After spending Christmas in Salzburg, we completed our trip as follows:
Day 16: Drove from Salzburg east to Arnsdorf, a small village where Franz Gerber worked, the person who wrote the music for Silent Night. Very small and peaceful village; visited the small church where Gerber was the organist. Also a small museum there for him. We could really feel the spirit of the hymn here, much more than at the crowded Xmas eve presentation in nearby Obendorf. Drove to Munich, arriving in the afternoon. Had dinner at the historic Hofbrauhaus which was quite good and enjoyable with the local music even though a lot of tourists there.
Day 17: Visited Dachau concentration camp in the morning and then drove to visit the Steiff museum in Giengen, near Ulm in the afternoon. (My wife is a fan of their stuffed animals.) Dachua was moving even though we didn’t take a tour. The Steiff museum had an enjoyable Disneyland like presentation with electronic animals, persons, etc. telling the story of the company and its stuffed animals (in English for our tour); bought several stuffed animals for our grandchildren from their factory store. They have a large fun play area for children with all types of life sized stuffed animals. Drove to Rothenburg, arriving in the early evening.
Day 18: Spent the day visiting Rothenburg, using Rick’s audio guide. A unique town that really feels like you are living in the middle ages. At this time of the year, not too many tourists; in evening almost no one there and quite pretty with the Xmas lights and decorations. A lot of nice shops for buying souvenirs; the food was very good where we ate dinner. Our room at the Goldener Hirsch hotel had a great view of the beautiful Tauber valley.
Day 19: Drove first to Wertheim and then to Miltenberg, both small, quaint towns on the Main river. Wertheim has a nice castle ruins above it. Also visited their Glass Museum which had a special Xmas presentation of all types of blown glass; their store had some of the best, higher end Xmas ornaments we saw during our trip, several of which we purchased. In Miltenberg, stayed at the Riesen inn, said to be the oldest inn in Germany; had one of our best dinners at their restaurant.
Day 20: Drove to the Marksburg castle on the Rhine river. Nice castle that has retained its middle ages heritage over the years. After visiting it, drove back through the Rhine river valley to Mainz where we spent our last night, departing the next morning to Iceland for New Years eve and day. The weather continued to be nicer than normal, except for the day we left when it was raining quite hard and cold.
Summary: We had a great time; we really enjoyed the Xmas atmosphere of the towns, cities, etc. and less tourists during this time of year. We were fortunate to have almost spring like weather, esp. since we drove a lot in the countryside. It took a lot of time to put together the itinerary for the trip; we tried to include a number of local tourist stops in addition to the usual ones which international tourists groups visit. We found that traveling via a rental car allowed us to visit a lot of places we couldn’t otherwise visit, including surprise stops along the way, and I believe it saved us time to visit more places during our limited time there.