Need help with Germany and Poland itinerary: 31 days

"Our interests include..."

Spellings: The Mosel River, Rothenburg ob der Tauber and Baden-Baden...

Some questions about your plans...

"Frankfurt has 5 or 6 90 minute nonstop flights daily to Krakow..."

So Frankfurt will be your final destination in Germany with the exception of Hamburg - is that right? And are you flying OUT of Krakow as well when finished in Poland? Or was that to be ground travel?

"We are wondering if you could recommend the best route to take?"

Car trip? Train?

...enjoy quaint towns...

You've listed mostly large and/or busy places that aren't exactly quaint towns. What are your travel dates? December? The quaint ones tend to depend on the warmer weather months and become very dull or close up in the winter.

Warsaw has a lot of very interesting WWII-related memorials/museums. I was very pleased with the quantity and quality of English-language explanatory material. But it sounds as if you only expect to get to Krakow on this trip, correct? I'm still in northern Poland, so I cannot comment on Krakow yet.

Three particularly pretty German towns/cities I visited in 2015 basically came through the war unscathed. Highly recommended if any turn out to be near your route of travel:

• Erfurt: lively university town with beautiful historic center, merchant's bridge, two cathedrals and a Martin Luther connection. Can day-trip to Weimar, Buchenwald camp, and Eisenach (historic center and Wartburg Castle).

• Quedlinburg: stunning place with hundreds of listed historic buildings, castle, and cathedral with impressive treasure (Google for American connection). Tourist office rents an audioguide and I think also offers an English-language tour. Discovered by European tourists but not by many Americans.

• Goerlitz: another place with an unbelievable number of historic buildings. Such great variety that Goerlitz is used for location filming. Not as many tourists as one would expect because of its obscure location on the Polish border. I suppose it's on the way to Krakow if one is driving and starting from Dresden or Berlin. ..

@Russ Thanks :) My apologies for the misspellings.

We will not be visiting Frankfurt at all. The only reason I mentioned it as I know it's not far from the Rhine or Mosel river areas and it has nonstop flights to Krakow. I'm open to any recommendation of ways to get to/from Krakow...or to knock it from the itinerary by replacing important concentration camp sites in Germany. Though I'm sure Krakow is a great city, the primary reason for going there on this particular trip was to visit Auschwitz and the reason for that is I am homeschooling my children, covering World History, and thought it an important site to visit. (based on their father having visited in the past)

Actually, I made a mistake. We are starting this portion of our trip from Amsterdam...not Venice.

We have not decided if we will be solely car or not. I am hoping for recommendations. We will be renting a car to go through Bavaria.

We had a car last week from Rotterdam to Cologne to Koblenz to Frankfurt and it was great...except for my horrific experience returning the car in Frankfurt..but I blame Europcar and the incompetent employees I dealt with.

I would like to spend the majority of our time in smaller towns and villages. Surely we must visit Berlin, Munich, and Salzburg..but I'd love to base ourselves outside of any cities.

Our travel dates for this portion of our trip are: April 25-May 24, 2019

Your luxurious 31 days allow for more time in Poland, which it very well deserves. Instead of directly flying to Krakow, you can easily reach it from above-mentioned Görlitz and have a night in Wroclaw.
A rewarding route from Krakow to Berlin is by way of Torun and Poznan. Torun is a beautiful historical city, and perfectly situated on the river Wisla. Poznan is also an underrated destination, and only 2,5 hrs from Berlin, from where you can continue to your final destination Hamburg.
All can easily and comfortably be done by train, the quality of which might well exceed your expectations.

Buchenwald, outside Weimar, has a double history. After the war, the camp was used to house enemies of the DDR regime. I was given English-language material explaining that period.

My experience visiting WWII concentration camps and death camps is fairly limited (Mauthausen, Buchenwald and Treblinka), so I have no idea which might be best from the educational point of view.

If you want to get into experience under the repressive post-war regimes in eastern Europe, I think one of the best places to visit is the Berlin-Hohenschoenhausen Memorial on Genslerstrasse. There's an excellent film to begin the tour, which is offered in English several times a day (currently at 10:30, 12:30, and 2:30). If the tour timing just will not work for you, the museum covers some of the same points and is also worthwhile, but you miss out on the film as well as the tour itself. I did both museum and tour, but I am a Cold War junkie. Berlin has many other fascinating Cold War sights.

Your 2nd post helps clarify things.

April - May: a fine time for smaller places and being outdoors (I figured December when you mentioned "Christmas shops" but I suppose some indeed are open in tourist-towns.)

Spellings were provided NOT to achieve an apology! Only to help you avoid troubles if you need to buy tickets to those towns or research them further.

I'm open to any recommendation of ways to get to/from Krakow...or to
knock it from the itinerary by replacing important concentration camp
sites in Germany.

If your sole purpose in Krakow is really Auschwitz, I'd say drop it. Dachau KZ camp is about 30 minutes from Munich. Sachsenhausen KZ camp is an easy day trip from Berlin. It's almost inconceivable to me that more than 1 or 2 concentration camps would be on anyone's itinerary. And Krakow/Auschwitz would indeed be a lengthy detour.

