Two day side trip from Munich

rothenburg od der tauber is 2 1/2 hours away, an easy drive, and is a fun, small town with great museums, restaurants, sights and a night watchman's tour the evening which is worth visiting the town for alone. You can watch a sampling in YouTube.

fussen is also close which has the two castles of Mad King Ludwig, and Garmish is also a nice town, but. IMO a drive through for lunch is enough unless it is winter and you ski.

Fussen, Garmish, Nurnberg or Augsburg would all be fine choices and easily connected to Munich by frequent trains.

Ingolstadt is about halfway from Munich to Nürnberg. Its historic center is colorful and quiet -- tourists haven't discovered it yet. Download an English-language brochure for an Ingolstadt Old Town walk here.

Hi,

What time of year is this trip?
Are you using public transportation or a rental car?

We love the Innsbruck area, using nearby Hall in Tirol , and the Gasthof Badl, as our base. We've stayed here roughly 18 nights so far. The Nordkettenbahn trip from Innsbruck is terrific.

www.badl.at

The Italian Dolomites are amazing and maybe 3 hours from Munich. Look into the Val Gardena or Alta Badia. Old towns include Sterzing/Vipiteno, Brixen/Bressanone and Bozen/Bolzano.

www.val-gardena.com

www.altabadia.it

There's also Zell am See and the Grossglockner Hochalpenstrasse.

Fuessen is also very nice (stayed twice), including Ludwig's castles (Neuschwanstein, Hohenschwangau and even Linderhof), the Tegelberg cable car and luge (Sommerrodelbahn) and even the Zugspitze trip and the Wieskirche.

We have photo's of our many trips to these places at:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/pjbassplyr/sets/

Just some ideas.

Paul

There are so many things to see in Bavaria that are a short train ride from Munich. No reason to spend money unnecessarily on a car rental and then have to find a place to park it in Munich. Find train schedules on this German Rail webpage.

Although I do love Rothenburg ob der Tauber, there is a comparible town, Nördlingen, closer to Munich. Nördlingen is much less touristy than Rothenburg and doesn't have a crime and punishment museum or a Christmas shop, but it does have an almost intact wall with a Wehrgang you can walk on and a lot of old Fachwerk buildings.

Nördlingen is about two hours from Munich by train with a change in Donauwörth.

If you want to see an authentic castle, there is one in Burghausen, again about two hours by train from Munich.

A note on Burghausen. If you decide to visit and take the train, you'll arrive in the upper town and will likely be completely unimpressed by what looks mostly very modern. But keep the faith and continue walking. You'll hit the back end of the castle Lee mentioned, which is advertised as the "longest castle in Europe".

If you wanted to relax on your first day after flying in, bring your bathing suit (or your birthday suit, if you prefer) and head to nearby Therme Erding.

If you wanted to relax on your first day after flying in, bring your bathing suit (or your birthday suit, if you prefer) and head to nearby Therme Erding.

Therme Erding is amazing. I spent five hours there on my last full day in Germany, recharging physically and mentally for the long trip home. It's a great place to relax and unwind.

Take the S-2 to the Altenerding stop (not Erding, which is the end of the line). From there it's about a 3/4 mile walk on a paved path, through a construction site, to the side of the Therme Erding complex. Or take a bus from the S-Bahn station to the Therme.

There is an affiliated, similar but smaller facility at Bad Wörishofen.

We are very fond of two towns north of Munich: Landshut and Regensburg.

Landshut has a castle and a wealth of baroque building fronts. It lies along the Isar River with many beautiful views of the city.

http://mcchelsea.smugmug.com/Other-2/April-2014-Landshut/38726799_vsK4kd

http://mcchelsea.smugmug.com/Christmas-Markets-2009/Landshut-2009/10635634_WwvXRT

Regensburg is a UNESCO World Heritage Site for all its medieval buildings. Wikipedia does a decent job of describing it.

Regensburg can be reached by regional train in about 1.5 hours. It takes about 45 minutes to Landshut. Landshut was our first two day stop this spring and probably our favorite of the trip.

RE: Landshut.

I visited this town about two weeks prior to seeing Salzburg for the first time. Salzburg gets all the attention in travel literature, but quite honestly, Landshut beats it, in my opinion. Landshut's castle is more interesting, the town is more colorful, and it's churches are just as impressive.

I thought of stopping in Regensburg on my recent trip, but read reports that the Stone Bridge is undergoing major work and is covered with canvas and scaffolding. So I decided to go to Ingolstadt instead, and will save Regensburg for the next trip.