We are travelling late in May with 14 days on the ground, flying in and out of London. Our primary focus is to visit Germany, but we are open to seeing countries on our way. We are traveling with a 2 year old, so would prefer to not move every night as such. Since we have a small one with us, we will be doing less of the museums and more of traveling to areas to try and see some things in that region and enjoying the towns themselves. Our goal would be to make our way towards Munich, seeing sights along the way, i.e. castles, romantic road, etc. We have no problem with traveling by train, but are open to renting a car for a few days as well. We keep reviewing various information, and it all is getting a bit overwhelming. Any help with planning or suggestions, would be great. We also enjoy quainter lodging, i.e. B&B over hotels.
Posted by
Paradise
7072 posts
Since you plan to stay in each area for a while (maybe 3+ nights?) and since you have a wee one along, I suggest booking vacation apartments ("holiday flats", "Ferienwohnungen" in German) - more room, easier to prepare simple meals and snacks to take when you head out. This in fact is how many German families prefer to vacation.
Castles: Best bet would the Rhine Valley (UNESCO World Heritage site) and the Mosel Valley (tributary.)
Rhine castles
Rhine towns
Cochem (Mosel) and Reichsburg Castle
Local tourist offices are the best source for rentals (and other accommodations options.)
St. Goar rentals
Boppard rentals
We've stayed at the Loreley apartments in St. Goar (home of Rheinfels Castle) and had a great stay:
Loreley apartments
Besides the Rhine/Mosel you might look into the Black Forest as well. A very scenic region, also with very attractive towns and several attractions.
We recently spent 3 nights on a Black Forest family farm with 3 separate apartments attached to their gigantic farmhouse; as it was located in Steinach on the Black Forest Railway and also close in, we were able to walk to the town's train station for outings (which you can take for free, thanks to the KONUS promotion in 130 Black Forest towns. Farms are a nice way to get a peek at local life.
Schöner farm (Site is in German. But Mr. Schöner knows enough English if you don't do German.)
Posted by
Atlanta, GA
380 posts
We have been traveling with our daughter once a year to Europe since I was 5 months pregnant with her, she's 3 1/2 now. Her first trip (she was 9 months) was to Manchester, England and then Munich, I think it was 12 or 13 days. Have you traveled with your 2 year old to Europe?
I would spend maybe the first 2-3 days in London, so everyone gets used to the jet lag, then fly to Munich for 6 -7 days and then fly back to London for the last 4-5 days. Or extend the time in Munich and do maybe the last 2 days in London. I have not traveled by train from London to the continent so I can't help with that part but there are plenty of inexpensive flights from London to Munich to make flying easy and quicker. We flew Lufthansa between Manchester and Munich.
Both cities have lots of day trip opportunities. If you spend a week or more in Munich then you could split it up among two cities to stay in. Unless you want to carry a car seat I would stick with trains. That's how we have traveled since our daughter was born but we have carried her car seat up until our trip last year, she was 2 1/2, and was finally old enough to sit in a seat using a CARES harness and not her car seat. We hated lugging it around if we changed cities frequently. We are not carrying her car seat with us when we leave on our trip next week, we are using the CARES harness again.
We love Munich and I can recommend lots of things to do, Dachau is a suburb of Munich and an easy half day. Garmisch-Partenkirchen and a trip to the Zugspitze in my opinion is an awesome day trip, easy to do especially with a two year old, we did it for the first time last year. Nuremberg is a great side/day trip with plenty of things to do, we stayed there for 3 days last year. Salzburg, Austria is also a great and easy day trip from Munich. Frankfurt is a great city if you wanted to do two cities. There are plenty of places you could do day trips to. We also liked Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Heidelberg was great and I'm sure there were a few other cities we've been too that I can't think of at the moment. We also love Berlin and really liked Dresden if you want north and south.
An apartment would be great but you need to make sure that they allow shorter stays if you are going to divide the trip up. Otherwise hotels that include breakfast and that have a family room are great. We stayed in an IBIS hotel in Nuremberg that had a family room and it was huge, it was perfect for the 3 of us. Be aware though that most hotels I have found will charge for a crib, which a lot of times has been a pack n play that is longer than what we have in the US and your 2 year old will probably still fit in. If you want to do a flat, house, etc we have used www.homeaway.com 3 or 4 times and had great success.
Don't stress, toddlers adapt really quick and our daughter is actually excited to go on this trip.