was Berchtesgaden at the Vier Jahreszeiten right in the middle of town on Maxillianstrasse. At Fussen we were at the Hotel Sonne which also gave us a guest card. I remember in Freiburg the Intercity Hotel had a card, but I know we didn't buy much there but we did get a little discount on candy and gift shop items at Triberg in the Black Forest. I think all of them or most all of them give the guest cards. Those are the three hotels that we stayed at. The other two places on our journey, we stayed with personal friends of ours in England and Biberach. Zurich was just a quick overnight before we caught a plane to London Heathrow- at Zurich we didn't notice them offering a guest card, it was a hotel just down the road from the airport, the Domereo Hotel.

Thanks for that, dhb60.

My research has begun already - with Freiburg. I have some inexplicable need to suss out the details when the topic is guest cards. So let me apologize for being a total guest-card nerd, as I'm struggling to pin down the card you got in Freiburg and will now ask for your help again...

1) Would this Free-City-Ticket be the guest card you received? It's an Intercity-hotel product, free with their rewards program in different cities where their hotels are located but in Freiburg only for transport within the immediate RVF area; no shopping discounts are mentioned -

https://hrewards.com/en/free-city-ticket

2) Then there's the 3-day Welcomekarte, but it's €27 ea., good for RVF travel and museum entrances, but not shopping.

https://www.rvf.de/en/fahrkarten-tarife/einzel-tageskarten/3-day-welcomekarte/

3) The site markets this card as an alternative for "Tourists and day-trippers in Freiburg and towns or cities without the KONUS Guest Card," which I am very familiar with; it's free and covers the whole Black Forest, with shopping freebies and admission discounts. But it is not possible to get the KONUS card in Freiburg according to the registry of KONUS towns.

4) The other card I'm aware of is the Black Forest Card or Schwarzwald Card, which is similar to KONUS but costs €48 each. It seems unlikely that they are throwing this card across the Intercity Hotel front desk at no charge.

So... does any of these cards ring a bell?

Russ, yes I think it was the Free City Ticket that was available at the Intercity Hotel in Freiburg. Most all the fine details are a blur still. I just asked my wife, and she thinks the guest card was named the Free City Ticket as well. We really didn't use the guest card in the Freiburg area, I don't think we bought anything there. Mainly walked through the old portion of the town center and visited the large cathedral before heading out with the rental car to the Black Forest. As for the other cards you mentioned I know we didn't purchase any guest cards.
Another story about Freiburg was when we went to do our laundry. InterCity Hotel did not have laundry service available, not even a self-service washer and dryer room. We found on google maps a laundry room about 5 or 6 blocks away from the hotel, gathered up the dirty clothes and headed out. When we got there, only two washing machines out of 10 were working, and they were being used by people already there. So, we just headed back to the hotel with the dirty laundry and spent the evening washing stuff out in the bathroom sink, hanging the clothes around the room to dry.

Thanks for your help. I hadn't heard of this Free-City-Pass before. I have found it mentioned online but only in the same breath with Intercity Hotels, so I assume that in Freiburg, it's a freebie only with this chain's location; it seems likely that Intercity buys the "Welcomkarte" for its guests in Freiburg - perhaps at a discount - and does the same with similar transport passes in the other cities where they have hotels. I bet the TI offices in these cities have never heard of this pass, not by this name, anyway.

I got off the train in Freiburg last month for a few hours just to stretch my legs and have lunch. Probably won't be booking there in the future, but it's good to know what's on offer. Appreciate your help.