Hello Germany experts,

My husband, 5-year-old son and I are looking to take advantage of one of the military space A flights into Ramstein AFB (near Kaiserslautern) later in the spring. Need your help and advice on a good place to use as a touring base and what are some of the must-visit/must see areas in the Rhineland? We are hoping to spend about a week there and will be renting a car.

Many thanks for your help and suggestions!

The Ramstein Inn is very nice and is connected to the large PX facility, and has access to several restaurants and a bakery. That might suit your needs quite well.

If you have a week, you definitely want to do a cruise up the Rhine river on one of the cruise lines (you can sail from Bingen, about one hour drive from Ramstein). http://www.kdrhine.com/

You would also be somewhat close to the town of Heidelberg, with it's castle. This would be another day trip.

This base is also about 40 mins-1 hour from the French border and about 2 1/2 hours from Luxembourg City. Bastogne is about 3 hours away, if you or your hubby are WWII buffs.

If you want to spend more time close to the Rhine river, you may want to base yourselves out of Mainz, Bingen or even Koblenz. Koblenz is where the Rhine and Mosel rivers meet, and you could take an interesting drive along the winding river roads through the wine towns of the Mosel.

The Rhineland is normally Bonn, Cologne, D�sseldorf area about 250km north of Rammstein.

So what area do you mean by Rhineland?

In case you mean the Rammstein area. This is a interesting trip.
Maginot Line in France/Alsace
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maginot_Line
http://www.lignemaginot.com/menu10/indexen.htm
You can visit some of the old bunkers which are quite extensive. Even in summer you will need a jacket inside the bunker.

@caspritz78 - isn't that area called Rheinland-Pfalz?

if you want, you could come to Strasbourg for a day or two - it's lovely, and not really far away!

From a tourist perspective, I think the Rhineland, i.e. Rhineland-Pfalz as appealing or more so, than North Rhine-Westphalia to which Caspritz78 refers.

Picking up on Etch5895's suggestion, a nice Rhine cruise on the KD Line from Bingen to St. Goar or Boppard is a lovely way to spend a day - you can get lunch on the boat or, for better food and more options, in St. Goar or Boppard.

A slightly less appealing, but perhaps more cost effective approach would be to drive up the Rhine Gorge.

If you are interested in Cathedral cities, Mainz, Worms, and Speyer all have pretty spectacular cathedrals, and aren't so far as Cologne.

From Ramstein, IMO the obvious place to stay is Heidelberg. Mainz would also be fun and is probably less touristed and less expensive. Another idea is the spa casino town of Wiesbaden. Bingen is on the Mosel, not the Rhine, although I very much like the drive through Mosel villages. On the Rhine, Rudesheim is a nice major wine village, but it can be crowded with tourists on weekends. If you have a car, you might want to do the Romantic Road.

If you mean the more northern area of the Rhine, I would try to stay in Bonn, in the old city or within walking distance of the train station. Koln is also a possibility, although the Hotel am Dom is expensive for what it is and I don't really know what else is right in the old city. From here, you could do a day trip to Aachen by train easily.

To make it more clear. The state of Rhineland-Palatine (in German Rheinland-Pfalz) does consist of two major regions: The southern part of the Rhineland and the Palatine (Pfalz) in the south. Kaiserslautern belongs to the Palatine part and not the Rhineland.

If you talk with Germans about the Rhineland they mean the northern part of the Rhineland which belongs to Northrhine - Westfalia and consists of Bonn, Cologne and D�sseldorf. So if you ask a German where the Rhineland is he will tell you it is around Cologne. The part which belongs to Rhineland-Palatine is normally known as the Rhine valley (Gorge), Rheinhessen (which has nothing to do with the state of Hessen) or the Rheingau (Which is on the other siden of the Rhein across Rheinhessen but actually does belong to Hessen).

And yes You want to go where? is right that the Rhine Valley (Gorge) is definitely the nicer part of the rhine. The norther Rhineland is besides the large cities not very interesting. There is a lot of industry and further north located is the Ruhrpott with its coal and steel indsutry.

Take another look at the map... Bingen is on the Rhine river, just on the other side of Rüdesheim, but definitely not on the Mosel.

Right on.
One of the great little towns on the mid Rhine region.

I think Koln makes a good base if you want a larger city with more stuff going on.

From 3 years living in Landstuhl, and two return visits since, our top 3 for within driving distance:

Trier- Porta Nigra
Heidelberg- castle and alt stadt
Any village in between- off the traditional, well-worn tourist path

One can also hit a hat trick of countries in one day; we would take visiting family to Belgium for breakfast, Luxembourg for lunch, then hit dessert in France on the way home.

Not sure what your plan on overnight housing is, and yes the mega-AF Inn at RSN is ginormous and attached to the mall, complete with Taco Bell and the Class Six, but our favorites have been the Jugendherbergen in Deutschland- the Youth Hostels. Very family friendly, not as harsh on the wallet as other hotels. Spartan accommodations, yes, but a richer experience.

Hi, you have a car, that is great to get around. I guess you like to get away from the base a bit, get some other culture and views. I don�t know where you like to stay budget wise, but here comes a treat, especially for your son.
Go to Bacharach, a small town at the Rhine, close to the Loreley. Overlooking the village, the Rhine and the hills, there is an old castle, 12th century. This is now a German Youth Hostel, open all year and has also nice family rooms. It is good budget, like a huge museum, great fun for children, good to get on a Rhine boat trip and close to Bingen, Mainz, Koblenz, and the Mosel River.
Search for Burg Stahleck on wikipedia, it has images and the link to the place.

Trier is a beautiful city and well worth the visit if you are in the area. It's very popular with tourists since it has a rich Roman history. If you decide to go to Trier, I would suggest a drive along the Mosel river to see some of the beautiul little towns like Bernkastel-Kues, Traben Trarbach and Cochem. One of my favorite places is the city of Luxembourg that i would also recommend to anyone visiting the general area.