Hubby and boys are very interested in WW2 history.

Easy to find museums and historical sites when you research Berlin and Munich. On the Rhine there's a lesser known WW II museum in Remagen where the "Bridge at Remagen" once stood. Very worthwhile:

http://www.bruecke-remagen.de/index_en.htm

Remagen - interesting town in a scenic spot: https://www.remagen.de/Tourismus-_-Veranstaltungen/Stadtrundgang/

I am homeschooling my children, covering World History...

The Mosel River town of Trier is very good place for learning more about Ancient Rome in northern Europe.
https://www.trier-info.de/english/unesco-world-heritage-sites
https://www.trier-info.de/english/sights-in-trier

Outside Trier:
If you can be there on a Sunday afternoon, visit this former German military installation on the Westwall.
Bernkastel (also on the Mosel) has one of Germany's most stunning collection of old half-timbered buildings (does get lots of weekend tourists however.)

Lots of Middle Ages history on the Rhine at castles like Marksburg, at Rheinfels and at Burg Eltz.

About half way between the Middle Rhine Valley and Stuttgart, Ludwigsburg might be a really good place to explore a completely different historical period.

And half way between the Middle Rhine and Ludwigsburg is Speyer, home to an outstanding technology museum that runs down the history of submarines, space shuttles and more. Speyer has one of Europe's most outstanding Romanesque cathedrals as well.

Surely we must visit Berlin, Munich, and Salzburg..but I'd love to
base ourselves outside of any cities.

Outside Salzburg you might consider Golling (small town on the Salzach River.) Guests get a free "Tennengau Card" for free train transport into Salzburg (where parking can be difficult.) It's also valid on certain bus routes to smaller mountain towns. Note that this flyer is dated - the card used to cost €4 but is now free: https://www.golling.info/images/TennengauPlus/Folder_Tennengau_Ticket_DE.pdf

We were just in Golling and took a day trip to nearby Werfen (Hohenwerfen Castle and falconry exhibition; Eisreisenwelt ice cave; Sound of Music Trail. Other outings are possible too.

I would base within Berlin to save time - 5 days?

(continued)

RothenbUrg and the Romantic Road

R'burg is fairly small but also a tourist beehive (for this reason and because of its trunk-line railway location not the best base town IMO.) Worth visiting despite the heavy tourism, yes - but oddly, it's often the only smaller place in the area where Americans visit. Don't be deluded into thinking that it and the RR are the only options... there are several places where you can get a close look at local life both now and across the centuries without tripping over tourists and trinkets:

Marktbreit, Sommerhausen and Ochsenfurt, all on the Main River

Iphofen - Iphofen photos

Mönchssondheim - a small old-world town near Iphofen that isn't a real town anymore but now a museum, open 10-18:00 except Mondays:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:M%C3%B6nchsondheim_(Iphofen)?uselang=de
http://www.kirchenburgmuseum.de/

Bad Windsheim's Franconian Open-Land Museum

This part of Germany is Bavarian but also part of a sub-region known as Franconia (which includes Bamberg, the larger city of Nuremberg, the Main River city of Würzburg, tiny Pappenheim, and other charming places.) If you were going to settle in for a week or longer in one place, Franconia (Franken in German) would be a great option.

Hi,

If you are going to Buchenwald for sure, you can take the bus labeled as such from the Goetheplatz in Weimar. 30 mins ride, which is ca a 25 minute walk down (literally) from the Weimar train station. The Goetheplatz is in the Zentrum just about. Patton's Army liberated Buchenwald.

I have been to Weimar 3 times, twice as day trips, once spent an overnighter at the HI hostel...it's Germany's Dichterstadt (city of poets), the town of Goethe and Schiller, whose statue is at the Theaterplatz.

I would strongly encourage you to keep Krakow in your plans. The city is beautiful and full of history. From Krakow, you can also take a day trip to southern Poland. We hired Andrew Durman as our guide for the day and it truly was a highlight of our trip. Visiting Auschwitz/Birkeneau is an entirely different experience from Dachau and I would not eliminate it from your plans.

Look at leasing a car. Renault has a program. Look at staying in apartments. While many require a week in high season, at your time of travel most will allow stays of any length ( some may have higher rates for short stays ). One I stayed at just outside Salzburg is www.neuwirtgut.at. In Rothenburg www.froehlich-rothenburg.de

I am with Travelbug. We did Krakow and loved it. The city is beautiful, clean, safe and inexpensive compared to much of Europe. Auschwitz was our goal and did not fall short of expectations. I wish every person could go there and really get a glimpse of what took place. We have seen Dachau and there is no comparison. We are also WWII buffs, and also used Andrew which was wonderful. We did not have time to see the Salt Mines but hear they are great, so that is on our "next time" list. I plan to take our kids and grandkids there as I consider Krakow a "must see"