Well this trip is over and done with. We left Phoenix on 2 Dec, connected to LH in IAH (Houston) in first class (FF miles
) and arrived in FRA on the 3rd. We took a train from FRA to Munich and it was packed. Not sure if it had something to do with the weather or if it is common to be that crowded. I stood until Augsburg (I think). My GF got a seat on an earlier stop.
We ended up doing Munich (3 nights), Salzburg (2), Rothenburg (2), Nurnberg(2), Wurzburg(1) and Frankfurt(1). We arrived early enough in Frankfurt that we hopped on a train and spent the afternoon seeing Heidelburg. My original itinerary was a bit more efficient (Roth-Muc-Salz-Nurn...) but getting rooms on the weekends for Rothenburg and Salzburg proved difficult so I had to move them to non-weekend dates.
We had a nice snow storm in Rothenburg but it made everything so calm, quiet and peaceful as we were exploring the town and walking along the wall. We would visit a coffee shop to warm up with some tea and pastries.
As we got back to Wurzburg and Frankfurt there was no snow on the ground but during the night (13 Dec) it snowed in Frankfurt several inches although it only caused an hour delay on the flight due to de-icing. Fortunately the flying time was quicker than normal (9:35) to Houston and we made up all the time. We were fortunately to miss some of the travel problems others encountered later in the month.
With no major travel issues, no sicknesses, etc. we had a great time. I'll have to write up a longer trip report and post a link to some photos for those curious.