Stop between Kaiserslautern and Frankfurt Airport?

Heidelberg comes to mind; sounds just right for a day trip and then is pretty much a straight shot back to Frankfurt.

Speyer is a very pretty, interesting, historical town.

Both of those do sound like lovely options, however, I think we're looking to be around a 1/2 hour from the airport. I know, I should have mentioned that, my apologies. We take off around 11am on Saturday and would be driving to the airport from wherever we stop for the day/night. Though, I'm unfamiliar with traffic on Saturdays in this part of Germany... perhaps an hour wouldn't be so bad. We return our rental car by 8:30 am... it wouldn't hurt to be dead tired on the plane if we have to get up nice and early!

Darmstadt has a small area in the center that is very attractive, but overall, I find the city a bit drab. Heppenheim is about 40 minutes south of the airport. I really like the historical center of this town. It sits at the foot of the Odenwald mountains, has an impressive cathedral and a castle ruin. Wiesbaden sits very close to the airport, that's an elegant spa town. Jo from Frankfurt can tell you more about some the towns in her immediate area, but I might also recommend the charming old town of Selingstadt, which she can tell you more about.

Well, we don't have an AF bud...we're going there to visit and explore where my partner lived for several years in Neuhemsbach, his father was AF. It's been almost 24 years since he's been there. The more reading I do it seems like a day in Frankfurt isn't a bad idea at all. I'm going to look into the other suggestions as well. Thank you.

Oh goodness, Tom... Selingstadt looks quite lovely. Thank you very much for that suggestion, that was the only one that hadn't crossed my mind, the others mentioned here we've considered... but I've never heard of Selingstadt. Thank you, I look forward to Jo seeing this message.

Here are 3 options that you might consider: 1.Speyer and/or Worms for two "must see" cathedrals in Germany. Then take the Bergstrasse (Mountain Road) up to Frankfurt, spending the night in Heppenheim, Bensheim or Zwingenberg. At Eberstadt take a look at Burg Frankenstein. 2. Heidelberg for the day and then north up the Bergstrasse to Frankfurt. 3. South on road 48 out of Enkenbach to Bad Bergzabern then north on the Deutsche Weinstrasse to Bochenhein, then east on 47 thru Worms to the Bergstrasse and north to Frankfurt.

I don't know what your dates are, but here are a few events that might be interesting to visit. * Teddybear World, 12-13 March, Wiesbaden Rhine Main Halls * 5th River Main Quilt Festival, 11-13 March Aschaffenburg * Garden Show 2011, 13-17 March in the Frankfurt Palmengarten * Easter Egg Market, 19-20 March, in Kloster Seligenstadt I am planning on visiting the Quilt Show in Aschaffenburg this weekend and the Easter Egg Market in Seligenstadt the next. If you are visiting Seligenstadt, do take a tour through the abbey. It is one of the oldest (early 800's), largest and best preserved abbeys in Hessen. Has a beautiful garden around it, and the neighboring Basilica was also begun in the early 800's. There are plenty of cosy looking cafes and B&B's around town, and some very lovely fachwerk houses, especially down around the Main river. Some other nice towns to stay in are Bad Homburg or Kronberg. If you would rather stay in Frankfurt, there is plenty to see and do here too, depending on your interests.

If proximity to the airport is your main goal, do Frankfurt. However, Heidelberg is definitely doable, it's only about 45 minute drive to the airport, straight shot up the A5 and can easily be done in 1 day.

Jo, thank you very much for responding! We'll be there in one of the areas the day of the 18th, which is a bummer, looks like we'll miss the nice festivals you wrote about! I'm looking over Kronberg and more into Seligenstadt right now. Your response was very helpful, we appreciate it. Enjoy the Quilt show!

Just wanted to report back... We had an amazing trip and I wanted to thank those for the Seligenstadt recommendation as well as Heidelberg. We actually arrived in Enkenbach-Alsenborn, explored Neuhemsbach, where my fiancee resided as a child and found the area had little to offer us and randomly decided to scrap our plans and head on over to Heidelberg for 2 nights instead. We stayed in the Alstadt area and had an exceptionally wonderful time. The castle was amazing, the overall vibe was wonderful, great restaurants, great sites to see. We never left Alstadt, which was more than fine by us. We ran into some rowdy GI's outside of a bar clearly cater to GI's tropical cocktail bar/pool hall, but otherwise we didn't feel a strong American presence like some of the info on here states. It's an absolutely beautiful city and we actually look forward to going back and spending more time there. Now, by the time we arrived in Seligenstadt it was a bit late and we were exhausted and definitely didn't get to see nearly as much of it as we had hoped, but we enjoyed the town, had a very nice meal and did a self guided walking tour thanks to the very helpful woman in the tourist info. office. We flew out early the following morning. Thank you so much for your helpful suggestions and overall contributions to others that greatly helped us!

Tiffany, how nice of you to report back! Glad that you liked Heidelberg so much!

Glad to hear you liked both Heidelberg and Seligenstadt. It is nice when folks come back and tell us about their trips and if suggestions were helpful. I did go to the Quilt show which was fantastic, so much more than what I thought it would be. Plus went through the museum in Aschaffenburg. That is a must for anyone in that area, if only for the cork models of the many ruins and buildings of Rome. I wasn't quite sure what to expect of these, though I had seen small photos, but they were extraordinary, as well as being very detailed and over 100 years old. The Egg Show in Seligenstadt was marvelous too. We had this perfect, sunny spring weather and you could see the promise in the garden (must get back there in a month and then again in summer!). Truly unbelievable what people can do with eggs. May I ask where you stayed and ate in Seligenstadt for future reference? I saw several places there that looked really cool, especially down along the river. Did you enjoy all the fachwerk houses there? Did you get to see the abbey at all?

We didn't get to see the Abbey, honestly,we probably could have and I regret not. Guess we'll just have to go back ;) I'm a big fan of adding things to the absolutely-must-go-back-to-see list! It truly was the perfect town to end our trip in, very nice, near the airport. After browsing just a small bit online while in Heidelberg we found this place zumriesen-seligenstadt.de/zimmer/ and just walked in to see if they had availability. They did and it was nice, modern bathroom. It was in a really nice location, right on the markplatz. Loved walking around and seeing all of the fachwerk houses, that adorable town made for some very lovely pictures! We were also introduced to knoblauchcremesuppe in Seligenstadt. Amazingly tasty! I believe we missed The Egg Show just by one day, the woman in the tourist info office was telling us about it and saying how wonderful it is, we were sad to be missing it!

Glad that you enjoyed Seliginstadt. And congrats on the Heidelberg moment. Now, let's keep Seliginstadt a secret so it doesn't turn into a tourist fun house like Rothenburg or Bacharach...