My first attempt at Germany - too slow? too fast? too much?

It seems to be a coherent trip so far. But, two nights in a place really means only one day on site with half a day of travel before and after. That wouldn't work for me as rest city. If the focus is WW II I would skip Karlovy Vary and stick to Germany on this trip. If you schedule one of your days in Nuremberg for a weekend you can visit the Nuremberg Trails courtroom (which is still in use during the week as a... courtroom.

https://museums.nuernberg.de/nuremberg-municipal-museums/

Burg Eltz is a lovely home/location but for castles I prefer the Marksburg in Braubach for medieval:

https://www.marksburg.de/en/

Have a great time!

They both have a ton to see but are those three cities (Berlin, too) too much for one trip?
Not too much for my tastes!

I am doing a trip this fall with a somewhat similar itinerary:
Frankfurt-Erfurt-(not Berlin)-Dresden-(Prague and Wroclaw, not KV)-Nuremberg-Frankfurt

For comparison:
Dresden: I am spending 4 nights with plans for a lot of museum hopping, but nothing WWII. I almost wish I had a 5th night because I like to have a lot of time, after hitting the big sights, to wander and discover.

Nuremberg: I am spending 4 nights, with 2 days planned in Nuremberg and a day trip to Bamberg (Rothenburg ob der Tauber also an option.) I really wanted to see the Nazi Rally Ground and Nazi Documentation Center.

Should I replace Karlovy Vary with Erfurt?
Clearly, given my itinerary (and since you really want to try a spa town) I would suggest that you add Erfurt, which I learned from the forum has an Oktoberfest; and while it wasn't the reason for my timing, I'm looking forward to being there for it. You might check the dates (starts late in Sept, runs into October.) I'm hoping it will be more manageable than Munich. Hotel prices will be higher during Oktoberfest, however.

From Erfurt, again with advice from the forum, I'm planning to visit Buchenwald Memorial (outside Erfurt) and Topf&Sons in town. You can read about that on this thread:
https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/germany/english-speaking-guide-for-erfurt-area

How about rearranging the itinerary to fly back out of Berlin? Saves you from backtracking.

These are the 2019 dates for Oktoberfest in Erfurt, if you decide to add it:
27.09.2019 16:00 – 13.10.2019 22:00 (format is obviously dd/mm/yyyy)

I haven't found 2020 dates but presumably very similar.

Thanks for the replies!

@Stan - I'm leaving the entry and departure as Frankfurt since I'm making a nice loop anyways - this makes our trip a single flight each way from Seattle. This is really nice for me because I am a big baby about flying even though I love to travel. I'm much happier on a train. I thought about Seattle-Frankfurt-Berlin just to get there but then I read all of you people talking about Boppard and I saw the direct train there - right from the airport even! - and so I though we could relax for a day or two there before we head to Berlin and start seeing sites.

@CWsocial - I like your idea for Erfurt and looked at that other thread. Perhaps I'll ditch KV after all. The trip is already timed so that it hits Octoberfest. ET and S museum sounds like a site we would like to see. I had seen that Buchenwald is nearby...I'll mull that over.

Thanks!

Some people love Nuremberg, but I found it a bit disappointing. I put it on my itinerary explicitly for the Nazi stuff (which is on the outskirts of town), and for some reason, that stuff was a bit a disappointment. The Nazi Document Center is full of information, but it's almost all in German. There are audio guides...but they just read the text to you in English, and they put me to sleep. Nuremberg is a big convention town. If there is one in town while you are visiting, expect high hotel prices.

Not saying you should skip Nuremberg, but three nights there would be too much for me. I'm glad I spent only one. If I hadn't visited at all, I wouldn't have known what I was missing!

Dresden is nothing like Berlin, which is huge and spread out. The parts of Dresden you would likely see are not very big, unless you are going to explore beyond what the average tourist sees. You'll probably want to see the old town area and the museums. If you aren't interested in the museums, I'd skip it entirely.

If you do go to Dresden, consider side trips: to Görlitz, the eastern-most town in Germany, on the Polish border. Half of the town got split in Poland after the war when Stalin insisted on "moving" Poland westward into Germany and the border happened to be the river going through the center of town. Today it's completely open - you can walk across the bridge from the German to the Polish side and see how very different the two sections of town are. The Polish side is very run down compared to the prosperous German side. (But everything is cheaper in Poland, especially the alcohol!) Otherwise, Görlitz is just a charming little town, a nice break from the bigger towns. If you ever saw the Wes Anderson movie "The Grand Budapest Hotel," much of it was filmed in the town. I took the train to town and spent a night there.

