Leaving from Paris to spend a week in Germany and then to Prague - Ideas?

A couple of years ago we traveled a route opposite of how you wish to go. Perhaps this would give you some ideas. As a family of 4 we found it less expensive and certainly more flexible to combine car rental and air travel (easyjet/ryan air) than to use the train. If you are traveling alone then train travel would probably be a better option. Our route took us from Austria to Munich then through Bavaria. Then we drove along the Bodensee (beautiful and not mentioned often as a destination- very few Americans, mostly German tourists - we will return) stopped there for a few hours and lunch. Our next destination was the Black Forest then on to the Rhine region. We were searching for ancestoral towns in the Alsace Loraine region of France so focused on that and the wine route there. Strasbourg was our base. It is a very international city with great medieval history, magnificent cathedral, and good transportation hub. Then we went on to Paris. So you could do a similar route backwards.

I would recommend this itinerary:

Day 0 - Overnight train from Paris to Munich
Day 1 - Visit Dachau/Munich sights sleep in Munich
Day 2 - Munich/Evening train to Fussen sleep in Fussen
Day 3 - Visit Neuschwanstein/Hohenschwangau and relax in Fussen (we rented bikes to get to the castles, very nice)
Day 4 - Romantic road bus from Fussen to Rothenburg/see Rothenburg sights
Day 5 - Train from Rothenburg around noon and arrive in Berlin around 7 pm
Day 6 - Berlin
Day 7 - Berlin
Day 8 - Train to Prague with possible stop over in Dresden

If you have an extra day in the middle, I might suggest stopping in Wurzburg or Nurenburg (my favorite in that area is Bamberg, but Rick doesn't cover it). It is too bad you only have a week because the sites in Berlin can cover 4 days easily and most people like to stay longer in Munich and Rotheburg, but this would be a really awesome introduction to some of the best places in Germany!

Randall,

my suggestion, since you're starting from Paris:Day 1: Paris to Strasbourg, spend at least 90mins in this romantic old town around the cathedral and Place Kleber. Then leave for Mannheim or Heidelberg. In Mannheim there's Germany's largest palace, built to copy Versailles, but it's larger. It was heavily destroyed during the war and couldn't be completed until 2007 (!). The first floor now looks just like it did 200 years ago. As far as Heidelberg goes, I assume you'll find plenty of information in RS book. Day 2: Based out of the Mannheim/Heidelberg region you could either do a day trip to Baden Baden and the black forrest, along the river Neckar valley to plenty of old castles and the medieval city of Dielsberg (equivalent to Carcassonne in France), or you could visit what's called the tuscany of Germany, the Palatinate region with Bad Dürkheim and Deidesheim and other places. It was in Deidesheim where the-chancellor Helmut Kohl had dinner with...

You could end your day with a relocation trip to Frankfurt (1hr
Day 3: From Frankfurt you can do a full day boat ride on the Rhine river all the way up to Cologne. You'll see all the castles, all the sights. And you can drink as much German wine on the boat as you want ;-) Obviously you'd stay over in Cologne.
Day 4: Spend the morning in the old city center of Cologne, visit the cathedral etc. In the afternoon you could visit one of the nicest chateau's there is along the river rhine, Schloss Dyck (http://www.stiftung-schloss-dyck.de/schloss/photos/schloss.gif). It is accessible by car only though (rental car?) Spend the evening in Düsseldorf, make sure you visit both the old town as well as New Media Harbor. Climb the Rhine Tower, it's open till late and provides you with a breathtaking view of Düsseldorf and the..

...lower Rhine valley. Day 5: Take the train to Hamburg or take one of the cheap airlines and fly straight to Berlin. Hamburg is a must-see though in my opinion. Spend the rest of the day in Hamburg, do a dinner cruise on the Elbe river and watch the busy-ness of this port, which is one of the most important one in the world.Day 6: Spend as much time in Hamburg as you want to. The high-speed train to Berlin takes only a bit over an hour. Rest of the day: BerlinDay 7: In the morning: Berlin, then train to Prague.