Sunday, December 8, 2013

Help Planning Germany Trip?

So here's what I have so far:
  1. Sept 13 fly to Frankfurt via KEF, Iceland. Breakfast in Iceland (win!) and lunch in Germany (woo!)
  2. Sept 14 is when we land in Frankfurt.
    1. I need a suggestion of a hotel in Frankfurt
    2. I need to know how to get to the train to Dusseldorf that will take us to Berlin
  3. We plan on renting a car in Berlin and heading south.
  4. We already have a hotel booked (and paid for) in Munich for Oktoberfest. So that's 3 days, two nights of 'fest (and you can walk to a castle from our hotel and it has free parking and free SKY TV so...that's cool (TV in English without subtitles).
  5. I'd really like some suggestions on hiking, breweries to see on the way south to Munich.
Flying out of Frankfurt on the 24th of September, it leaves in the afternoon and gets in to Boston for 6:30pm the same day.

Thanks for any help you can provide! For those of you that have been...I'd love to hear from you!

We've rented cars in Europe 4 times before so it's not a big deal to us (only in Scotland where it was a standard and you had to shift with your left hand--yikes).
(photo source, Lonely Planet, click for page)

6 comments:

  1. Sounds fair so far.

    Will you visit Dusseldorf or just go there for the Berlin train?

    Frankfurt train station is easy to find from every downtown hotel. Just avoid those very close to the train station.
    If you plan to do Frankfurt - Berlin directly, take the bus (meinfernbus.de) it saves you much money. You could even take it for Frankfurt - Dusseldorf and Dusseldorf - Berlin.

    SKY TV might be not what you expect. SKY is the German pay TV that shows stuff not shown on Free TV. Of course they have English stuff as well, but it is not an English TV station.

    ON your map, the area between Weimar and Nuremberg offers some nice hiking chances. Check out Thüringer Wald and Erzgebirge.
    The region of Franken / Franconia is famous for breweries.

    If you wanna hike in the Alps, you may consider Chiemsee, Berchtesgaden or Garmisch-Partenkirchen as starting points.

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    1. Hi there...not sure. I think just to catch the Berlin train so maybe stay the night before?? Fantastic, pointers and tips. Thank you so much for responding so quickly! That means a lot! I'll take notes and report back once more of the trip is booked. We're booking the airfare in January...using my Christmas bonus towards the $...it's still less to fly via Iceland which is great for us. I don't really watch TV on vacation...that was kind of a joke. :) :)

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  2. You are welcome!

    Bus takes about six hours, but is very cheap (22 €), train takes three hours, but can cost over 100 €.

    So if you don't wanna visit Dusseldorf (or Cologne?) just go to Berlin directly.

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    1. Yeah, we do want to visit Dusseldorf and Cologne. Good point. Plus, I do enough bus and SLOW train. I typically take our fast train (120mph max) to NYC from Boston. You have been most helpful and you have enhanced my pre-dinner conversation tonight. Thank you so much! We always plan a Sept or October trip in January...habit. Work hard all year for those 10 days of bliss. :)

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  3. List of all active breweries in the state of Bavaria :)
    http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_der_Brauereien_in_Bayern

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    1. ohhhhh my. Right now we're drinking a special 2013 beer (we loved the 2012) that was made in Quebec City. Mmmm.

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