Germany
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You are currently reading a thread in /trv/ - Travel
You are currently reading a thread in /trv/ - Travel
I'll be staying in Germany for a few days with my bf after attending Wacken Open Air. Where in Germany should we stay considering we've never been before and will only have 2 full days? No car so preferably somewhere close/ easily accessible by train from Hamburg (arriving/ leaving from Hamburg airport).
We're interested in historical sites like castles, ruins, mountains/hiking/ cool nature views, and food. bonus points for non touristy explorable castle ruins/ old military bunkers.
I've been looking into this but it's been difficult trying to decide on a particular city, so suggestions would be helpful.
Will be going in the beginning of August btw.
>>1059657
If you're interested in historical stuff you may visit Lübeck. Not that far from Hamburg and some interesting stuff from the middle ages and the hanseatic league.
>>1059671
Nice looking town but seems to be no cool old castles or mountains.
>>1059694
Yeah its mostly dug up old houses from the hanseatic trade organizations. Gives you good insight in day to day life in that time.
>no mountains
You have to go further down south to see those. Maybe a day trip to saxony (especially Dresden) would be something for your consideration.
>>1059694
There are no mountains in Northern Germany. And relatively little castles as well.
There are more castles in southern Germany but in general all of Germany is full of castles.
One of the best castles in northern Germany is Schwerin Palace. It's only an hour from Hamburg to Schwerin with German high speed train ICE.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwerin_Castle
>>1059718
I think she's looking for a rather medieval type of architecture. I think she should be headed further south
>>1059709
If you want mountains, spend some time in Berchtesgaden / Schönau am Königssee and fly back from Munchen or Salzburg. It's probably some of the best nature Germany has to offer, combined with the Eagles Nest - Hitler's summer home on the Obersalzberg. Meanwhile the Konigssee is a stunning mountain lake offering great boat trips, a beautiful little church and come great gorges to hike.
Alternatively, see if you can make it to Neuschwanstein. It's fairly remote and you'd need a return from Munchen or Stuttgart. It's probably the most beautiful castle in Germany and also one of the best in Europe.
>>1059722
Only slightly more south, Marienburg Castle in Lower Saxony should fit better with American ideas of medieval architecture.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marienburg_Castle_%28Hanover%29
Near Hanover, slightly more then an hour by train from Hamburg
>>1059718
>>1059728
Both look pretty nice, though I prefer the look of the latter castle. Any recommendations for other things to do in those areas? I'm leaning towards going further south for mountains but if I can find somewhere closer to Hamburg interesting enough I'd still go with that to save money not having to buy a separate return ticket.
>>1059726
Thanks for the info, will check trains and tickets for those areas. Seems really appealing.
>>1059912
If mountains and castles aren't that important, you maybe could spend some time at the baltic sea and explore a beautiful part of germany most tourists don't get to see.
>>1059931
Not OP, but I am interested. Care to be more specific on what area's to check out and what you can do there? It's roughly 4,5 to 6 hours driving for me and it looks like a nice short getaway. I'm mostly interested in spending time in nature (hiking, cycling, etc) and on the water. Nice towns and small cities are fun too. Not really into most museums.
>>1059942
Of course, just tell me where you are so I can tell you what is nearby.
>>1059942
Holland. And I consider the entire German shore nearby.
>>1059992
So not the baltic sea but the north sea?
In this case, germany is not that different from Holland. Maybe you could visit one of the east frisian islands, if you're interest in hiking and cycling he less populated ones like Spiekeroog and Baltrum. Both also got very nice old towns to wander around.
>>1059657
>mountains
>close/ easily accessible by train from Hamburg
Unless you are seeing a 5 hours or so train ride to the Harz mountains as easy, Hamburg is one of the worst places for mountains.
The city itself however is really nice, and you can do boat tours through the harbour, which is really impressive, if you like ships.
Other than that, for stuff like nature, I can only think of the coast, or the coastal islands. There are train connections to Sylt for example, or you could just take the high speed boat to Helgoland, directly from Hamburg harbour.
>>1060099
4 or 5 hours by train is fine. I'm considering Heidelberg which is about that distance. I would like to go to Berchtesgaden, but 9+ hours by train is a bit excessive considering I have limited time.
>>1060111
If you are that dead-set on castles, Heidelberg is kinda the obvious option.
but still… 2 days = 48h, and now you gotta sleep somwhere, have 2*5h train rides, add on at least 2h safety for the way back to the airport (german railways can be quite unpunctual), and you are ending up with something like two half days max.
But if you are in the area, there is also some nice hikes (google "Steinernes Meer + Odenwald"), and the neighourghing Mannheim has also some nice historic areas.
How about checking out Wackens message boards for a "mitfahrgelegenheit" to Heidelberg? This way you might save quite a few €, and get some insider tips on stuff to do on the way there.
>>1060117
2 full days, leaving Wacken the 7th and leaving Germany on the 10th.
I will check out those areas for hiking/ historical sites, thanks.
How unreliable are the railways? Can arrival times really be off by more than an hour?
and about the wacken message boards, are you yalking about the German boards or you think I could find that on the English one?
>>1060136
*talking
>>1060136
>How unreliable are the railways?
Generally: They work really well
That one time you really, really need to be on time: You have a storm throwing trees on the tracks, an idiot using the oncoming train for a suicide, a heatwave fucking with the engines cooling system, some soccer hooligans blocking the whole station or any combination thereof.
It always gets solved in one way or the other, but the railways will not refund your plane ticket if you miss the flight, and the airline wont care either, so personally, as someone who rides the german railways a lot, and flies a lot, I would add at least 2 hours of buffer time, for a combination of long cross-country railtrip + intercontinental flight.
