Driving Holiday in Germany. Any tips?

quick questions:

-how much time do you have?
-what are your interests? hiking, arts, medieval history, contemporary architecture, attending a soccer match/opera, wine tasting? it's really difficult to suggest something 'useful' without having the faintest idea of what you would like to do...

1. After looking at all sorts of maps, I like the ones in the Shell Regional Map Series of Germany. These are very large scale (1cm = 1.5km) with 18 maps covering the whole country and others centered on some places. They are available at Shell gas stations and at bookstores. They are all that is really needed to have an excellent vacation, but I would only suggest buying one or two of them because each map will have years' worth of good places to visit. The maps show ALL rural roads; enjoyable scenic towns to visit; churches, monasteries, palaces, castles, and whether these places are intact or are ruins; vista points; scenic drives, rivers and valleys; waterfalls; caves; etc. The better sights are highlighted in yellow if cultural and green if scenic, and the best also have a box around them. I find the rating system agrees fairly well with my own opinions. Even non-highlighted places can be excellent to visit. We've spent many an enjoyable day doing daytrips from out home in Stuttgart using them to go to some place a fair distance away and stopping at many of the places shown on the maps. It's fun, and you frequently stumble across some real hidden gems. A place name booklet which also has maps for the larger cities and their sights is also included. (One thing, if you are visiting churches, a Catholic area of the country is best because the Catholic churches aren't locked, many (probably most) Protestant ones are, and they are usually much more ornate.) These maps simply contain much more information than any guidebook you could purchase.

For driving long distances they're not that easy to use because of the large scale and at first take some time to get used to because you have already passed places that you think should be a ways ahead. You can tell exactly where you are on the maps because they are detailed enough to show all curves in the road, etc. For general planning and driving, a European road atlas or a map of half or entire Germany should be adequate.

1. Two scenic drives I love in the German state of Baden-Wuerttemberg ( www.tourismus-bw.de ) are through the Schwaebische Alb, low limestone mountains with lots of castles and caves ( www.schwaebischealb.de ). The Grosse Lauter River between the Danube and it's source is idyllic, with one of the highest concentrations of castle ruins in Germany and there is Germany's oldest state stables at Marbach (Gomadingen) on the way ( www.gestuet-marbach.de ) where you can visit the magnificent stallions in their stalls and the mares and foals will be out in the fields, and a little past the source is an excellent fairytale-like castle, Schloss Lichtenstein ( www.schloss-lichtenstein.de ). Another idyllic stretch of river is along the upper Danube from Sigmaringen west through the Danube's gorge through the Alb with many castles and palaces perched atop the cliffs, an excellent palace/castle at Sigmaringen ( www.hohenzollern.com ) and the nice monastery at Beuron. Actually, I love just driving any of the back roads shown on the Shell maps through the Alb as the rivers are usually associated with cliffs.

2. Rural places to stay tend to be much cheaper than places in larger cities. Very inexpensive accomodations can often be found by staying in a room in someone's house. For visiting cities, a car is not needed because of the excellent public transportation. Some places may have free parking in cities, but if you have to pay for it, it can be expensive. The car is best for visiting more rural areas where public transportation tends to be poor, and for me the best sights in Germany are in these areas.

Hi Nautiker,
We are very interested in history, and we like walking, but generally not anything too strenuous! You know, low hills with nices views etc, but not real hiking or anything. A football match would usually be on the agenda (for him, not me) but seeing as it will be June (2009), there might not be much on anyway? i think he'll be able sniff out a game or two if desperate anyway! We'd really just like to go to some nice, scenic places, with a bit of countryside and a little old town or something and not hugely busy.

Marcopolko - thankyou! So much detail! Really helpful!

And, Nautiker, we have two weeks!

Sounds like a great trip!

Rather than dealing with stodgy old atlases, I'd invest in a TomTom or other GPS--it will really make things much more simpler, plus it'll alert you to the speed cameras (certain stretches of the autobahn do have speed limits).

Going from Rotterdam to Prague then back to Rotterdam will give you a lot of opportunities to see wonderful parts of Germany. I'd start off first by heading south to Heidelberg (be sure to drive along the weinstraße), then to Rothenburg, then on to Nuremberg, maybe a detour to Regensburg, and from there it's just a 3 hour drive to Prague (but it may be smart to stop in Plzen on the way)!

On the way back I'd go the the more northern route, stopping at Dresden, Leipzig, Weimar, maybe Kassel. That entire trip there is about 20 hours of driving--but it could be a lot to see in two weeks, though you could always spend more days in less destinations. So with that said, yes, it's definitely feasible to go to Prague!

