I am going on a 20th Wedding Anniversary trip and we are going to spend our second week of it in Germany. May 6-13. We want to explore the areas where my maternal German ancestors were from. The cities I am able to identify in my genealogical research are Hannover, Baccum (Bakum) Lingen near Ramsel, Oldenburg,Essen and Lohne. Now we will be coming to Koln from Paris (6th)by train so that is the start, and we will be returning to the US from Frankfurt (13)at the end. Does a Rhine River trip, however short, fit here? I would appreciate any recommendations for the best way to use this week? We are open to trains,buses,bikes and walking. I know I may have to scrabble and or backtrack after looking at the map. I have done internet websites seaches & watched videos; this area is not really cover very well except Munster itself. So I decided to turn to this forum for help : )
Stephie
Posted by
Frankfurt am Main, Germany
2779 posts
I think here some out of the box thinking and travel planning is required. You definitely want to visit nearby Bremen (the Schnoor is what the old town part is called there) and you might also want to consider a trip (with a stay over) to one of the great and beautiful islands, e.g. Langeoog or Juist (which is THE most beautiful in this area as they say). On your way from or to Essen you also might want to visit Münster, a great medieval city packed with students. In German the entire area is called "Ostfriesland" and you may find some great videos and pictures on it on the web. Can you do a Rhine river cruise? Put it that way: The bullet ICE train from Cologne to Frankfurt airport takes exactly 60 Minutes. But maybe instead of doing a cruise you could spend a day in Koblenz, take the cable car across the Rhine river up the castle and get a good feeling about what the Rhine river gorge is that way. As to your itinerary: Stay in Cologne for at least one night. Essen itself is not really worth a vist apart from obviously your family history. Stay in Münster for at least one night. Bremen can be done in one day trip. The coast plus island is at least a two-day trip. The InterCity train from Lingen(Ems) to Koblenz takes exactly 3 hours and 30 minutes. You could do that in the AM of your last full day in Germany, then visit Koblenz in the afternoon. In the evening take the train to Mainz (53 minutes by InterCity). It takes the exact same route as the river cruise boats do (well, along the embankment) and is almost as scenic. Stay over in Mainz as from there the S-Bahn into Frankfurt airport only takes 30 minutes...