Train from Germany to Brugge?

German Rail has a great rail system in Germany. Every place you want to go is accessible by train. I'd check the schedules first before committing to a car.

BTW, I'm sure someone will tell you that 3 nights is too much for Rothenburg. I'm not sure, depending on what time you arrive and leave, that one night is enough. My last trip, I arrived in early afternoon, jetlagged after a trans-Atlantic flight and didn't get much done the first afternoon. We spent the entire next day there and felt it was worth it, then left the following morning at 9. So 2 nights would probably be enough. I might suggest a one night stop in Nördlingen on the way to Rothenburg.

If this is a stupid question, please excuse me. I am curious as to why you are going from Sacramento to Chicago, Chicago to Dublin, Dublin to Paris, Paris to Venice.
Perhaps this is a super budget flight?
Why not go straight to Venice, or perhaps Rome/Venice?

There were no direct flights to Venice from Sacramento. This was definitely a budget flight. $800 roundtrip per person from the west coast, best we could find. :)

Also, our original plan was to book on Aer Lingus, from SMF, layover in Chicago, layover in Dublin, then on straight to Venice, but when we called them they don't fly into Venice in November any longer, so we had to book a separate flight from Dublin to Venice.

A closer car drop place would be Aachen. Regional trains to Brugge take 3 hours with a connection at Welkenraedt and tickets only cost €30 per person to buy on the spot. Trains from Frankfurt city or airport also need a connection (at Brussels) and cost quite a bit more, unless you lock in reservations a couple of months ahead.

Great advice!! thank you so much, Laura!! I had no idea!

Would the drive from Rothenburg to Aachen take about 4 hours, like Viamichelin says? Then hop on a train to Brugge from there?

Yes, I'd trust viamichelin on that comparison, about 4.5 hours drive to Aachen versus 2+ hours to Frankfurt am Main airport. Since car rental periods are based on 24-hour days starting from your pick-up reservation, keeping it a couple of hours longer may or may not affect your rental prices. Trade-offs.

About M-F 11/14-18...

It appears to me that you are traveling to and staying in Munich and Schwangau almost solely for the purpose of seeing Dachau and Neuschwanstein. That's a lot of running around and changing hotels in 4 days.

On the 16th you have N'stein in the morning and drive to R'burg in 3 hours so I assume you're skipping the Romantic Road on that day and then backtracking to see undetermined RR towns on the following days using R'burg as a travel base. IMO, if you're going to have any 1-night stops, the RR towns between Füssen and Rothenburg would be likely candidates so as to avoid said backtracking.

With 5 nights for Bavaria and Salzburg altogether - which isn't long - I think overall your time might be better allocated and your travel streamlined a bit. It would be pretty easy to head straight to Salzburg after landing in Munich; take a careful inventory for the reasons you have for visiting Dachau and N'stein to see if those trips are really worthwhile. Same with spending lots of time in the RR towns south of Rothenburg. Rothenburg is on the way north and good for a day and a night - but 3 nights? In late November you can sometimes do an outdoor brunch on the river in Sac, but hanging outdoors (which is very nice in the smaller towns during warmer months) will be out of the question in Germany. Are you seeing Würzburg at all?? W'burg and some of the Bavarian towns near Rothenburg that you are skipping (Nuremberg, Bamberg, Regensburg) offer more to see and do both outdoors and indoors (as well as a collection of World Heritage sites.)

http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/624
http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1155
http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/169

Herrenchiemsee Palace (another Ludwig II structure ) makes a good N'stein-replacement, is fabulous, and lies only 1 hour from Salzburg. You could see it on the way north from Salzburg.

http://www.herrenchiemsee.de/englisch/n_palace/

There is no reason to rent a car for this trip, or to fly.

Your plan is to fly from Venice to Munich. By the time you get transportation from Venice to the airport, check in, security, wait to board, fly, find ground transportation at MUC, and take the S-Bahn (40 min) into Munich, a one hour flight will take you 4-5 hours and cost hundreds of dollars each. German Rail sells a Savings Fare ticket from Venice to Salzburg for as low as 98€ for two with advance purchase. An EC leaves Venice at 1:50 pm. There is one change in Rosenheim, Germany and you get to Salzburg before 9 pm. And you get to see the scenery in the Alto Adige part of northern Italy and Brenner Pass. Austrian Rail has a 6 hr connection leaving Venice just before 4 pm and getting to Salzburg at 10 pm. You might be able to get a similarly low fare for that connection.

After your time in Salzburg, take a Meridian train to Munich. It takes less than 2 hours and costs 28€ for two with a Bayern-Ticket.

Do Neuschwanstein as a day trip with a Bayern-Ticket for two for 28€.

Then go to Rothenburg with a Bayern-Ticket for 28€. The trip takes 3¼ hrs with two changes.

Finally, take the trains from Rothenburg to Brugge. With advance purchase, you can get Savings Fare tickets for two for 118€ - not much more than the ViaMichelin's estimate for fuel to Aachen (44€) plus Laura's price of 60€ for two from Aachen to Brussels, and you don't have the expense of a car rental. The train takes just over 9 hours, not much more than 4½ hrs to Aachen plus 3 hrs to Brugge.

Would the drive from Rothenburg to Aachen take about 4 hours, like Viamichelin says?

That seems extremely optimistic. To compare, I used to live near Mannheim and I drove to Belgium at least monthly. Under ideal traffic conditions, it took me 3 hours to reach the German/Belgian border. Rothenburg is at least 90 minutes further away, and it you'd have to hit the worst of Frankfurt, Wiesbaden and Köln traffic. 5 hours seems like the minimum under realistic conditions.

A couple of observations on Lee's plan...

With 2 nights in Salzburg you'd have only one day for sightseeing... not sure what you have in mind there exactly, that may be enough time, maybe not.
I see it omits the night in Schwangau and the Romantic Road route as well.
Note that a day trip from Munich to Schwangau involves nearly 5 hours of train + bus travel.

If you'll be spending just 2 nights in Munich, it looks to me like a Dachau visit would need to be done right after your arrival in Munich. From Munich (it's about 40 minutes each way by train + bus.)
The ground transport time (excluding your trip to Salzburg in the first place) adds up to around 12 hours (Salzburg-Munich-Schwangau-Munich-Dachau-Munich-Rothenburg.)

"With 2 nights in Salzburg you'd have only one day for sightseeing"

That's Lizzy's itinerary, not mine.

Nördlingen is ON the Romantic Road.

"That's Lizzy's itinerary, not mine."

Yes, I know. She may need more time than 2 nights. I was counseling Lizzy on how to use your plan, if she opts for the train trip, and the comment was directed to her. I was not criticizing your very reasonable suggestions.

"Nördlingen is ON the Romantic Road."
I'm aware of that as well. NIce town. And as I indicated, the plan you gave Lizzy omits Nördlingen and the rest of that RR segment - and I think that was a sound choice given her time constraints. Just didn't want her thinking the Munich-R'burg journey was a RR journey.