You can do other day trips from Dresden like hiking in Saxon Switzerland, something I did for a few hours (via S-Bahn train).

I'm always in favor of spending as many days as you can in Europe. If 18 is the upper limit for days, go for the upper limit! I'm also a fan of longer stays in fewer places. I would aim for maybe 4 stops (plus the last night in the Frankfurt area. My thoughts on your itinerary:

Add more time to the Upper Middle Rhine Valley. I think people short change this area. There is a lot to do there. I had no trouble filling a week-long visit there. Fall is wine festival time, so you could attend one of those; some of these are paired with a Rhein in Flammen (Rhine in Flames) fireworks show. I share NickB's preference of Marksburg over Burg Eltz because it seems more genuinely medieval to me, though both are visit worthy (especially if Burg Eltz is combined with the hike from Moselkern).

Consider a day trip to Remagen to visit the excellent Peace Museum at the remains of Ludendorff Bridge, "the Bridge at Remagen" that US troops used to enter Germany (museum currently closed for "innovation," but I would think it would be open again by next fall). The nearby Chapel of the Black Madonna features a madonna made by a German POW from the mud of a post-war US POW camp that was in the area. You can take a ferry across the Rhine to Linz am Rhein, which is a very nice small town.

Add more time to Berlin. Berlin is my favorite city in Europe. There is a ridiculous amount of stuff to do there. City and/or WWII walking tour, the Deutsches Historisches Museum, Potsdam (including Cecilienhof, the site of the Potsdam Conference where the meeting room is still set up as it was for the conference), the Bundestag/Reichstag, the Allied Museum on the old US Army base, Berliner Unterwelten WWII Bomb Shelter tour, tour of the old Tempelhof airport, much other WWII stuff + Cold War stuff + culture + street markets + museums + music + + + + +!

Visit a place off the US tourist radar. I haven't been to Erfurt yet but will be there in October. It's very popular with German tourists, but not US tourists. It has a large Oktoberfest, as noted by CWsocial, which may fit into your trip nicely. It can serve as a nice base for seeing other places (Buchenwald, Weimar, Wartburg Castle). Andrew gives good advice on adding Saxon Switzerland and Görlitz to a Dresden stop. I also have not been to these places but have the outline of a trip that includes them on my laptop.

I will add that I liked Nuremberg quite a bit, but I should include the caveat that I like everything. I'm not sure I've ever been disappointed by any place I've visited -- Europe, Asia, US.

I found the Nazi sites interesting. I purposely visited Nuremberg on a weekend so that I could see Courtroom 600 at the Palace of Justice (the courtroom where the Nuremberg Trials were held). The Old Town is charming, and there is a fairly grand fortress/castle.

Thank you to you all for the ideas! It's amazing that I can do dozens of hours of research on sites and you all can still point out events that I've never come across - it's much appreciated. I'm going to work on adding Erfurt and the sites there. I may let KV go but I'm going to talk it over with my travel partner.

I worry about Berlin. I hear you when you say I could stay longer but I'm not sure. I planned a long stay in London a few years back only to discover I'm not a London fan (no one yell at me - I just didn't love it). One of my reasons was that it's just so massive and I worry that I might have the same reaction to Berlin - you just never know. So 4 nights is what it gets. I LOVE the tip on the old airport tour!

Also - I had Gorlitz on my radar (Grand Budapest fan) but when I mapped out my sites in Dresden, I didn't think we had enough time. (On my list over 3 days: Dresden Transport Museum, Frauenkirch, Kurt Vonnegut Tour, Zwinger Palace, Dresden Castle/Palace, Museum of Military History, Die Welt DDR socialism museum, Volkswagen Tour and Dresden City Museum)

I understand your reticence on Berlin. I think it feels much less "big city" than London. If you're looking for an area to stay that is relatively low key, I would recommend the Prenzlauer Berg area, particularly near Kollwitzplatz. It's Bohemian gentrified without a lot of tall buildings. Old West Berlin is more commercial and has more of a big city feel to it; it sounds like it might not be a good fit for you.

Hopefully you will find Berlin more to your liking than London in your 4 nights there... maybe enough to bring you back again!

Do not cut Dresden or Nuremburg, both are grear and off the beaten path-ish. I visted Dresden in 2018 and Nuremburg in 2006 and 2014. The German National Museum in Nuremburg is awesome, Documentation Center also highly recommended. Day trip to Bamberg is pretty easy, Rothenburg ob der Tabuer somewhat harder. I have never been to Karlovy Vary but I want to go there too! I also visited Goerlitz in 2018 and yes, it's great too!

