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My 13yo wants to go to Germany, considering next Easter. We'd be driving so most likely somewhere closer would be better. She said she wanted to visit Munich where we lived when she was a toddler but that might just be too far.
I've been to Bonn with work but I don't know much about what's on offer for tourists at that end of the country. We'd probably be looking for budget hotels (e.g. Ibis in Bonn was giving us £50pn per double room, there are four of us) so I assume that means a city is required.
Probably looking for interesting tourist attractions as well as old towns, if they are interesting/different/fairy-tale enough.
Black Forest is very big, varied and full of interesting stuff.
Lots to do there but not sure what's open at Easter
Frieburg is a good base for the southern bit and is a nice university city (sunniest and warmest city in Germany). You could rent bikes and do the Kaiserstuhlweg 60ish km of flat around lovely areas with lots of cafes en route. Breisach is interesting. The beauty of anywhere near the Rhine is that you can pop over to France for slightly better wine and food, worse beer and disorganised chaos.
Titsee is a very pretty lake
Feldberg an nice big lump to walk up or if there's not much snow you can get a bus most of the way to the top
Further north there are lots of beautiful villages such as Gengenbach. Lots of spa towns too which always have hotels and places to eat.
Pre-covid we often stayed in Gasthofs - they're usually places with great food and simple rooms to stay in.
How do you book a Gasthof? Calling round a load of old ladies who don't speak English to see if they've got rooms is a bit daunting.
To be honest we usually do it for a nights break from the campervan. Many have their own websites or we've found some good ones on Booking.com
Bonn is frightfully dull ( said as a ex Cologne resident).
Hamburg is a happening place - lots to do and see
Berlin is a fantastically interesting city - maybe not the prettiest - but certainly played a define role in last century.
Munich - loved by Germans and tourists alike. But if you don't drink or eat schweinshaxe every meal time, I felt it was bit bland. But a great museum.
As mentioned above , Freiburg in the Black Forest in lovely ( as are quite few of the towns on the German / Swiss border on the Rhine.
Fussen or Garmisch are nice, easy access for a drive to see the mountains.
Stuttgart is a great city. They have Octoberfest which finishes today and a sister festival “Fruhlingsfest” that runs from 16 April through to 08 May. It has beer tents (which are much more family oriented during the day than the Munich ones are) and a massive fairground. The Mercedes museum is great and I’ve heard the Porsche one is too.
Speyer on the Rhein is really nice. Loads of ice cream cafes in the old town, the Technical museum is awesome. We usually stay at the domhoff as it has good family rooms, it’s bang in the centre of town and the food in the attached brewery is really good.
I quite like Frankfurt, though we spend more time in Bad Soden as we e friends there. Opel zoo is brilliant. The open air pool in Königstein is really nice - used to love sitting in there with a beer watching the sun go down over the forest.
Black Forest is nice. We like neustadt but it is definitely a tourist trap. Riding is ok - typically German with 180mm travel weapons being pootled along fire roads. Look out for the rodelbahns and waterparks.
What's she into?
Heidelberg's a very picturesque middle european town to wander around although their National Trust equivalent for the castle itself is a bit rubbish.
Aeroplane? Technik Museum Sinsheim (technik-museum.de) or the Speyer equivalent as above.
As for hotels, etc, we just went with some likely looking ones from tripadvisor type sites. The kids enjoyed the weird german breakfasts with ham and cheese 🙂
I've been to Garmisch Partenkirchen, it's about as far away as possible whilst still being in Germany 🙂 don't want to drive that far.
Nuremberg. Brilliant medieval city with a castle, trips round the underground tunnels and some impressive Nazi architecture a tram ride away. Good sausages too. Oh, and museums.
What's she interested in? I took five school groups to Germany for exchanges and the kids got most out of the activities they were interested in, except shopping, they all loved shopping. They need context, there's no point visiting the Dom in Aachen unles you know something of the history of Europe when it was built, preparation is the key.
Weather is often dismal at Easter, I wouldn't go near the Black Forest, I go to a place with things to do indoors as well as outdoors. And I wouldn't just do Germany. So:
My recommendation is a road trip around Lille, Bruxelles or Liège, Aix la Chapelle, Düsseldorf and Amsterdam with vsits to things she's interested in. That limits driving and gives her a taste of Europe. If you just want to go to one destination then I can't see beyond Berlin. We visited Berlin with junior on a cycle tour when he was a kid, he lives there now.
Another vote for Speyer and the Technik museums. Good position as a stop-off if you do drive to Munich.
I’d vote for Berlin (because I love it as a city), but I’d second Nürnberg as a decent place to go. From there Munich is only a couple of hours away, so you might be able to stretch the trip. I’ve never been to Hamburg, but I have heard the underground techno scene there is the best in the world.
