Travel from Rothenburg to Frankfurt

We? For a better assessment, you should specify how many people.

It will depend on whether you can get Sparpreis tickets online from the German Rail website for the minimum price (from €19 for less than 250 km). Those tickets start at €19 for the first traveler, €10 for each additional co-traveler (up to 5 people, total). The tickets are limited in quantity and do sell out. When they do, the next tier is €29 first person, €20 next four. The Sparpreis tickets allow (require) you to travel from Würzburg to Frankfurt on an express train (ICE/IC/EC). The ticket is date and train specific and non-refundable, but that shouldn't be a problem since you will already be in Germany. The trip by express train takes 2½-3 hrs.

If you can live with the specific train requirements, and can get the tickets at the first tier price of €19/€10, this is the way to go.

If you miss out on the first tier prices, it will be less expensive, albeit slower (3½ hr) to take regional trains and use a Bayern-Ticket (€28 for all of you) to Kahl am Main, the last stop in Bavaria, and a local RMV ticket from Kahl to Frankfurt (Hbf or Flughafen, wherever you are going) for €7,15 per person.

Lee, thanks for details. Its my wife and I. The hotel clerk in Rothenburg has emailed to me to buy tickets there for better price(?). It can't be better than what you have given.

Lee, one more question. The train schedule shows trains leaving say 4pm on. Are there any earlier trains? Thanks, Arvind

I have no idea what the hotel clerk thinks he means. Obviously, if you can get the Sparpreis tickets online now for €29 (€19 + €10), you can't do any better over there. And, since those tickets are limited in quantity and do sell out at the lowest price tiers, you might not do as well if you wait until you get there.

As far as full fare tickets, the price you see on the Bahn site is the same as you would pay over there at a counter, but no better (although, for express trains, if you purchase online from the Bahn, you can get reservations at half the price, when you buy them with the ticket).

Or, he might know that US resellers, like RailEurope mark up their tickets over the full fare price in Germany. Or, he might be thinking of the Bayern-Ticket which you might as well get over there.

One caveat with the Bayern-Ticket. You will need to get local tickets for the part from Kahl to Frankfurt. If there is still a counter at the Bahnhof in Rothenburg, you can purchase them there, before you leave, and they should be the same €7,15 price as on the RMV website. (I have never tried this). There might also be a red/white/blue
Bahn automat now at the Bahnhof. You could use it to get tickets, those automats sell tickets from anywhere to anywhere, but they are tedious to use. Failing all this, if you have a few minutes in Würzburg they have a ticket counter (Reisezentrum), and you could buy the Kahl-Frankfurt tickets there. If all else fails, you might be able to by them from the conductor, but possible at a higher price. Finally, you could get off the train in Kahl and use the automat or counter (if there is one) there, but the next train is in an hour.

The train schedule shows trains leaving say 4pm on.

What schedule? The Bahn shows the first train out of Rothenburg at 4:45 AM! You aren't trying to get to the Frankfurt airport for a morning flight, are you? In that case you really might want to use an ICE.

Also, be aware that although you can use a Bayern-Ticket as early as you want on a weekend day, they are restricted to after 9 AM workdays.

In Dec, I did it by train. It took maybe 3 hours. I got my info from the DB website.

Ops, I just assumed this was on a workday. There is another regional pass, the Schönes-Wochenende-Ticket, which is valid on weekends all across Germany regardless of state boundaries. It costs €37, but you would not have to have the local RMV tickets. With the S-W-T you can start any time, as early as you want after midnight.