My husband and I are starting to plan a trip to Germany and Alsace in September – we never plan very far in advance and it always works out. This will be about our 10th trip to Europe, and we have been to Munich for only a short time and want to go back. We also missed Mainz on our trip last year to the Rhine. I’d like to fit those in but mostly concentrate in the areas around Heidelberg and further south before (or after) visiting neighboring Alsace.
I’m thinking we should fly into Munich and after that maybe go to Augsburg, or maybe a day trip there, not sure. Then to Heidelberg, and I want to make a day trip to Heilbronn, where my dad is from. Perhaps also take a day trip to Mannheim. From there I get a bit fuzzy – I’d like for us to make our way south to maybe Freiburg or Triberg or both before heading across the border to Colmar and Strasbourg. I’m thinking we’ll end the trip in Mainz and fly back from FRA. We have about 16 nights. We were interested in Rothenburg but the train connections and trip length seem prohibitive, so something on that order closer to where we’re going might be nice. We like a mix of city, scenery and charming towns.
We really don’t like renting cars so I’m not sure if there is any realistic way to see anything in the Black Forest (Freiburg, Triberg) area using just trains and buses. We’d like to make this as stress-free and relaxing as possible, so we like easy train connections and relatively few hotel changes, e.g,, minimum of 2 nights per stop. Any thoughts very much appreciated!