Amsterdam, romantic road, then Gimmelwald

German Rail has Europa-Spezial fares from Munich to Interlaken Ost for as low as €39 pP. This is unusual for Germany Rail which doesn't usually give this promotional fare for routes with a connection in a country outside Germany; his route (6½ hrs) can connect in Zurich and Bern and still get the special fare. Any route to Gimmelwald, of course, goes through Interlaken.

Ben,

Use the bahn.de website to research each leg of the train journeys you'll take. That will provide an estimate on how long it will take.

Which area of "the romantic road" are you planning to visit? If you plan on stopping in Rothenburg ob der Tauber, you should be able to get a high speed to Frankfurt and then work south from there.

As Lee mentioned, from Munich to Gimmelwald will got through Interlaken Ost. When you reach Interlaken, you can buy tickets to Gimmelwald (which will include all modes of transport - train, Post Bus and then Gondola).

For the flight home, I'd check flight options from Zurich or other large cities in Switzerland, as they'll be easy to reach from Interlaken when you leave that area.

Happy travels!

How about fly into Amsterdam, 4 nights, train to Bruges, stopping in Brussles along the way for about 4 hours, in Bruges by 7PM, stay 2 nights with all of the in between day in Bruges. After the 2nd night train out early, to Trier, Germany by mid-afternoon where you pick up your car & drive to Bacharach along the Rhein, where you stay for 3 nights, using the in between 2 days to see the Rhein & Mosel river small towns & castles.

(You can avoid renting a car if you like, but there are a lot of cute small towns along the Romantic Road and you may find one appealing for 20 minutes or 4 hours. It's hard to know until you get there, and having a car gives you the freedom to go at your own pace)

Drive to Rothenburg on the Romantic Road & stay for 2 nights, but be there only for the nights (& strolling). Spend the day in between in nearby Nurnberg. Drive to Munich (or Dachau) and drop off the car. Do Munich for 3 nights (2 full days). Train to Interlachen & public transport into the valley & up the cliff to Gimmewald for 3 nights, giving you 2 full days to hike the alps. Get back to Interlachen & catch a train to;

1) Paris (5.5 hours) where you can either fly out or stay for a while & then fly out or
2) Frankfurt (5 hours, 39euro) where you can fly out

That's 17 nights plus your fly-out city. You can trim it to 14 to keep it to 2 weeks, but that would rush things. Of course, you could go more slowly and stay a week in Paris and make it last for 4 weeks, too.

You haven't really said how many days you have, so I'm going to assume that you have already figured out where you have time to go. The German Rail website also offers Europa-Spezial-Belgien fares as low as €39 pP complete from Brussels to Rothenburg ob der Tauber. That's €78 for two, not much more than gas for a car, not to mention rental cost.

As for the Romantic Road, driving it is not such a treat. It's a narrow, two-lane country road, filled in the summer with cars, trucks, tour buses, and farm machinery, with a 50 mph speed limit. The attractions are the towns on it, and not that many are must sees - Rothenburg is, so is Fuessen, at the other end. In October of 2007, I spent almost 5 days touring the towns (12) on the road. Of the towns in between, the most interesting in my opinion is Noerdlingen, but it is kind of Rothenburg without the Christmas shop (and tourists). It does have the Ries Museum and you can climb the church tower for a great view of the surrounding countryside. I was disappointed with Dinkelsbuehl, maybe because I had just seen Noerdlingen, which I liked better. Other cities I liked were Donauwoerth and Landsberg, but I'm not sure they would be worth a stop.

If I were doing it, I would spend a day, at least, in Rothenburg, then use a €28 Bayern-Ticket and go by regional train Fuessen, spend a night and see the castles, then go on to Munich.

You've got a bunch of bucks tied up in this trip.

Please, please make sure you want to go to Gimmelwald and not Grindelwald. They're in two adjacent valleys.

Gimmelwald is an RS Mecca, scenery is okay and there's a couple of nice walking trails, and of course the RS Memorial Hostel -- not too much else.

Grindelwald is the famous one, the train through the mountain to the top of the Jungfrau, the gondola ride at First with the tremendous view of the Eiger, etc.

In fairness, Grindelwald is more touristy with signs in five languages and a heck of a lot more expensive. However, I'd been to Grindelwald a couple of times before I went to Gimmelwald to see what all the fuss was about. For me, once was enough -- there's no comparison -- and I really hate touristy stuff.

Just make sure you have the right one. Have fun.

I am mostly with Randy on a suggested itinerary, but if you wanted to do one that is doable entirely by train...

Fly into Amsterdam...
Day 1-4 Amsterdam, side trip to Haarlem possible
Day 5-6 Bruges, see Brussels square on the way
Day 7 hopscotch train day to Rothenburg ob Tauber
Day 8 Rothenburg (night before and after in Rothenburg)
Day 9-12 Munich, side trips to Fussen / Neushwanstein / Dachau
Day 13-16 Interlaken / Gimmelwald
Fly out of Zurich on day 17 or 18.

I disagree with the poster who puts Grindelwald as a higher priority near interlaken than Gimmelwald. Both are awesome, but in terms of what order to do them, do Gimmelwald first. If you spend just 2 days in the area you can easily do both -- one after the other.

I like the looks of that trip... we did one that started in Zurich, Salzburg, Munich, Wurzburg, Rothenburg, Feiburg, Interlaken, Gimmelwald, Amsterdam, Bruges, Brussels in 20 days a few years ago.

You could trim yours to 14... but if you can afford 16 it will be more fun.

To get from Gimmelwald to Zurich by train is a bit over three hours and a very easy trip. We do it every year - well actually from Stechelberg which is on the valley floor below Gimmelwald.