My wife, my Mom, and I are traveling from Kiel to Paris by car this April. We plan to spend a night and one day in the Rhine Valley checking out castles but have to be in Paris for an appointment on the fourth day. I suggested seeing the unbombed towns of Luneburg, Celle, Wolfenbuttel, Goslar, or Gottingen on our way to Koblenz. Are there other more memorable towns on the way? With such a short time-line, we decided to skip Bergen-Belsen Memorial and bigger tourist destinations. My only trip to Europe was 30 years ago and not sure what we can share in 4 days from Kiel to Paris.......Any suggestions?
Posted by
San Francisco
14980 posts
Hi,
First of all, I believe you mean the city of Kiel not keil ( as in Panzerkeil). Going from Kiel to Lüneburg is not a short distance. By train it's 2 hrs or more since you need to go through Hamburf Hbf. If you're driving, maybe shorter. True Lüneburg was left unscathed by the war's end. The British quickly occupied it after crossing the lower Elbe at Lauenburg. If you had seen Lüneburg 30 years ago, you would found the city more interesting, more original. I first got there in July of 1971 on a day trip from Lübeck, saw the place slowly change in the 1980s, such as in 1971 there was no MacDonalds on the main drag, Am Sande.. When I went back two years later, MacDonalds was there, still occupies the same spot as it did then.
If you're going from Kiel to Paris, I would suggest giving yourself five days if you intend to see Lüneburg and Celle. Göttingen will have to wait, saw it once in 1987 for a few days, spend the priority time in Goslar, which I skipped in 1987 because of time.