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Small Town Germany

We are taking the RS Prague Budapest tour in September and then want to spend some time in Germany, working our way to Amsterdam where we'll fly home. Because we're going to have been in big cities we would like to try to find some smaller towns for a bit of a respite. It will be early October when we're in Germany.

I have discovered Bamberg, which looks lovely. Does anyone have recommendations on where to stay in Bamberg or other thoughts about it? We would spend a couple nights there.

Then going west I'm looking at Koblenz. It seems like a good place to explore the Mosel and Rhine river areas. We'd appreciate any recommendations or thoughts about that area also.

Posted by
19653 posts

I wouldn't call Koblenz "small town" Germany. I'd go with Boppard or St Goar. Easy train change at Koblenz to go up the Mosel. Use VRM tickets to get around on trains and buses. To do a Rhine cruise, just take the train to Bingen Stadt Bf and take a down river cruise with a K-D boat back to your starting point.

Posted by
1224 posts

We stayed in a b&b in Bacharach and loved it. Then moved to a great b&b in Cochem for the Mosel exploration...
Koblenz is a city...

Posted by
6590 posts

You are right that Koblenz is a strategically sound travel base - a good train hub. But it's not small or particularly fetching when compared with the typical Rhine Valley wine town.

Boppard (just 15 train minutes south of Koblenz) is a very good trade-off with both charm and convenience, an attractive wine town and good base for day trips all along the Middle Rhine Valley and also for most Mosel River destinations. It is very close to both Rheinfels and Marksburg Castles. It has some diversions of its own as well, including a cool chairlift ride, lots of dining, lodging and winery options, and an attractive old town center and riverfront promenade with several riverfront hotels. (Bacharach is pretty - with even more attractive old buildings - but less central and less logistically convenient to this area, and less endowed with things to see/do. Staying in Bacharach means about 40 minutes longer round trip for any outing you take up the Mosel Valley.)

Boppard's riverfront
Half-timbered buildings in Boppard's old town
Boppard's Market Square
Boppard's chairlift
View from Gedeonseck near chairlift
Boppard winery/restaurant
Popular wine venue/restaurant in Boppard

Boppard's ferry crossing

Posted by
1477 posts

We liked both the Altstadthotel Molitor and the Am Dom hotels in Bamberg. Am Dom was a little handier to the sights. Services in both were good. I believe the Molitor is also associated with Hotel Weierich, which is also well rated and slightly better located.

Posted by
19052 posts

Exploring the Mosel and most of the Rhein gorge can be done economically using VRM (Verkehrsverbund-Rhein-Mosel) Tageskarten (day tickets). The ticket covers the Rhein from Oberwesel to the border with the state of Nordrhein-Westfalen (Remagen/Unkel) and up the Mosel to Bullay, but Bacharach is outside the VRM, so, to use the VRM tageskarten, you'll have to buy Bahn tickets to/from Oberwesel each day.

I would second Boppard or St. Goar and add Braubach, which is at the base of the Marksburg. You can go up the right bank of the Rhein to Rüdesheim to start a boat trip or take a bus or train into Koblenz to go up the Mosel. (BTW, here "up" refers to up the river, against the current, rather than a direction on the map.)

Posted by
6 posts

Have a look at Regensburg. It is a UNESCO world heritage site, absolutely beautiful!!! Located on the river Danube with a completely preserved medieval city center and the oldest sausage kitchen in the world. From Budapest, it is about 6 hours by train, changing in Vienna or Linz. In general, Regensburg had good train connections, the German bullet trains ICE run through it. Stay in the old town. Have a look at "Hotel Bischofshof", Hotel "Goliath" or Hotel "Orphée" - all centrally located and very nice.

Susanne

Posted by
19052 posts

we would like to try to find some smaller towns for a bit of a respite

I'm curious about what you want to get out of a small town. BTW, at 73,000, I would not consider Bamberg a small town - maybe smaller than the cities you've been in, but not really small. (The median size of towns I've spent a night in in Germany in the last 20 years is less than 8,000 people.

So, is it just that you want to stay in a town, with some attractions, that is smaller than the cities you've been in, or do you just want to visit a small town, one completely isolated from tourism, and see how ordinary Germans live.

If the latter, I would suggest a night or two in Lohr am Main. Lohr is what I would call a perfect honeymoon venue - just a pretty place with nothing really going on (but honeymooners make their own entertainment). At 16,000 population, it is really bigger than my typical small town, but the major source of employment there is a large Bosch factory, which inflates the population some. It's just a fun place to relax. There is a main street with a lot of fachwerk buildings and plenty of shops and restaurants. There is one museum in town, in the old palace, dedicated to the story of Snow White, which local legend says originated here.

Lohr is on the main train line between Würzburg and Frankfurt and about a half hour's train ride from Würzburg, so a day trip there would be possible, as would be a day trip to Bamberg or Rothenburg.

I can tell you more about it if that's what you mean by a smaller town.

Posted by
1275 posts

You might consider the Franken Wein region on or near the Main River too. Wine towns near Wurzburg like Iphofen, Volkach, Prichsenstadt, Kitzingen etc.

Posted by
171 posts

Russ, thank you for all the good tips and advice you post on the forum. I thought you had posted some Boppard hotel information on this thread but I can’t find it now. Can you please point me to the Boppard hotel info you posted sometime in the last 10 days? Thank you.

Posted by
6590 posts

"Can you please point me to the Boppard hotel info you posted sometime in the last 10 days?"

I don't remember doing that recently, but I have some bookmarked resources to share. See links below.

Boppard TI's accommodations listed with their office, by category; contact the owner if you wish to book:
https://www.boppard-tourismus.de/8-1-Pensionen-und-Privatzimmer-suchen-buchen-per-Anfrage.html

Some listings can be booked online through the Boppard TI office site; find those at this page:
https://www.boppard-tourismus.de/3-1-Hotels-suchen-buchen-Online-Reservierung.html

Many of these places can be found on big booking engines too - booking.com, hrs.com, etc. - sometimes at a savings or at more favorable booking conditions, so check around. I use Tripadvisor and booking.com to turn up potential problems at places I'm considering.

I have stayed at the Sonnenhof and at the Hotel Hubertus (used booking.com) and liked both. Both are budget-range hotels right in the old town center with a really nice breakfast spread. The Hubertus benefits (or suffers, depending on your perspective) from the chiming of church bells from the cathedral down the street; the bar area puts off a decades-old tobacco whiff, but that didn't seem to impact the adjacent breakfast room.

If you want to stay in town, be careful about location. Whatever search resources you use, "Boppard" alone in the address doesn't guarantee it's right in town. Watch also for "hyphenated" town names - Boppard-Bad Salzig, Boppard-Hirzenach, etc. - these make it pretty much a cinch that the establishment is well away from the center in some annexed settlement upstream or in the hills.

I sometimes book directly with owners in Germany via email. If they want a deposit, I tend to look elsewhere as that's a bit of a hassle and most don't require it. Most will take your booking with just your name and address and a written promise to show up and pay. Be sure you understand the cancellation policy if you want to book directly with owners/management. If it's not stated in their brochure or website or in their email, assume nothing - ask; cancellation can put you on the legal hook for 80% or more of the fee for the booked period, whether or not you have made a deposit.

Have a good trip.

Posted by
5687 posts

You might also consider Görlitz, a lovely small town, the eastern-most town in Germany I think, right on the Polish border. Might be a detour starting in Prague, though, but you could consider. I enjoyed walking across the pedestrian bridge to Poland for dinner (the river splits the town historically in the middle, and after World War II the river became the new border between Poland and Germany). The German side is far nicer, though