etch5895

Cologne is a fantastic city and the view of the cathedral coming out of the train station will literally take your breath away and forge a memory. I don't know what their Christmas market scene is like, but the city itself is one of my favorites.

By low cost flights I'm not referring to carriers such as Ryanair or Easyjet that fly into obscure airports. Lufthansa, Germanwings and Air Berlin all do a good job of German internal flights to the main airports. Düsseldorf, Cologne, Hamburg, Nürnberg, Munich, Dresden, Leipzig, Stuttgart, Berlin, Frankfurt, Hannover, Bremen airports all have train or streetcar stations directly at the airports and all are part of their local transportation zones. (I'm not sure about Salzburg airport, and Prague has a bus from the airport to one of the train stations). Something you may want to look into, although if you had a Eurail pass it might be a moot point. For short distances, the train might make more sense, but the train from Munich to Berlin or Hamburg is going to take in the neighborhood of 5-6 hours or more, even on the ICE trains. That would be an hour flight.