Hamburg techno was (and may still well be) up there in terms of world techno as @willard, says. Of course this might put you off completely!
Nuremberg. Brilliant medieval city with a castle, trips round the underground tunnels and some impressive Nazi architecture a tram ride away. Good sausages too. Oh, and museums.
I was going tk suggest nuernberg, but despite having been there about 40 times I couldn't think of many reasons apart from Playmobilland ( bit old for that) and Palm Beach. If they like water slides then palm beach is a must.
Amazing rock climbing nearby, and nice, but not mind blowing mtb.
( and in case you were wondering why I always go there if I don't have anything to do, the in laws)
Munich – loved by Germans and tourists alike.
The second bit might be true, but I'm pretty sceptical about the first!
I love playMobil Land! It’s so cheap and my kids all love it. It’s like an anti-theme park: cheap, no queues, good food, great shop, good parking. Shame I just can’t get over my preconceptions about playMobil.
DB museum in Nuremberg is really good. It’s sister site in Koblenz not so much.
It really depends how far you are willing to drive and how long you are going for?
You could drive through Belgium and spend a day in Ghent, then perhaps travel onto Aachen with a stop in Hasselt on the way which is also a nice town in Belgium.
My work HQ is in Aachen & nice place to spend some time.
We've done a long weekend at Christmas Market in Duesseldorf & then got the train to Cologne as well.
I have spent quite a bit of time in Dortmund & really like it. Lots to see & do in the city itself, a botanical gardens to to the south with a zoo & TV tower which is always worth a trip to the top of.
Further afield - obviously Berlin is great & I also really like Dresden; a really nice city with a lot of history.
Nuremberg is a good shout & there are tons of lovely destinations not that far away - so it could make a good base. Bamberg is really pretty & worth a day trip - the castle is nice.
Kulmbach is also nice (and has a great beer festival).
Pottenstein is just up the road from Nuremberg & is a lovely small town - the dragon caves are well worth a look - although the same as many of the caves around the UK, really.
I used to live in Helmbrechts (an hour north of Nuremberg) so am probably a bit biased about this area.
I love it round there - so many nice places to see and do.
That region (Hof, Helmbrechts etc. is close to the old east border, and there's a fascinating town with museum (Moedlareuth) that was split overnight by the 'wall'
The second bit might be true, but I’m pretty sceptical about the first!
They all seem to want to live there ...
And support the football team
Ex Munich resident here, as molgrips well knows....
Munich/Bavaria in general is a long way from the western side of the country.
Freiburg/Schwarzwald is a good shout. Maybe Lake Konstanz/Bodensee.... Germany's riviera.
Not got much positive to say about the Rhein cities.... Feels like a massive, overgrown concrete conurbation. And they talk funny.
Helmbrechts.... Great place to stop when travelling between Munich and Berlin as it is pretty much bang in the middle. Nice little lake you can camp at, too.
I'm leaving Germany.
Maybe Lake Konstanz/Bodensee
I kind of wanted to go to Lindau because we spent a weekend there when my wife was heavily pregnant and she loved it. But it's a bit of a long way for an Easter trip. It's 13 odd hours, whereas Aachen is only 8. But it seems like all the other suggestions are not in that area.
I’m leaving Germany.
Where you going?
No idea. Chase the sun? Honestly... no idea. Just had enough of Munich, tbh.
Trier isn't far from Aachen, which is basically in Belgium. Lots of Roman history as it was one of their major towns in the North. Worth a visit. Also just next door to Luxembourg which is great if you're driving thanks to the cheap fuel.
Bonn is a bit boring. Cologne is bigger, but a lot more interesting. Koblenz, to the south of Bonn, is quite 'pretty', small yet still interesting, and has lots of old castles and historical stuff nearby. Good for Rhine boat trips. The Rhine gets steeper sided and more picturesque as you go further south, too. And the cakes are nicer.
I can't add much, but I've been to Dusseldorf a few times and that's a really nice city.
Come to Leipzig!;-)
No seriously it's quite the place to visit these days. You have the old historic city centre, loads of museums (a bike buddy is the director of the natural history museum), the zoo is one of the best in Europe. Then the cafe and bar life is great. Lots of Germans say that Leipzig is a mini Berlin. Then there is the new lake area to the south of the city where you can go swimming, sailing or windsurfing weather depending and there is even a theme park (Belantis) if that's your thing. It's only an hour to Dresden by car and there are alot of historic centres all within an hour's drive (Weimar, Naumburg; Freiburg on the river Saale a huge wine area, Meissen and Erzgibirge Mountains, Saxonny Switzerland). Ryannair are starting flights again from the UK to the local airport.
