We're planning a trip to Europe in April/May next year and we are struggling with part of our itinerary and would appreciate some advice.
So far we have the following:
Bacharach (2), Rothenburg (2), Munich (3), somewhere in/near the Black Forest (2), Bern or Lucerne (3) and then onto Venice (4) to start our adventure in Italy.
Any thoughts or advice in regards to transport, Black Forest villages, etc greatly appreciated.
Cheers
Sam
From Bacharach, you (up to 5 people) can get to Karlsruhe by rail with a €28 Rheinland-Pfalz-Ticket (or, less info but in English, here).
From Karlsruhe, you can go by streetcar to Bad Herrenalb or by train to Freudenstadt, both in the Black Forest.
From there you can go by train to Rothenburg via Stuttgart and Ansbach, then to Munich. You can use a €28 Bayern-Ticket for Rothenburg to Munich.
For Munich to Luzern, you can get an online, advance purchase Europa-Spezial ticket from the Bahn website for as little as €78 for two people.
Gengenbach is a particularly fetching town of cobblestones and old town walls and towers that lies between Offenburg (on the main north-south train line) and the high Black Forest villages on the Black Forest Railway, one of the planet's most scenic train routes.
BF Railway
Gengenbach town website
It's a great spot from which to visit BF villages like Schiltach, Gutach, Hausach, Hornberg, Triberg, and Freudenstadt, and also for an outing to Strasbourg or Freiburg. Train travel to all the German destinations mentioned is FREE if you overnight in certain villages (like Gengenbach) that participate in the Konus program.
Konus info
Here's a great resource page on BF towns and accommodations:
Bavaria Ben's Black Forest rec's
Thank you, I'll check out those websites. I've been reading a variety of guidebooks and they all seem to focus on Baden Baden and Freiburg so it's great to hear about other towns in the Black Forest.
Are we best to visit the destinations in Germany before going to Switzerland or is it easy enough to go between the two? The order isn't that important, but the practicalities of moving between destinations are, we've timed the trip so that we won't be in Venice at Easter.
The northern Black Forest is pretty much inline with Bacharach to Bavaria, which is why I suggested the route I did. If you wanted to see the southern Schwarzwald, you might be better to go on to Switzerland, then to Bavaria.
To the list of towns, add Alpirsbach (www.stadt-alpirsbach.de), which is just up the Kinzig from Hausach, on the way to Freudenstadt. I stayed at Schwanen Post.
Thanks again for your suggestions, we've more or less settled on Freudenstadt and we'll work with the route you've suggested Lee.
Cheers
Sam
In the Black Forest: Baden Baden and Titisee Neustadt (Maritim on the lake hotel).
I would not plan on staying in Lucern or Bern for 3 days 1 for Bern and skip Lucern. That gives you anoter 2 days for anther part of your trip.
Sam,
Before making any suggestions, it would help to know which airport you'll be arriving at? If you're starting in Frankfurt, Bacharach would be a good first stop as it's only a bit more than an hour by train from the airport. It would be a great location to recover from jet lag for a few days. I was just through that part of Germany and Switzerland recently, so the details are still fairly fresh in my memory.
If you have the time, you might consider taking a slight detour through Colmar (France) on the way to Lucerne. It's a beautiful area with some great wines produced there. I was also in Lucerne this year, as well as Baden Baden.
There are a variety of routing options, depending on which towns you decide on.
Good luck with your planning!
Ken, we're actually flying into Paris and will be going to Germany via Amsterdam and with or without jet lag I think Bacharach will be a nice break after rushing around Paris and Amsterdam. All up we're away for about 51 nights so I've tried to include a couple of more restful places to stay.
The main focus of our trip is actually Italy but we couldn't go all that way and not check out a few other cities and towns. We also have a friend living near Munich so it will be nice to catch up and to experience the landscape and history in Europe which is vastly different to what we have in Australia.
Thanks James, that's not being a party pooper, it's good advice to get. I'd be surprised if during my holiday we didn't have rain, twice I've been overseas and there has been flash floods and other times just lots of rain - my Mum thinks I'm great for drought affected areas :-) We've bought rain jackets and will get suitable shoes, if it rains too much we'll just have to find a cosy place to sit indoors, enjoy the local food and wine and do some people watching.
