Originally Posted by
SunshineStay
I will assume that you don't want to do everything within this year's 12-14 days trip. Otherwise it doesn't really make much sense.
First some general hints:
- Frankfurt has Germany's largest airport, so it is easiest to reach as all major carriers will have direct connections to FRA.
- Munich has Germany's 2nd biggest airports, so your chances of getting there by direct connection are pretty high.
- With the new airport opening this year, Berlin will be far easier to reach than in the past, especially if you want a direct connection from the United States.
- Nuremberg has one of the smaller airports in Germany, so you will have a stopover, same goes for Cologne.
Since you don't want to drive and want to see much, I would definitely advise on using trains. This is by far the most time-efficient (and probably money-efficient) thing to do. You might want to look into the various discount options for German rail. A BahnCard 25 (giving you 25% discount on all train tickets for EUR59) would be a sure bet for you.
As for the itinerary and your mention of Cologne:
Yes, Cologne is nice and certainly worth a visit, but if you start from Berlin, there's no easy route to include it except by flying there from Berlin or Munich, but since you want to avoid domestic flights, may I suggest that you include Cologne in one of your next trips and then choose a more western itinerary including Bonn, Koblenz, Bingen, Mainz, Heidelberg and so forth.
The mentioned itinerary of Berlin-Dresden-Leipzig-Bamberg-Nuremberg-Munich-Salzburg has the advantage of relatively short train rides (never more than 2-3 hours), which enables you to see more of the different cities.
However let me add to one of your last post, that there are far better christmas markets than Berlin has to offer. Also depending on where you arrive, it might make sense to add Frankfurt and Mainz to your itinerary as both have very nice christmas markets in their respective oldtown quarters.
Thanks,
SunshineStay!
We went on a week-long 'market tour' last December. Started/ended in FRA, included Mainz, Wurzburg, Rotenburg, Nuremberg, Munich, Salzburg, Triberg (? - Black Forest). I told my sister at the time that we were really in 'Bavaria', not Germany (according to some people). This is an easy time of year to get vacation time, fares are usually OK, and my sister is all about Christmas (her birthday). We'll probably be doing something similar every year (at least for a while), so your information on Cologne is good - we'll save it for another trip.
If the dates work out, we may try to be in Frankfurt for the bells - they were magical. Our trip isn't just about the markets, and this time we really did want to include Berlin and Salzburg and we are probably (lot of reasons) likely to fly into FRA. Last year's trip was great, but we knew ahead of time we would be spending some long hours on the road. This year, we'd like to cut that down a bit. It sounds like we're beginning to get a handle on a (?) more eastern itinerary, and that's great. Now I have to spend a bit of time trying to guess in advance which flights we'll likely take. That will enable us to fine-tune the itinerary.
I started out thinking we would want to be 'center-oriented', ie, stay 3-4 places during the two weeks, doing day-trips from each location - didn't want to be traveling and changing rooms every night this time.
I'm not ruling out internal flights,
etch5895's information is really helpful in that regard. I was envisioning LCC's (Ryanair) and didn't want to go that route. Looks like we have other options.
It isn't just about the markets. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I've been to Munich before the market and enjoyed my visit - when we were there last year (one day), it really was all about the market - it's hard to see beyond that. We saw FRA both 'before' and 'during' the market last year and enjoyed both views immensely (and the Christmas bells most of all!).
BTW, thanks for help and suggestions everyone! I'm starting this months ahead of time so we will have plenty of time to research, ask questions, more research, more questions, and final commitments (more questions, I'm sure!) I hope other posters and lurkers will find the information in this thread helpful in their travels.