Germany travel

If you are not staying over for a while in London, the best way would have been to book the flight continuing on to Munich (MUC) on the same ticket. MUC to Oberammergau is an easy trip of a few (<3) hours. Two of you can make the trip from MUC to Oberammergau using a €28 Bayern-Ticket.

Using one of the low cost airlines to continue on to Munich (or wherever) on the day you arrive is a BAD idea. Those airlines (Ryan, et al) are "no excuse" airlines; if you miss the low cost flight because your trans-Atlantic flight was late, you forfeit your ticket and will have to buy another one at a much higher price.

Using a low cost airline will not save you much time. If, for instance, you fly RyanAir, Ryan doesn't fly into Munich. Instead, the closest airport to where you are going to is Allgäu Airport, in Memmingenberg, 4½ hours by bus and regional train from Oberammergau. The flight takes 1h40m. The bus from Heathrow to Stansted takes up to 2 hrs. Assuming you allow 1 hr to clear pass port control and customs (you are going into the UK to make the transfer), 2 hrs pre-board time, and 30 min at Allgäu Flughafen to get ground transportion, that's 11h40m, only minutes less than the train. That doesn't allow any buffer for a late flight (but you would have to have that anyway with an advance purchase, non-refundable London Spezial fare) and assumes all connections are timed for the minimum time.

The bus to Stansted costs £22,50 and the lowest flight from Ryan is £18.99 (8.99 fare + £5 each for admin. fee and check-in). That's €46 and doesn't even include Memmingenberg to Oberammergau; the cheapest fare for that would be €14 each splitting a Bayern-Ticket between two of you.

Using a London-Spezial ticket, you change in London, Brussels, Köln, Munich, and Murnau. Using air you change in Stansted, Allgäu Airport, Memmingen, Munich, and Murnau.

And, BTW, Ryan has only one flight per day from Stansted to Allgäu. Some are mid-day, around noon, not bad if you have an early morning flight into Heathrow. The other days, they fly in the evening, which makes it a long day in London and gets you to Oberammergau after midnight, or they leave at 6 or 7 AM, too early for a connection.

If you can't book straight through to Munich, I would suggest that you plan a day or two in London (if you are not already), then take the train to Oberammergau.

There is an all-rail connection from London to Oberammergau via Brussels, Köln, Munich, and Murnau. It takes nearly 12 hours, leaving London St. Pancras at 8:27 (GMT, 7:27 CET) and eventually getting to Oberammergau at 21:21. If you book far enough in advance on the German Rail website, there is a London-Spezial fare for as low as €49. I checked that fare for a day in May, and the lowest fares were already sold out; there were still tickets available at €89 pP.

Have you checked out the European budget airlines like Ryanair and Airberlin? Are you spending time in London first and then going to Oberammergau? That would make a difference. No way would I make that long train trip after an overseas flight.

"MUC to Oberammergau is an easy trip of a few (<3) hours."

For a bit there, I was wondering what the heart was for :P

I was thinking about flying onward from London to Munich and then taking the train to Oberammergau. I am trying to save time. We should land in Heathrow around 7 a.m. in the morning. How long will it take to get to Oberammergau from Munich? Any help is greatly appreciated. Linda.

No, Anna, that's (<3) not a heart, it's a witch (girl with pointed head).

Sorry. Actually, as you might have already figured out, < means "less than" in mathematics (what can I say, I'm a geek). > means "greater than". ~ means "approximately".

Linda: The fastest route from MUC (Muenchen Flughafen) is by S-Bahn to the Hauptbahnhof (main station) in Munich, then by regional train with a change in Murnau. Since you will undoubtedly get into the airport after 9 AM, your best fare is to get a €28 Bayern-Ticket from the automat in the S-Bahn station (between the two terminals). Take the S-Bahn into the Hauptbahnhof. S-Bahns leave about every 10 minutes. There are two, S1 and S8. They leave from tracks on opposite sides of the platform and take slightly different amounts of time, but it doesn't really matter. Whichever train leaves next will get you there soonest.

When you get to the Munich Hauptbahnhof, come up the escalator from the track level to the mall. You want to head for the NW end of the mall. That's in the direction you were going if you came in the S8, the opposite direction if you came in on the S1. Look for a sign like this. A train leaves for Garmisch-Partenkirchen every hour at about half past, from the Starnberger Flügelbahnhof, tracks 27-36, attached to the north side of the Hauptbahnhof. Get off in Murnau and take the train to Post/Bahnhof Oberammergau.

Update: I made exactly this same trip, from MUC to Oberammergau in October, 2007. It was early morning during Oktoberfest. I stashed my bag in a locker at the Hbf and walked down to Theresienwiese, had a look around, went back to the Hbf, recovered my bags, and went on to Oberammergau. It's easy.