stop over in Frankfurt for 2 days

Bavaria is a state, not a city. Munich is one of the cities there as is Kahl. Kahl is about a 30 min. train ride away from Frankfurt. Thus you can buy a group ticket from Frankfurt to Kahl and then the Bayern ticket which covers the rest of the day in Bavaria.

There is much beauty all over Germany, sometimes it is mountains, sometimes lakes, sometimes rivers, sometime hills, sometimes the cities or towns and there buildings. You might want to get some guide books and look at the photos as well as read up about some of the places that interest you. Those may be very different from what interests me.

Use the Deutsche Bahn website that is posted multiple times on this forum. In fact, if you use the FAQ stickies at the top of the forum, you will get a lot of your questions answered.

If you are interested in Frankfurt, I can of course give you several days worth of things to see and do here and also in the surrounding towns.

If I understand correctly, you have, at most, 2 days to visit. I would stay close to the Frankfurt area--Bavaria (Munich is much too far). The furthest I would go would be Rothenburg ob der Tauber (3 hr train trip). You could get there in the afternoon, take the Nightwatchman's Tour in the evening, spend the night, and leave the next morning. That next day, I would take the train to Bacharach, take a Rhine River cruise from Bacharach to St. Goar. See the ruins in St. Goar. Then because you have a morning flight the next day, I would take the cruise, or train, to Mainz, spend the night there and take the train to the Frankfurt airport in the a.m. Depending on the train times, you might be able to stay in Bacharach--might be too stressed though.

Thank you Jo and Denise. That was very good input for me.. Here are my thoughts after reading your responses.

June 10th: I like to go with Denise's suggestion of going to Rothenburg and start back to Frankfurt the next day morning.

June 11th: Like to spend rest of the day seeing things in Frankfurt and real close vicinity. If possible Rhine river etc.. stay the night in Frankfurt and leave the next day.

Our interests are nature, and to some extent museums exhibiting architecture and history.

Jo: Please suggest us places that we shouldn't miss in Frankfurt.

Thanks,
-Suresh

With kids these places might be interesting:

The Saalburg, a reconstructed Roman fort near Bad Homburg.
http://www.saalburgmuseum.de/english/home_engl.htm

Hessen Park, a large open air museum, also near Bad Homburg.
http://www.hessenpark.de/index.php?id=home

The Antique Tram museum in Frankfurt, where kids can climb around, etc. Grown ups enjoy this one too.
http://www.hsf-ffm.de/index.php?id=64&L=1

For history, consider going to the Judengasse museum, built on the exposed ruins of the Jewish Ghetto, which was occupied from 1462-1810. This is very hands on and all in English. It is located next to the Holocaust Memorial Wall, which if your family is interested in History, will be a site they will remember. Over 12,000 names on this in alphabetical order. They can find Anne Franks name, as well as her sister Margot and their Mother Edith on here

Senckenburg Museum of Natural History
http://www.senckenberg.de/root/index.php?page_id=589

The Communication Museum might also interest them, as well as the Archeology Museum as it has lots of Roman and Celtic artifacts found in Frankfurt.

Go to the neighborhood of Höchst, which has dozens and dozens of half-timbered houses, lining cobblestone streets and all sitting atop the old city wall overlooking the dry moat that surrounds the old schloss. Also located there is the Justinus Church, built in 850, this is one of the finest examples of Carolingen architecture left in Germany. The Höchst Porcelain factory also offers tours.

A visit to the Emperors Hall in the Römer might be of interest. It has oil paintings of all 52 Holy Roman Emperors lining the walls, beginning with Charlemagne in 800. The majority of these Emperors were elected in Frankfurt and the last 10 of them crowned there. Visit the cathedral where this happened.

The Rose and Tealight Festival is happening on that weekend in the Palmengarten.

In Frankfurt, I would suggest the excellent walking tour given by Frankurt on Foot.

Their website also give lots of information on Frankfurt itself.

Thanks Jo for the links to places to see in Frankfurt. We are thinking of going to Durbuy, Belgium, rather than Ruthenburg the first day.

Any tips or suggestions on best way to get to one of these stations:

• Barvaux
• Marloie
• Namur
• Liege

from Frankfurt?

Thanks

Suresh, use this site:

http://bahn.hafas.de/bin/query.exe/en to figure out your train itinerary. It looks like it will take about 4 1/2 to 6 hrs. to get to one of your destinations in Belgium. You won't have much time to see anything at your destination, however, you will see a lot from your train window.

Denise,

I couldn't figure out how much it costs from that. Any pointers on that.

Thanks,
-Suresh