One thing to Add in Dresden is Augustus the Strongs Hunting Lodge surrounded by a Moat and also Pfunds Deli.
Mike

All right - I just made my travel partner just sit and listen to me chatter endlessly about the possibilities for this trip and here's what we've decided. Boppard gets the axe so we can add Erfurt. So here's what I'm thinking: Frankfurt and straight to Erfurt.
Erfurt - 2 nights
Berlin - 4 nights
Dresden - 3 nights
Karlovy Vary -2 nights - it got a big thumbs up from my travel mate
Nuremberg - 3 nights
Frankfurt - 1 night.

That's 16 nights. Again - some great tips. I'm trying to limit walking mileage on this trip - I have some issues that are limiting me to 5 miles max a day, and even that is tough. This routing gives us a lot of sites with shorter transfers than I usually book and no internal flights. No long day trips are planned for the same reason - I just can't walk that far.

:)

listen to me chatter endlessly
What a great travel partner!

You'll have more train travel within Germany than I'm planning and I saved money by purchasing a BahnCard 25. It costs 19.90 Euros and gives you a 25 % discount on the purchase of DB Bahn rail tickets. That discount is on both regular fares and the less flexible but far cheaper advance purchase fares. All of which you can manage online in their DB Navigator app.

You're so on top of things to be planning for next fall. I'm getting great tips from this thread and I leave in about 6 weeks!

"Visit a place off the US tourist radar." How true! Totally agreed and i agree that you should add more time to Berlin, as suggested above.

"Our focus is World war II sites." There are numerous in and around the Greater Berlin area, it depends on your level of interest and what you want to see, especially in reference to military sites and museums...

Berlin-Karlshorst on Treskow Allee, Seelow, the Invalidenfriedhof (cemetery), the British RAF cemetery, Soviet military memorials

in Pankow, Treptow Park, and the Tiergarten, the Resistance Museum, the Flaktürme (towers) near Berlin Gesundbrunnen station,

Nuremberg also offers the possibility of easy day trips by train to Regensburg a/o Bamberg. We did both....beautiful towns for walking. We are major museum fans and found the German National Museum in Nuremberg to be fantastic. In Dresden we also enjoyed the trip to Gorlitz. We went to the Polish side for lunch and some shopping...much cheaper. I rarely see Karlovy Vary mentioned on this forum, which always surprises me. I liked it a lot, but that was in 1975. I look forward to hearing your impressions. I also thought Erfurt was beautiful, with several Luther sights. We intended to stop over in Weimar while driving, but the TI was closed, we got lost, and just pulled out in less than best spirits (major understatement) and stayed in Erfurt, the definition of serendipity. Have a wonderful trip and safe travels.

Since you have an interest in WWII, there is a website worth checking before you go. It's www.thirdreichruins.com. It has many photos take during or shortly after the war, and photos of the same places taken in later years. I'm sure they have photos of some of the places you are going.

I will add in a vote for Buchenwald. I did a summer abroad in the mid 90s. We started the 6 week program in Heidelburg and finished it in Berlin. One of the class trips was to Weimar and some of my classmates and I decided to visit Buchenwald. It was the first time that it hit me that we weren't in the west any longer, as the signs now had Russian. I had been to Dachau twice at this point, but for some reason Buchenwald effected me more than Dachau. Don't get me wrong I am glad I have seen both, but at one point, I had to leave the tour and go outside for some air. If you can swing it, I would highly recommend it.

Thanks for all of the tips! The Thirdreichruins site is fascinating. I'm pretty sure we'll go to Buchenwald but day trips are out. I've tried them - Venice/Verona, London/Cambridge, Kyoto/Kobe - and I find them exhausting. I have so many sites for these German cities that we'll be super busy, I think.

I just did the Berlin/Dresden/Erfurt run for WW2 stuff in May 2019.
--Buchenwald is mentioned near Erfurt but also add Nordhausen (Mittlebau/Dora) north of there. It's where they built the V1/V2 rockets in a mine. Weimar was also good.
--Dresden is very nice but can easily be seen in a day and half. At least the main stuff including the German military museum. Colditz castle a couple hours east of Dresden is good for the WW2 history.
--Too much to see in Berlin for the 4 nights I had there. Potsdam is nearby.

Have been to Nuremberg before and the Nazi rally grounds including the documentation center is excellent.

If you do decide on seeing Buchenwald, it is a day trip from Weimar. Take the bus from the Goetheplatz, ca 30 mins walk down (literally) from the Weimar train station. Signs there point out which bus.

If you are coming from Berlin, that would be a bit more taxing. I've seen Weimar both as a day trip (twice) from Berlin as well as stayed there an overnighter...fascinating place.