Please NEED advise for a base to visit Munich, Dachau and Neuschtein

Thanks everyone!!! When you say south Munich, should I look for a specific neighborhood??? We don't have an accurate idea of the places you mean by "south". Is somehow related to the romantic road, or not?

Take a look at the Munich Schnellbahn (S- and U-Bahn) network plan. Pick a station near the end of an S-Bahn line and see if you can find accommodations there.

Landsberg am Lech is almost due west of Munich and is on the Romantic Road.

By all means, I would sugegst you skip the car and travel by train for Munich and Dachau. For Neuschwanstein, a car would provide more flexibility but isn't essential. Rick's book (you do have it, right?) has all the info on transport you'll need.

I can't suggest a good base (I stayed in Munich) but someone will come along in 5 minutes and they will, so don't worry. But it should be easy to find a decent, reasonably priced place that's no more than an hour by train from Munich but without the Octoberfest price craziness. Don't worry -- it'll be fine.

Don't beat yourself up for "making so many mistakes" -- this is a common one (when planning my first trip to Germany a few years ago, I stumbled into the same problem "it's 250 Euros for that little room?!"). Fortunately, like you, I realized it in time ("gee, I wonder why are all the rooms so expensive there in late September.."). I made a slight change in our itinerary (we moved Munich forward in our trip by about 10 days, and did Austria later) and it all worked out fine.

The planning stage of your trip is the time to discover your little mistakes. You're doing that now, that's a good sign. Stuff will come up while you're on the road, but you'll figure it out and muddle through -- lots of people have been doing this for a long time. You'll be feeling like an expert after your first couple of days there and will wonder why you were so worried before.

Hi! It would be to take day triops to Munich, Dachau and the Castle. It can be a trip per day, or maybe 1 of the days to go to one of the places for half-day, and the other half, maybe take a look on the Oktoberfest.

If you do not want to participate in Oktoberfest, there are dozens of wonderful places to visit in Bavaria besides Munich. Spend some time in Füssen near the royal castles then go to Regensburg , a wonderful medieval city. You could still visit Munich and Dachau by train from either.

Regards, Gary

I would suggest that you look for a place on the Munich end of the route from Munich to Füssen.

Last October, on the last Saturday night of Oktoberfest, I stayed at a nice inexpensive hotel in Landsberg am Lech. It's not quite on the Munich-Füssen route, but it's a short (7 min) train ride from there to Kaufering, which is. If you use a €27 Bayern-Ticket it wouldn't matter.

Another place, closer to Munich, is Geltendorf, but I don't know about the availability of accommodations there. The advantage of Geltendorf is that the €18 MVV Gesamtnetz Partner Tageskarte would cover all your transportation to/from Munich and inside Munich, including Dachau.

Another place to consider is Buchloe, which is a little closer to Füssen, and a minor rail junction. Also, there is Kaufbeuren, a town which, with its partially remaining medieval wall, belongs on the romantic road (but isn't).

Lee's suggestions look good.

I was just going to suggest staying a little South of Munich in a place where you can easily catch a train in. You don't want to drive in for Octoberfest anyway. Finding parking in the area will be harder than finding lodging. You can look for an easy connection to Neuschwanstein (where it's best to arrive early).

Consider optional bus tours down to Neuschwanstein and Dachau. It would include transportation and entrance. I drove, but it's not worth getting a car when you could probably find good alternatives.

You might have some luck in either Starnberg or Tutzing. Those are pretty popular resort areas and might have more accommodations. There is probably a good probability that they speak English. However, they are on another S-Bahn line (S6) from the one (S8) that the trains follow to Füssen, so you would have to backtrack to Pasing station, just outside of Munich, and change trains, to get to Füssen.

Another possibility is Oberammergau. I stayed there the Th and Fr before the end of Oktoberfest and had no problem finding a room (although I did book in advance). Besides being an interesting town on it's own, it is only a short distance from Garmisch-Partenkirchen and from Linderhof. There is a bus from Oberammergau to Füssen (Hohenschwangau); the trip takes about 1hr 20min and would cost €8,50 per person, round trip, with an RVO day ticket. The trip from Oberammergau to Munich takes under two hours with a change of trains in Murnau.

Veronica, to look up info on some of the towns mentioned up above or any other town located in Germany, check out their town website by using www.name of town.de Example would be www.gauting.de This town is southwest of Munich and you can get the S-bahn into Munich. There are several pensions available in this town, however, who knows during Oktoberfest. On these websites, click on the British flag for English and look for accommodations such as zimmers, pensions, etc. Or click on tourismos (sp?). Lots of small towns have their own website. In this way, you can see what the town is all about. Good luck.

Thanks Denisse! I'll be checking on these websites. I've cheked the Rick Steve's map on Germany, and I'm going to take those towns south and around Munich. Landsberg sounds good because of it's position referred to Munich, Dachau and the castle. What I need to check now is if I can take a train (eurail pass) from there to Vienna.
Thanks again everyone!!! You don't have an idea on how helpful all of you have being!!!

What I need to check now is if I can take a train (eurail pass) from there to Vienna.

If your eurail pass includes Germany and Austria you can use it to go by train from any station in Bavaria to Vienna. If your pass doesn't include Germany, you can use a Bayern-Ticket to get to Salzburg by way of Munich and your pass from there.

If you don't already have your Eurail pass, you should consider p2p tickets to Vienna. German Rail sells a Europa-Spezial Österreich ticket online (advance purchase required) for as low as €29 per person.

Veronica, Here is a map of the entire rail network in Bavaria. It is a fairly large (1½ MB) pdf file, so depending on your connection, it might take a while to download. You might want to save it on your computer for future reference. It doesn't show all of the S-Bahn stops in Munich MVV, but I think it does show all of the regional train stops in Bavaria. Along with the MVV Schnellbahn network map I posted earlier, it might help you find places "South" of Munich.

THANKS Lee!!! You've being so helpful... I'm goint to check it right now.