transportation in Germany

"1) We are renting a car for two days to drive up the Romantic Road."

My advice here... realize that other than the southern terminus of the Romantic Road (with the view of Neuschwanstein against the Alps), the scenery on this country road is no better than a dozen or so other roads that run south to the Alps. Drive it if there is something particular you want to see along the way. Otherwise you can drive from point-to-point along the autobahn much more quickly with little sacrifice in scenery (the autobahn was originally designed to maximize the enjoyment of scenery for drivers). Especially in July and August, the road will be clogged with thousands of other tourists who had the exact same idea. Now, the Castle and Alpine Roads, that's a different story...

"Would you recommend booking all train tickets and the rental car ahead of time online?" Rental car, yes. You can book it through any of the familiar international rental agencies. Personally, in Europe, I have had the best experiences with Sixt (www.sixt.com). For train tickets (assuming you travel without a rail pass)... unless you plan to take a night train at some point, or travel during a busy holiday, there is little good reason to buy the tickets in advanced.

"I'm assuming that because we are only going to three countries, it wouldn't be worth it to buy one of those unlimited passes, but I could be wrong!" The only way to answer this is to asemble your itinerary, check the ticket prices online for point-to-point travel, and compare the total with the price of a railpass that covers your itinerary. Railpasses used to be a no-brainer for tourists (they still are for European commuters), but these days it really depends on your itinerary.

Ok, I went on raileurope.com and it has an option to put in your itinerary and then it selects your various options. Basically, it would be $400 more for four of us to buy individual tickets than to get rail passes. But, we have to pay all this extra money to reserve seats. This site acts like we would need to get tickets in advance. I wanted to see what people thought...is it still possible to get seats on trains the day of travel without having very limited options? Or would you recommend buying them in advance.

If this helps, here are the cities we are visiting: Berlin, Dresden, Prague, Nuremburg, Munich, Rothenburg, Heidelberg, Amsterdam, then back to Berlin. Probably renting a car in Munich, driving it to Rothenburg, then to Heidelberg, where we want to return the car.

Alison...for all your journeys, you should be able to book tickets at the German Rail website, Deutsche Bahn. At least you can more accurately compare prices. RailEurope is not the place to go to compare point to point tickets, since they are horribly overpriced, don't show all trains available, and NEVER show the discount fares available. There are a couple of German railway experts on the site that will chime in, I'm sure...but this will give you a good start.

As long as you are all travelling together why dont you consider 3 German Twin Passes which are about the only ticket I would ever buy from Rail Europe. You travel from one minute past midnight until one minute before and its amazing what you can pack in one day and you buy as many days as you need. You would only have to buy the extra distances from the german border into Holland and to Prague.Check single country Germany at RailEurope and you will find twin pass. It even takes you into Salzburg which is only 2 hours from Munich.

How accurate (and honest) is RailEurope?

Last November I took a trip to Germany that consisted of four long travel days - FRA to Cochem, Cochem to Bad Harzburg, Walkenried to Karlsruhe, and Karlsruhe to Mainz.

Buying point to point tickets from RailEurope would have cost $447. One leg, Walkenried to Goettingen was not available from RE; I would have had to buy that separately for $23 (€17), total $470. The leg from Göttingen to Karlsruhe was not available from RailEurope at the time I wanted to and actually traveled.

The same point-point tickets at the counter in German would have cost $319 (€231).

A 4 day German Rail pass from Rail Europe would cost $260.

My actual expenses for those four days of travel, using Dauer-Spezial- and Länder-Tickets was $177 (€128).

Thank you for your responses. I appreciate you enlightening me on Rail Europe, because I most likely would have purchased tickets through them if not for people's advice! Let me ask you what may be a silly question: Say I purchased 2 twin German Rail Passes for me and the other three people I'm traveling with...this would obviously take care of the trip within Germany. But what would I need to go from Berlin-Prague, Prague-Munich, Heidelberg-Amsterdam, and Amsterdam-Berlin? Would it make sense to simply buy individual tickets for these trips? Are reservations required? I'm just trying to save some money, and I'm obviously clueless about the transportation issue! Thank you for your help!

If you use the German Rail website, you can probably find train specific, non-refundable Europa-Spezial fares from Berlin to Prague as low as €39 per person.

For Prague to Munich, buy in Berlin from a DB ticket automat a Bayern-Ticket, good for all day travel for up to five people in Bavaria. The Bayern-Ticket is only valid on regional trains, but the fastest connection from Prague to Munich is by regional train. Then buy point-point tickets from Prague to the border in Prague at Czech Rail prices, just over €10 pP.