Train or Drive in November? Need rail experts!

Snow is pretty unlikely in November, with the exception of the Alps.

If you choose to drive, you should be able to rent car seats over here. I would recommend picking up the car after leaving Brussels, unless you want to deal with LA-style traffic jams on your vacation.

Tom,

Inclement weather to a Californian includes the torrential rain we see here in November.

Rachael,

I agree with James. Bring your ski clothing.

Also, having a car is more flexible, but unlike California which has enormous parking garages/lots in all the cities, Europe isn't built for cars.

When we drive somewhere, we always park in the park&ride at the outskirts of the cities (the key is finding one where you can leave your car for 24+ hours) and take the local transit into the city.

With where your "must do's" are (Heidelburg, Baden-Baden, Erfurt, Wittemburg, Eisenach, Strasbourg) plus your Thanksgiving stop in Brussels, plus two young children, I would say your two weeks are full without even stopping in Rhineland or Bavaria.

Rail passes are listed on this site with prices and information on how they work. You would need the three country pass if you went that route. However, booking now, you may be able to pre-purchase tickets online for specific trains. It means you're bound to take that specific one but for the cost savings over a pass, I would most likely do it that way.

You can try German or Englishfor train schedules.

I would probably use the train.

Rachael, as I said in my recent posting on links, you have to start the hypertext reference, href, with http://, or the browser will try to find the URL on Rick's website.

The best website for schedules from the Bahn, in English, is here.

And, BTW, the way to get it to open in a new page, so when you close it you'll come back to Rick's website, is to insert target="_blank", separated from the href by spaces, inside the opening tag, <a >

Thanks Lee, I've copied down the info. I have no idea how I missed that post. :)

Thanks for the info to get started. I am leaning toward rail at this point, since it looks like the places we want to visit are all well-serviced. My only concern is that we will get dumped at a rail station somewhere in the city, and then have a difficult time getting around the the sites we want to see within each city. Because of the carseat issue (we won't have any if we go this route), cabs are going to be out. Are most of these city centers very walkable, given that we will have one stroller, one toddler, and probably lousy weather?

My issue with the train passes is that with small children, it is better to plant oneself in a hotel for several nights at a time, and then take short trips around. Since these passes only allow a few days of travel at a time, and we would need to use rail almost every day, I am thinking that buying the trips separately will save money. Do we save a LOT by buying ahead?

Check out www.seat61.com for all the information you might need for European train tickets or passes. It takes the mystery out of booking trains and ferries across Europe.