Pre-Planning Trip to Germany

Hi Glenn,

do not want to waste time on the road

You will have a car?

Arriving in Frankfurt?

Do you consider yourselves more rural-scenery people or town people?

Thanks for the quick replies:

You will have a car?
If need be, yes. All depends if we stay in cities, or get in country.

Do you consider yourselves more rural-scenery people or town people?
Both. We enjoy Cities, but also like to get away from as well. Given Baden Baden is the only required, I am , at this point, assuming we would have a car for part of trip.

Thanks! Glenn

If Baden-Baden is a must see - then maybe make the Black Forest Region the centerpiece of the trip - 3 or four days - outdoors folk museum, Freiburg, and a jaunt over to Strasbourg (as long as the European parliament is not in session), and even perhaps Basel for a touch of Switzerland.

https://www.black-forest-travel.com/places-of-interest/museum.html

Before or after Baden-Baden you might focus on the Rhine Valley and for a real intact medieval castle - the Marksburg in Braubach. NOT a 18th or 19th century prettied up one. Great wine country too, of course. It is short train ride from or to Frankfurt so that makes it easy for early or late in the trip.

https://www.marksburg.de

And for something not associated with Black Forest Cake and massive tourists, maybe try the old fully-walled town of Noerdlingen... It is on the Romantic Road between Augsburg and Rothenburg ob der Tauber. It has the distinction that the church is studded with micro-diamonds because the building stone is debris from the Ries Meteorite crater (in the middle of which the town sits...).

https://www.bavaria.by/visit/noerdlingen/

Have fun!

Thanks NickB - Great advice. I had in my mind flying into Munich, but perhaps flying in to Frankfurt is a better choice.

If I flew into Frankfurt, would traveling straight to Baden Baden make sense, or hit something in the Frankfurt area. I have seen Frankfurt airport a ton of times, but never outside lol.

Glenn

You certainly have plenty of good choices from the Baden Baden area, depending on your interests. The wine regions of the Rheingau or the Moselle with Burg Eltz are an easy trip. A dip into Alsace to see Strasbourg, Colmar and the wine villages is worthwhile. The Black Forest and Freiburg is close by. Heidelberg is charming, even if Rick Steves doesn't like it. Rothenburg ob der Tauber and the Romantic Road would make a full day or two. You will have to sort through your likes and dislikes to hammer out want you want to see on a schedule that works for you. Würzburg and Nürnberg are on the way to Munich if you want to travel open jaw--into FRA and out of MUC (or vice versa). Enjoy your planning!

Frankfurt to Baden Baden is about 90 minutes by train (Frankfurt Airport (Flughafen) to Mannheim to Karlsruhe to Baden-Baden). Two changes might be a might much for jet lagged travelers, but quite do-able if you are sharp. Which is why I suggested starting in the Rhineland for an easy first several days before launching to Baden Wuerttemberg.
Check Bahn.com for possible variations/days of the week/times.

Baden-Baden to Freiburg, or Basel or Strasbourg takes 60 to 90 minutes so can be done in a day trip - but there and back is a busy schedule.

https://www.baden-wuerttemberg.de/en/home/

https://www.tourism-bw.com

Although public transportation is commonly available to the smaller towns in the Black Forest region, their schedules may limit what you can cover in a day. A car rental from Baden-Baden is easy enough to use to get around locally to visit out of the way places. The RS guidebook has lots of suggestions on local transportation.

If you start in the Black forest then moving on to Munich or Nuremberg, etc are easy enough for the later parts of the trip.

If you head off east into Bavaria two websites that may be of interest are of the Bavarian Palace Administration:

https://www.schloesser.bayern.de/englisch/palace/index.htm

and the Nuremberg Museum site:

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

"If I flew into Frankfurt, would traveling straight to Baden Baden make sense..."

No, not if you take the smart advice above to visit the Rhine/Mosel Valley region, which lies just a little to the northwest of FRA airport. After a long flight, Baden-Baden would be a much longer trip and far to the south of FRA.

A tight travel radius with 11 days is a smart idea. As others have pointed out, Baden-Baden isn't too far from Strasbourg, the Black Forest towns, and Heidelberg. The BF towns include nearby Baiersbronn, which has a nice collection of top-notch eateries: https://guide.michelin.com/en/de/baden-wurttemberg/baiersbronn/restaurants Other nice BF towns:

Gengenbach
Schiltach
Haslach
Gutach (Excellent "Freilichtmuseum" if you want to learn about local culture

Unless you're obligated to stay in Baden-Baden, I might opt for Gengenbach as a base town for your time in the region. G'bach is a better travel base and unlike B-B provides access to the Black Forest scenic railway. Here's a map of BF Railway.

I could see 5 days in this region, with another 5 in the Rhine/Mosel, where you could do some similar exploring and maybe some river cruising as well from a single travel base to places like...

