Germany Trip in September.. need input

[rootrider]

after years of dreaming.. I now have tickets to fly to Germany in September. I'll be there for 10 days... September 5th - 15th. I fly into & out of Frankfurt am Main

required stops & areas to see:
-~1.5 days at the ring (the night of the 8th, and all of the 9th)
-the vw & porsche museums
-the coast
-the alps (thinking of dipping south into Austria.. maybe seeing Salzburg.. don't know?)
-I'd like to ride a train out to one place and back if possible.. feel free to suggest locations
-anyone have any personal suggestions for a place to stay over night while at the ring?

I need ideas for stops and routes to take between the different areas, and for places to see along the coast, alps, eastern & western Germany, etc. The more ideas I have from people here the better.

I already have a friend picking me up from the airport.

I will be renting a car for the time I'm there. The goal is to see as much of the country as possible.. with a pretty good mix of cities & countryside (less of the cities though). I prefer to see the countryside more. I will spend plenty of time on the Autobahn, but I also will be taking a lot of back roads to see the small towns and scenery.

The overriding goal in this is to come back with lots of photos. (see http://www.fakelag.net/gallery/v/pnw/ for an idea of what I'm talking about.)

I'm mostly looking for thoughts on places/areas to check out and possible routes to take. The biggest question I have right now is how to best maximize my time and driving from September 6 - 8 without doubling back too many times. I'm not trying to be cheap, but I also don't want to waste fuel and time for no good reason.

Besides the route planning that still needs to be done (and all the sights that need to be seen along the way), I still need to finalize details for my time at the ring. I also still need to determine where I'll rent a car from, where I'm staying some of the nights, and so on.

Start tossing out ideas and thoughts.

oh.. and just because:
"germany" here




I'll update this thread along the way..

[MXM]

You couldn't make it a week earlier?

[rootrider]

non-refundable tickets... already purchased

I had to be sure to be at work around the 1st of the month anyway.. that's when we get our monthly shipment of servers

[MXM]

Well, I meant you could have planned ahead, we had the meet-thread up for ages

Also, Merc museum isn't far from Porsche's, and is well worth a visit.

[rootrider]

yeah.. I will happily check out other museums if time permits.

I know, I should have asked around for anything going on first, but I had to base the time of my trip off of work more than anything. This is how it worked out

[DanRoM]

For landscape, you can try the the Moselle river valley, perhaps visit the very nice and very old city of Trier along the way. Some awesome landscape there. The Moselle river is just south of the 'Ring, so it's not that big a detour on the way to Stuttgart where the Porsche and Mercedes museums are.

[MXM]

Btw, when you'll be going from the ring to Stuttgart, I highly recommend taking the little roads along the Rhine instead of a highway. Un-dee recommended them to me when I was doing my first trip, and the scenery was amazing. I went from Koblenz to Rüdesheim along roads 9 and 42 (google maps numbering), taking the ferry to the other side half way through.



EDIT: Oh wait, DanRoM suggested some other route already for the same part of your trip.

[rootrider]

awesome information.. thanks MXM. This is the sort of thing I'm looking for.. suggested routes and things to see.

[DanRoM]

I wasn't more specific before because it's not exactly my home area there... but anyway, just looking at the map, I come up with the following:

Leaving the 'Ring, you could take the B257 and B259 towards Cochem, and then the B49 and B53 along the Moselle towards Trier. Visit some vine yards along the way. From Trier to Stuttgart, my suggestion is to take the A1 and A62 to Pirmasens and then B10, B427, A65 and A8 to Stuttgart, via Karlsruhe. Plenty of nice little villages along the road. If you want to save time, simply take the A1, A62, A6 and A81 to Stuttgart.

Perhaps some of the other Germans are more at home there - I'm afraid unless you are into old industrial sites, the Ruhr Area where I live doesn't have much to offer to an American on a road trip.

[SMN]

Btw, when you'll be going from the ring to Stuttgart, I highly recommend taking the little roads along the Rhine instead of a highway. Un-dee recommended them to me when I was doing my first trip, and the scenery was amazing. I went from Koblenz to Rüdesheim along roads 9 and 42 (google maps numbering), taking the ferry to the other side half way through.



EDIT: Oh wait, DanRoM suggested some other route already for the same part of your trip.

