Guten Time-Of-Day, FTers,

I've been curious about visiting Lübeck for its marzipan and Hanseatic League history and Wuppertal for its monorail. How would teutophiles recommend I combine these two into a visit with Neuschwanstein and Munich Airport? Let's say I had a week to toy with.

Danke,
TBS (dba BuildingMyBento)

Hmmm... a bit tricky, seeing Lübeck and Neuschwanstein are at opposite ends of the country. You'd be spending a lot of your time in transit....

You mention Munich Airport but not Munich itself. Did you want to visit the city as well, or are you just visiting the airport? (On business?)

I guess if you're not planning on spending time in Munich, and all you're going to do in Wuppertal is ride the Schwebebahn, then it's quite do-able. You really want to spend a day or two in Lübeck - it may be small, but there is so much to see, and so much history.

Lübeck is definitively worth a visit. If you need more information, I am happy to assist you, since my parents have been living there for more then 20 years.

You can fly into Hamburg, see the MiniaturWunderland and the harbor there. Then it’s easy to go to Lübeck by train.

Next from Lübeck to Wuppertal will take you around 4 – 5 hours by train. I would recommend to just do the monorail-ride there and skip the rest of Wuppertal and continue to Cologne for an overnight stay.

Continue from Cologne direction Munich by train along the Rhine river and see the castles there (caution, do not take the fast train, which does not go along the Rhine).

Stay in Munich and visit Neuschwanstein in a day trip from Munich.

Are you going to drive? Because the marzipan factory is outside the city, and I'm not sure you can take a bus to get there.

They have freshly made marzipan at the factory store right outside the factory. Last time we were there they just took out freshly made marzipan sticks coated with dark chocolate. I don't like marzipan but that was Mr. nacho's favourite and he definitely wouldn't mind going there again.

The FACTORY is... but the place that people generally visit is the shop in the centre of town, next to the town hall. And yes, you can get to the factory by bus is that's where you want to go... but I'm not really sure if it's worth going all that way (it's on an industrial estate in a not-very-attractive part of town)

Both are interesting places to visit... but that would be cramming even more into a short visit!

Perhaps we should wait to hear more about the OP's itinerary and other commitments in Germany before we go into detail on travel logistics. For example, if he arrives at FRA on his Translatlantic flight then it might almost make more sense to take the train from there rather than fly to HAM. And we don't know if whatever commitment he has at Munich Airport (unless he is just going plane spotting?) is at the beginning or the end of his trip.

The marzipan is the regular shop is not freshly made as the one from factory shop - it's the usual same thing you get from any shop. It depends on how much you value freshly made marzipan

Last time we got our chocolate sticks they were lukewarm

Thank you everyone for your replies!

Aviatrix-- I've been to Munich before, but not to the airport. I'm an airport-enthusiast (surely, an FT first) and that's a major one I haven't flown into/out of. As long as domestic flights use the same terminal as international ones, I'd do a MUC-anywhere close to Wuppertal/Luebeck.

rotanes-- Hamburg, oh, that should be on the list too! I don't need to see a theme park, but I've been wanting to go since the missed opportunity of EK's JFK-HAM 5th freedom. Is it filled with canals?

nacho-- no car, I'm a public transit buff too. Aviatrix mentioned one can reach the marzipan factory by bus, even though it's not in the greatest of areas, but that's no matter to me, I really like marzipan. Sadly, I didn't try the Toledo (Spanish) version...but Luebeck is the German epicenter for that stuff, right?

Also, so Wuppertal is no great shakes, save for the monorail? Why is that? Besides the Koeln Cathedral, why is that more suggested than Wuppertal?

If you really like factory fresh marzipan then you should visit the factory outlet - locals go there because it's the place to get freshly made marzipan. Niederegger is the best of all of them according to Mr. Nacho.

You can see some reviews here: http://www.qype.com/place/77602-Nied...erkauf-Luebeck

Go there early - we always go there as our first stop after getting off the ferry from Denmark/Sweden. Mr. Nacho has a sweet smile on his face when he walk out of the factory shop and tasted the marzipan

The area is industrial - but then again why would they have a factory in the city centre. There is a Niederegger cafe in the city too but the price is not the same and again things are not as fresh - it's more touristy.

Niederegger's specialty in Mr. Nacho's opinion is the mixture of dark chocolate and marzipan. The toledo version is more shaped marzipan where as the Niederegger ones are coated with dark chocolate.

Hamburg is nice as a big city with a nice lake and canals. I like Bremen more because the buildings are more impressive.

Koeln is a nice city, with long pedestrian street and the cathedral is really impressive, Bonn is nice too, especially if you like Haribo. We went to the factory shop in Bad Godesberg and Mr. Nacho had the sweetest smile - more than our 3 kids He said he had never seen such a wide selection of pick your own winegums and they were so fresh!

For travel between Munich and Lübeck flying makes a lot of sense, especially if you are at Munich Airport already.

Wuppertal is less than an hour from DUS, so flying MUC-DUS is a reasonable way of getting from Munich to Wuppertal (though you wouldn't save an awful lot of time over the train journey).

For travelling between Lübeck and Wuppertal, however, the train is really the only sensible option as flying would take longer!

Taking the bus to the marzipan factory is easy - No 7 or No 15, journey time about 20 minutes.

When I saw the movie "Der Krieger und Die Kaiserin" I wanted to visit Wuppertal. So one of my friends from Essen took me there. Unfortunately the Schwebebahn was not running that day due to repair work. And I have't been back. There's a picture of a circus elephant jumping out of one of the cars into the river below. My friend said the elephant actually survived the fall. I believe it was built at the end of the 19th century in the Kaiserreich. Now that's the power of German engineering, baby!

I would not call the Miniaturwunderland a theme park. It is an indoor model railway (the largest in the world) and has its own (model) airport, which is really exciting. Have a look at the videos you will find in youtube.

EK doesn't fly anymore JFK-HAM, but UA has a nonstop flight EWR-HAM. If you want to go to Lübeck, HAM will be the closest airport.

Wuppertal is essentially an industrial town, so there's not really a lot to see there other than the Schwebebahn. There's some old architecture, but a lot of it is newer build. I went to Wuppertal I think four times during the two years I lived in Germany, all of them because I had a meeting at one of our sites there. Cologne, on the other hand, I visited frequently to be a tourist.

However, if you are into archeology and paleoanthropology, the Neanderthal skeleton was discovered not far from Wuppertal and there is quite a well-done museum very close to the site, outside of Mettmann. If you have an afternoon to spare, it's worth thinking about.

It's not a theme park because you can't ride on anything, but it is because you're there for a model airport and model railway. I'll pass.

I know that EK hasn't plied that route for a few years now, hence lamenting about not taking it earlier. As for Luebeck, does the airport have any intra-Germany flights, or is the Wuppertal-Lubeck train the best way to go? I'd be keen to check off German airlines too (already logged Lufthansa).

Danke, everyone

TBS

That's the one, Niederegger! You can get it in NYC for sure, but I'd want to try the fresh one of course. Is that by far the largest marzipan manufacturer, or does Lubeck have a whole bunch of 'em?

The Luebeck airport has about 2 - 4 flights per day... all international.

If you want to fly Luebeck-Wuppertal, you have to do HAM-DUS or HAM-CGN, but both will take longer in total compared with the train Luebeck-Wuppertal.

There are a few direct trains with a travel time of ~4.5h. You can try to search at http://www.bahn.com/i/view/USA/en/index.shtml