Mosel
Trier (think Ancient Rome)
Cochem
Traben-Trarbach
Beilstein (easy cruise destination from Cochem)

Rhine
Marksburg Castle (previously suggested) in Braubach
St. Goar
Bacharach
Oberwesel
Boppard

In the Rhine/Mosel region see Boppard and Cochem as good travel base options - from either you can tour both river valleys by train or by car.

Würzburg and Nuremberg are both nice cities but they are not on the way to Munich if you are in/near Baden-Baden.

If you visit the Rhine/Mosel and the Baden-Baden area next, flying into AND out of FRA is probably a good choice. You'd have a final night near FRA (Mainz is an excellent place with easy access to FRA.) If you can fly out of Stuttgart airport, which is much closer to the Baden-Baden area, you'd have a shorter trip to the airport at the end.

"...we have a travel philosophy - we like to engage, slow down, get involved in the local sites... We are not checklist travelers. We enjoy experiences."

In that case, maybe you should look into local, seasonal events for fall and spring. Besides Munich's Oktoberfest there are hundreds of lesser-known harvest season (usually wine harvest) events all around Germany (street festivals, covered wagon rides w/ wine picnics in the vineyards, etc., as well as larger events like the Wine and Sausage market in Bad Dürkheim, not far from Heidelberg, and the Cannstatter Volksfest in Stuttgart.) There are a few spring events as well... Oberwesel's Wine Witch Night happens April 30 every year - think burning straw witches, Wine Queens, fireworks, and lots of wine stands.

If you go to the Black Forest, visit Triberg and Titisee.

Also, near Baden Baden, you have the wonderful city of Strasbourg, France.

Thanks Everybody! Alot to think about. I just found out my Girlfriend also has family in Bavaria, so I am thinking spending 4 or so nights in the Baden Baden area (Strasbourg as a day trip sounds great! Been to Colmar, and enjoyed that), and then taking trains to Munich (Looks like ~ 4 hr train), and then spending the rest of time in Bavaria (she really wants to see Dachau as well). So possibly fly into Frankfurt, out of Munich. My only concern is where to stay on the very first night or 2. Baden Baden looks as though its a 1 hour 24 min train ride with 1 change from Frankfurt Airport. So possibly 2 nights near Frankfurt? 4 nights Baden Baden, 5 nights Munich/Bavaria?

Thanks! Glenn

Glenn, if it were me, I'd head from Frankfurt to the Middle Rhine area. You can catch a train easily from the train station inside Frankfurt airport. Bacharach and St Goar are popular small towns in which to stay - but there are many others. This is picturesque wine country with castles and vineyards on the bluffs on both sides of the river. Its the money shot they use in the Viking River Cruise commercials you've likely seen. A cruise up or down the river is worth it. Then you can take the train from Bingen to Baden-Baden and onward. All the places you're interested in are easily reached by train.

This is well-covered area in RS guidebooks and a great introduction to Germany. Flying into Frankfurt and out of Munich makes perfect sense.

Do you or she like half timbered houses or witches' towers (Hexturm)? Plenty around Frankfurt.

Does your Girlfriend know where in Bavaria her family is from? It is a really big Land so knowing where you are going will help. Munich (are they from there) is really in the southeast corner of Bavaria.

Bavaria also has regions. From Frankfurt you can reach Aschafenburg, just on the Bavarian side of the Hesse/Bayern border very quickly.

Before you threw in Bavaria I was really liking the advice above about the Rhine Valley, further into the Black Forest, and Strasbourg or elsewhere in Alsace. But now this trip looks to be getting bigger, you will have to pick and choose lest you run out of steam and enthusiasm.

Does your Girlfriend know where in Bavaria her family is from? It is a
really big Land so knowing where you are going will help.

A really good point here. Unless she visits some specific local place of her heritage, it's hard to find any meaning in visiting large and diverse "Bavaria" for family reasons. 5 nights for "Munich/Bavaria" is much like 5 nights for "Boston/New England" - both regions are the same size - and after the half-day trip from Baden-Baden, you have 4.5 days for all that. (Also, keep in mind that some visitors to Dachau find themselves too emotionally paralyzed to take up anything else that same day.)

"We are not checklist travelers. We enjoy experiences." IMO this Frankfurt - Baden-Baden - Munich - Bavaria plan is sounding more like the "checklist" bus tour you had hoped to avoid, with you as tour guide to the same places that you saw before. Maybe you would both have better experiences if you hunker down in places that are new and different for both of you and explore them together. Rest assured there are many other great places in Germany where you can put your travel philosophy into practice.

All good points! Thank you. Since this is pre-planning given the world situation, I was looking for advice so I had a starting point to do some digging - you have all given me alot to think about, and some really good advice - most appreciated!

Glenn