Munich Day Trips

Our favorite day trips from Munich are to Lage Tegernsee (scenery, hiking, great local restaurants with great food), Lake Chiemsee (the castles, nice walks, swimming, boat riding), Berchtesgaden (Obersalzberg, Lake Königsee, Mt. Watzmann). Garmisch and Mt. Zugspitze - you could even day trip to Innsbruck, Austria... I'd rent a car for all of these. It's easy driving and gives you so much more flexibility.

Oberammergau is beautiful, and the nearby Kloster Ettal and Wieskirche are not to be missed. You could take the S-Bahn to Herrsching and spend an afternoon at Andechs. If you take the train one hour south to Schliersee and then hop on a bus for 15 minutes up to Spitzingsee, you can spend the afternoon hiking in the foothills of the alps. There are miles of well worn trails heading up to mountain huts serving beer and Bavarian classics. You can take the gondola up and skip most of the hiking. Click on Wanderpanorama for the map: http://www.alpenbahnen-spitzingsee.de/deutsch/sommer/wandern/ Also, hiking south of Munich is a very popular summer activity with locals and there are trails and beautiful huts near all of the towns south of the city. Nuremberg is an easy day trip with wonderful medieval and WWII sites.

Dinkelsbühl is impossible to get to by train. There is a track from Nördlingen to Dinkelsbühl, but no scheduled service - maybe only for occasional excursions. There is a bus from Nördlingen to Dinkelsbühl. But Nördlingen is well worth a visit and accessible by train.

If you've already been to Munich twice and done all of the days trips then why not go someplace else where you HAVEN'T seen/done it all?

Another vote for Oberammergau. The cute littke Christmas shop was a blast to look inside and see German ornaments and trinkets. The store across ths street is where my parents bought their cuckoo clock, the woman was super friendly and wrapped the clock with super care.

Here's another vote for Nuernberg, but I'm biased. I lived there in the 80's. We went there a few years ago for a day trip from Munich. It wasn't enough time to see the things we wanted to see, especially the WWII sites, or to eat as many different things as we wanted to eat. We went through G-P a couple of years ago in mid-June and it was a zoo with way too many tourists. Nuernberg certainly has tourists, but not like that. If you decide to go, the Tourist Information and the entrance to the Altstadt are both right across the street from the Bahnhof. My favorite things to eat were Nuernberger Bratwurst and Schweineschaeufele (Pork shoulder). Even my husband who is not a fan of German food, admitted those two dishes are amazingly delicious.

Thanks to all for your input! To clarify "why Munich" - Plan is to go to Prague at either the beginning or end of our trip. Munich seems a good choice as a home base for the Germany portion of the trip - easy train connection from Prague. Overall we want a home base town that is in the "Bavaria/Alps" southern Germany/Austria area, easy train connections to Prague, easy air connections back to US, and from where we can settle for several days and day-trip to small, quaint, towns. Thinking about the Black Forest (Triberg,Freiberg) but logistically it's 4 hours from Munich and probably 9 hours from Prague by train. And though I'd love to rent a car, my travel partners do not want to do that. I'd welcome any other suggestions!

Why not base in Nurnberg and explore "Franconian Switzerland"? You're still close to Munich, but in an area with a lot more you haven't explored yet. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franconian_Switzerland