>are you yalking about the German boards or you think I could find that on the English one?
I am not too familiar with the wacken boards, but its probably a rather german specific thing. If you ask friendly, and explain your situation/plans, I would guess that no one takes offense in you spekaing english.
>>1060136
Honestly:
If you just have 2 full days, go to Kiel for a night and go back to Hamburg in the evening. Hamburg is a pretty cool city and in doubt you can get a Taxi to the airport.
Spend your money on a nice hotel to relaxe instead of sitting in a train for hours or save the money for a second trip where you actually have time to see stuff.
If you are really keen on castles you would have to go to the Harz region about 250 km south of Hamburg. There you can find a castle or castle ruin or both in every tiny town. And there are lot's of tiny towns close together.
http://www.uncommon-travel-germany.com/travel-to-the-harz.html
http://www.thisisharz.com/castles.html
With a car you could be there in less then 3 hours. Once there you can just go from castle to castle. There is one every 5 km. You could really walk from one to another.
>>1059657
Hamburg is flat as a pancake. If you want castles on mountains, you're in the wrong end of the country.
Do you have much travel experience? Because it sounds like you are severely underestimating things here. If you can't devote at least a solid 3-4 or so days to exploring a region as a minimum, I'd say it's really not worth the time and money you'll waste going back and forth just for what will work out to be less than one freaking day. Castles are out in the countryside, accessible only by infrequent regional trains, and not conveniently right outside of train stations.
Honestly, I recommend just spending the time in Hamburg, it's quite a fun city and there's plenty to see. Or as other anons suggested check out Lübeck, Kiel or somewhere on the coast (warning: Wacken is pretty much in German holiday high season anywhere you go). The lakes and palaces north of Berlin can also be neat, i.e Schwerin and around. >>1060598 Also has some good advice. It's really hills, not mountains at all, but it might suffice. >>1059931 posted a pic of Rügen, which is another option. I still think these are a little far out, but certainly manageable.
With only 2 days, you're just not really going to do justice to what you're looking for, OP. At least, IMHO.
>>1060111
Heidelberg is touristy as hell, I'd avoid it myself. But if you want to cross off 'castle' from your checklist, I guess it'll do.
>>1060117
>german railways can be quite unpunctual
>This is what Germans who've never left Germany like to believe
Unless you're Swiss, shut the eff up. Apart from rare unforeseen circumstances (suicides, storms, hooligans), German trains are generally very reliable.
But otherwise, fair advice. I'd also leave a 2ish hour buffer just so you're not rushing around and can maybe grab a sandwich and eat relaxed.
>>1060598
>castles-of-bavaria-Wernigerode.jpg
This triggers my autism.
Fucking Wernigerode is not in Bavaria. Its not even in Germany proper, but rather in fuckin east Germany.
>>1060640
>>This is what Germans who've never left Germany like to believe
>Unless you're Swiss, shut the eff up. Apart from rare unforeseen circumstances (suicides, storms, hooligans), German trains are generally very reliable.
Just because something is not as shit as other shit, but still shit, doesn't make it good. I am currently in the US, and indeed the German railways are heaven, compared with the US public transport infrastructure or the laughable US airlines ("oh, well, we are going to cancel your flight, and the one after it is delayed by 3 hours. What? you want a phone call or something to drink? Lol, WTF are you on?" - thanks, Delta, i thought you were the least shit one), but still, as you say, "circumstances" can happen, and they WILL happen when you are in a hurry.
A good friend of mine is an "emergency manager" for DB, and the stories he tells…
>>1059657
if you are willing to go all the way to heidelberg, check out marburg's castle along the way. cool place, cool town
>>1060708
Oh, and I totally forgot what I wanted to say, since I went into a rant about Delta:
>Apart from rare unforeseen circumstances
Unfortunately, it are not only those. It is also things like
>winter weather (Oh no, we should have switched on our heating systems for the switches)
>summer weather (yes, we do have AC in our trains, but who would have guessed that it gets warm in summer?)
>lots of passengers (what? where did you all come from? Why are there more people on a friday afternoon all of a sudden?)
>technical problems (What? you have to do maintenance on trains to keep them running? What a strange concept…)
>and so on…
If you know what you are doing (know which trains to avoid, know at which train station you have to run, to switch platforms, know where you have to add 20 minutes, to avoid having to wait for an hour etc), all of this is no problem in 90% of all cases, but if you dont, and you have a bad day, prepare for it to get worse.
>>1059657
I went to Wacken Open Air in 2009. It's an awesome experience, have fun. Wish I was going again.
>>1060708
Nah m8, I know it's popular to hate on DB, but you only remember the times you're late. Your friend's stories perhaps skew your opinions. Shit happens, I've got several horror stories myself. Like when what should have been a 3-hour regional train Hamburg to Hannover ended up taking 7 hours. Delays somewhere in between (pretty sure that was suicide) started us 45 minutes late, then we went super slow, and had to be rerouted to some small village stop, where an entire IC train was dumped out and had to wait for 3 fucking hours until something going our way came. That was another IC train, and when it pulled up everyone of course was like "fuck this, I'm getting on", which caused the conductor to spaz out and he was like "NO" at first. But what could he do against a mob of 100? Especially everyone shouting their angry stories about waiting so long... we all got on at the end, but he was still kind of a dick about it.
But statistically, DB trains are very punctual on the whole. Especially compared to the rest of the world. It's not shit, truly. Appreciate it m8.