I'm not so sure about the camping aspect, not having done it myself--I'd rather just find an inexpensive hotel with parking, maybe on the outskirts of town near an S-bahn station.

If you do as Washingtonydc suggests, don't miss Wurzburg and Bamberg on the way - two of the most interesting small cities in Germany, and Bamberg in particular is very beautiful - actually much more so than overhyped Heidelberg. If you do the weinstrasse, pop in to see Speyer - it's small but very cute.

Well, I was hoping you would come up with some 'original' interests of yours, you just commented on those I listed. Though this already helps a bit, I'm still uncertain about what you actually want to do - fortunately, there seems to be enough time left to sort this out ;-)

From my experience with this board, most of those who come to Germany are mainly interested in romantic castles, small towns with half-timbered houses etc. Yet alone the size of Germany makes it difficult to build up a route from this alone: After the obvious Middle-Rhine-valley (+Mosel valley), you could take a southern route (towards the Black Forest), a south-eastern route (towards the Allgäu, incl. Neuschwanstein), an eastern route (towards Franconia), another eastern route (towards Thuringia), a north-eastern route (towards the Hatz mountains, with places like Quedlinburg) etc. etc.

I think you're getting the drift now: All these would fit your criteria, yet obviously you cannot even 'cover' half of them in the amount of time given. So do some research and work on your criterias, come back and discuss details and hidden gems.

As a rough guideline, you should plan on staying at least 3 nights in a place/area (unless it's merely a stopover) in order to really appreciate it, or your honeymoon will turn into a hectic whirlwind-tour.

So for the moment, I will return to your original questions:

1. Agree with marcopolko, the Shell maps rank among the best for Germany (as much as I like Michelin maps, I think they're still publishing Germany 1:400.000 only, which is less than ideal for exploring the countryside), yet for a rough planning beforehand, [www.viamichelin.com] is still the best source. Hiking maps (1:25.000-50.000) will be available at local tourist offices/bookshops. Personally, I have a deep mistrust in GPS navigation systems, yet I admit that it's thoroughly irrational.

2. The German Tourist board has established a long list of 'routes' in Germany that link places of interest. Note that sometimes the routes aren't scenic but for the towns.

3. Though physically this could be done, IMO you'll spend too much of your precious time on the road (e.g. Prague back to Rotterdam is nearly 1000kms). Save it for a separate trip (or maybe long-weekend + budget flight).

4. I doubt there's a problem here. Most hotels offer parking (mostly free of charge), navigating smaller towns isn't that difficult and in rural areas, you'll need your car to get to the town centres anyway, so you may just as well stay there. As June is just before school's summer holidays, a lot of places will already be busy, yet not to an extreme. Expect a lot of school-classes on tour (especially Prague).

One last point for now: You state that you want to go by your own car and ferry over. Is there a special reason why you're doing this? A quick glance at the P&O-homepage tells me that the transfer will cost you 500,- Euro at least + 2x800kms travel to/from the harbours, which would be another 200,- Euro in fuel costs. For this money, you could easily get a cheap flight to e.g. Edinburgh-Cologne (Germanwings) or Edinburgh-Hahn (Ryanair), both of which would be ideally located to start your holiday close to the Rhine, and get a rental car. You'll save precious time, too.

Further, in case you consider the rental car, check one-way-rentals (often free of charge when dropping inside one country, hefty charge when dropping in a different country), so you won't have to backtrack too much. Check a page like [www.whichbudget.com] to establish the availability of budget flights to/from places. In case you still want to visit Prague, consider a one-way-rental inside Germany, drop off the car in a place like Nuremberg or Dresden and continue by rail, return to Edinburgh by plane.

Just some ideas.

Thanks everyone. It's a great help! And just reading all this makes me excited! Washingtonydc - thanks for the GPS suggestion, however, we're really not beleivers in GPS, as it seems to take all the fun out of planning your route! Nautiker - I promise you - history (me and him), scenery (me and him) and football (him) are our main interests! We're really very easily pleased, and will usually find somehing interesting or fun wherever we are! We enjoy just 'being' somewhere! Also, we know that it is more expensive to take the car ferry, but the idea for this trip started when my fiance was reminiscing about the trips he took to Europe on the car ferry when he was a little boy, and we both just really wanted to do it (I know, it sounds really geeky), yes, its about £450, but we'll cut costs elsewhere!
Thank you everyone for your suggestions!