Hello:
My wife and I are looking for itinerary suggestions for our first trip to Germany in June 2020. In looking at flights from the U.S., we most likely would be flying into Frankfurt. We will be spending about 10 days give or take in Germany. Having never been there before, we are open to suggestions on places to visit. Thanks in advance for your help.
Chris
I would suggest looking at a few guidebooks, travel websites, and videos (RS has quite a few on Germany) to see what part of Germany interests you most. With such a short time, try to confine your travel to one region to prevent a lot of wasted time getting from one area to another relatively distant one. Once you've done that, and selected a few options, come back for help refining your itinerary.
With 10 days in and out of Frankfurt, I suggest you have a look at two regions - the Rhine/Mosel area northwest of FRA (Trier, Cochem, Boppard, Bacharach, Oberwesel, St. Goar, Braubach, Rüdesheim) and Franconia to the east (Bamberg, Nuremberg, Würzburg, Coburg, Bad Windsheim, Iphofen, Rothenburg, Sommerhausen.) This would provide a nice mix of larger places and small ones, of urban and rural life - and would not require huge amounts of ground travel.
If you absolutely love cities please consider spending time in Berlin. You will not be disappointed.
What are your interests?
Germany's national tourist website will help you discovering destinations.
Or if the Bavarian area, including Salzburg, interests you, fly into Munich (beautiful new airport) -- or fly into one, out of the other and see the stops between. For SFO we have done nonstops from both Frankfurt and Munich.
Well, Rick would say with 10 days, do Munich, Salzburg, the Alps, Rhine Valley, Rothenburg, and Berlin. See his recommended itinerary at https://www.ricksteves.com/europe/germany/itinerary
I will say, I recently read the whole Rick Steves' Germany book and every single chapter looked interesting. It seems to be a country with a wide variety of things to do, places to go, and things to see. We ended up just picking Berlin for part of our next trip, but I definitely want to do the middle and southern parts on a later trip.
I suggest two areas to visit,
The Rhine and Mosel Valleys, taking in the short cruise to see the Loreli and Rudesheim. Trier is nice, as is neighboring Viaden, Luxembourg.
Heidelberg is a must see. Consider Strasbourg, France and a day in the Black Forest.
Southern Bavaria, Munich, The Romantic Road, Garmisch/Fussen and Berchtesgaden/Salzburg, Austria.
This may take more than 10 days, but do some research and pick your favorites.
You really need to do some research and consider your own interests. Example: Six days in Berlin was not long enough for me because I'm a WWII and Cold-War junkie and also like art museums. If you don't care for art, are into medieval history and want to see old-world architecture, you need comparatively little time in Berlin and could reasonably skip it on your first trip to Germany.