Yeah, I ride my bike daily on these roads and they never get boring. You will come across the Loreley aswell and many many old castles (like this) and nice little villages along the rhine on these two roads (9 or 42).
September though... could be bad weather...
If you already are on these roads -they will lead you to Wiesbaden or better Mainz (my home town) which is a pretty nice city for tourists. Beautiful old city center, lots of cool cafés, bars and so on and much culture (roman ruins, the cathedral, etc...). It's not just because I live there .

Other nice areas/places:
Eifel
Allgäu
Erzgebirge
Odenwald
Schwarzwald
Taunus
Heidelberg <- very nice
Idar Oberstein
Trier
uh I could go on and on, sorry

[Suedschleife]

Ok, so my itinerary for you looks something like this, I will try to flesh it out more when I have time:

5th Arrival in Frankfurt (what time?), if you arrive early leave for Wolfsburg and the VW museum , otherwise catch some sleep.

6th, After VW museum drive up to Wilhelmshaven (or Hamburg if you prefer), a wonderful small coastal town right at the biggest intertidal zone in the world, the Wadden Sea. Do some Mudflat hiking, be careful not to drown


7th, Drive along the scenic coast through Eastern Frisia, take some pictures at the beach (no vacation is complete without one) or visit one of the many Quaking bogs.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3060/...1057d8.jpg?v=0

8th, Make your way to Cologne or straight to the Ring, either through the Netherlands or the Ruhrgebiet (the latter not being very picturesque imho).


9th, Ring

10th, Drive through Eifel and wine country around Trier in the Mosel valley.

11th, If you liked the Eifel region around the Ring, go to the Black forest region, otherwise proceed to the Alps.

12th, Alps

13th Munich maybe? Or go towards Stuttgart already and visit Burg Hohenzollern


14th, Stuttgart, Porsche and M-B museum.

15th, return flight

[rootrider]

Ok, so my itinerary for you looks something like this

thanks.. I'll look at this later and let you know what I think.

fyi.. I arrive on the morning of the 5th.. and leave about the same time on the 15th

I, of course, do plan on spending some time in the alps.. I may slip into Austria and check out the Salzburg area as well.

[D-Fence]

Btw, when you'll be going from the ring to Stuttgart, I highly recommend taking the little roads along the Rhine instead of a highway. Un-dee recommended them to me when I was doing my first trip, and the scenery was amazing. I went from Koblenz to Rüdesheim along roads 9 and 42 (google maps numbering), taking the ferry to the other side half way through.



EDIT: Oh wait, DanRoM suggested some other route already for the same part of your trip.

Please be advised: this is not a shadow. It's an oil spill .



And rootrider, when you are in cologne, be sure to give Sued and me a shout so we can meet up

[DenDens]

this is an excellent thread for me, because im going to be in germany in august!!

we are renting a car from europcar to drive around, and one of the alfas from RSR (http://rsrnurburg.com/index.php?opti...id=5&Itemid=26) at the 'ring...

Cant wait!

[rootrider]

has anyone ever used SIXT for their car hires? They are the only company with an option for a stick shift & diesel on their site...

[D-Fence]

this is an excellent thread for me, because im going to be in germany in august!!

we are renting a car from europcar to drive around, and one of the alfas from RSR (http://rsrnurburg.com/index.php?opti...id=5&Itemid=26) at the 'ring...

Cant wait!

End of August, RINGMEET! http://forums.finalgear.com/finalgea...-august-35799/


@ root:

I can't imagine others not having manual diesels...what car are you looking at?

[rootrider]

Ok, so my itinerary for you looks something like this, I will try to flesh it out more when I have time:

okay, so now that I've looked at all of this on a map I see that you don't really have anything east of munich, frankfurt, and wolfsburg. Is there any thing people might usually see that's east of frankfurt?

[rootrider]

I can't imagine others not having manual diesels...what car are you looking at?

yeah, I don't doubt that most rental companies have manual diesels.. but their web sites make it impossible to ensure that I would get one. If there is an option, most sites make you check a box to 'request a manual'.. at least sixt has it the other way around where you have to 'request an automatic'

[klankymen]

okay, so now that I've looked at all of this on a map I see that you don't really have anything east of munich, frankfurt, and wolfsburg. Is there any thing people might usually see that's east of frankfurt?

There's no reason to go east of this line:

[Buba]

I lol'd hard...

Rootrider, I 2nd Suedschleifes trip planning, and don't go east. Not that much to see compared to other parts od Germany...