Fun way to spend a few days in Bavaria or Hessen or Baden-Wurtenburg?

Question

So, I'm looking for something romantic to do with my girlfriend in Germany for a few days. Due to circumstances involving work for the both of us, we will only be able to be together from the 3rd to the 5th. I'm looking for something for both of us to do that doesn't involve too much traveling (time constraints).

Does anybody have any advice regarding Nuremburg or Frankfurt? I'm looking around the Hessen or Bayern/Bavaria areas.

We've done a lot of traveling together, but more of the touristy sight-seeing stuff, and less of the exploring one city and actually just sort of 'living' there and enjoying it... Please help! We're both American so this is difficult!

Answer 1

Stephen gave you a great list of answers, but I have to say that the most romantic thing to do, in my opinion, is to spend a few days just lazily on the Rhine or Mosel River.  Good Food, Good Wine, beautiful medieval towns and all the romance of the german soul are here.  This is the romantic heart of Germany for me.  I'd base myself in Bacharach, St. Goar, or Boppard am Rhein, or in Bernkastel-Kues, Piesport, or any of a dozen other towns an der Mosel.  Mosel has bicycle paths if the wether is warm enough.  

If you are into youth hostels - the obvious choice is Burg Stahlek in Bacharach - in a castle overlooking the beautiful Rhine.  

If you do want to do some sightseeing there are castles, and expecially Burg Eltz (on the Mosel but near the Rhine so as to be done as a day trip easily) and the ruins of Burg Rhinefels.  

I don't think there is a better place to spend some time romantically in Germany.

Answer 2

I'm from Bavaria. Just one thing, leave your skiing equipment at home. Doesn't look like we'd get snow right now. It's pretty cold here, like -10 celsius in the night and -3 during the day, but sunshine all around. Best thing you could do is visiting the bigger cities and do some sightseeing. Nuremburg castle is worth a visit, and I'd also recommend Nürnberg, as we spell it, for cheap accomodation. You can buy a "Bayernticket" (a regional ticket from German Railways, Deutsche Bahn, that allows you to travel on slow trains for a whole day for up to five people) and have a day trip to Munich. Considering your time constraints, that's about the best thing you can do.

Answer 3

My answer assumes a base of Frankfurt and a car (but, all but the Rhine and Mosel river tours could be done by train).  The roads I refer to (A5) are the autobahn routes, or national highways (e.g., B27).  But if you are training, the Frankfurt Hbf (main train station) is in the middle of the city and easy to navigate to all of these places with regular schedules.  

BAD HOMBURG:  very close, north of Frankfurt.  Probably just a few minutes drive north.   It Has a casino and spa.  It's a great spa.  Spas in Europe are a great experience (and adventure), if you're not cripplingly modest.  Really.  Spas in Europe are nothing like anything you've experienced in America, and it's very close and accessible from Frankfurt, and I think would definitely fit the "romantic" bill.  You don't have to sign up for special treatments, etc.  Just go and pay the general admission and have fun.  http://www.kur-royal.de/

BADEN-BADEN:  since I'm talking about spas.  It's south of Frankfurt off of A5 (autobahn that runs N-S through Frankfurt) about 2-3 hours drive. It's regarded as one of the premier destinations in all of Europe. Definitely go there if you get a chance.   They have 2 main spas (Caracalla or Roman-Irish, located next to each other in town, but distinctly different...if you go to the roman one, your girlfriend should get the horse-brush massage, but I suggest you skip it unless you want some hairy man rubbing your naked body with a big soapy horse brush...every guy I know who was duped into it, including me, regretted it...every woman I've known really loved it.  fair warning.), Then check into your hotel, peruse the great scenery outside of the casino (Kurhaus), hit the casino for an hour or so (you need jacket/tie in most european casinos) and then hit the other spa on the next day before you head back to Frankfurt http://www.baden-baden.de/

There's also a neat castle ruins up on a hilltop outside of the city..go see that.  If you really feel like splurging, check out the worldfamous Brenner's park hotel and spa.  That's a weekend in and of itself, so do Baden-Baden if time allows, as it's probably the most romantic of places near Frankfurt.

HEIDELBURG (on the way to Baden-Baden):  tourist town/college town, but cool to see and plenty of fun bars for nightlife. Probably an hour south on A5 (straight shot).  It has a top German University there, so there's tons of nightlife.  The city center is pretty neat and there's a great castle.  You'll have to walk out on one of the bridges over the river to get a great view and photo and they do guided tours of the castle in English.  

WORMS:  Not too much here, but world famous Lutheran history with Martin Luther (no, not where he did his theses, but where he was called to account for them and ordered to retract them by the catholic church at the Diet of Worms in the 1500s).  (oh yeah, I was raised Lutheran, so it was interesting to me) Very awesome church to see in town, too.  I think it's from 10th century or some time close.  Also a pretty decent outdoor shopping district (though not worth driving to for just that, by any means, but something to do for an hour after you see the church and find the Martin Luther statue).  Just something to do if you have a half day and are driving, not training...probably be about 30-40 minutes from frankfurt. It also has the oldest Jewish Temple in Germany.  Take A5 south and continue on A67 when you get to Darmstadt area.  Take exit 9 of A67 and follow B47 into the city.

Do you like Christmas and/or midieval cities?  ROTHENBURG:    I'd say 2 hours or so from Frankfurt (East).   It's a medieval city, almost perfectly preserved, complete with wall and ramparts surrounding the city that you can walk.  It has the world famous Kathe-Wolfgart Christmas store, so find that near the town square.  There's a pretty cool torture museum with a comprehensive collection of punishment devices from the middle ages.  Don't miss that if you go; and it's not gross, just factual presentation of the way things were.  You'll probably only see Japanese and Americans in the whole city, so it's probably the single biggest tourist town in all of Germany, but don't let that prevent you from going.  It's also considered a stop on the "romantic road," so you can do some research on that if you want to include other stops.  I usually just left really early on saturday morning to see rothenburg and then headed home in the evening, but there's a lot of hotels there as well.  You'll take A3 east past Wurzburg and then A7 south to Rothenburg O.D.T (full name is Rothenburg Ob Der Tauber).

WIESBADEN:  Also a neat city.  I think it's the Beverly Hills of Germany.  They have a casino, a great hotel (Nassauer Hof) and some good restaurants and even a spa.  easy, easy drive and/or train trip from Frankfurt.  

The Best for Last (In my opinion).  RHINE AND MOSEL RIVERS CASTLES:  This is probably my favorite day (or 2 day) trip.  And definitely romantic.  Start of the trip is probably 20 minutes from Frankfurt in Rudesheim (even Rudesheim would be great to see if you were in a train and looking for a quick day trip) (West, and then you'll head NW)  Very great scenery, definitely road trip (can't do it in a train effectively), and you see incredible castles that most tourists would never dream of seeing.  If you start really early in the morning, you can do it all in a day, or you can do it more relaxed and stay overnight in Cochem or somewhere else for a night and continue to Trier for an added bonus (Trier is worth it for a day trip on it's own).  Here's my itinerary that I did probably 3 or 4 times in Germany:

-Take A60 West (you'll probably have to jump on A67 south from Frankfurt to link up with it) until you get to Bingen and watch for B9...you'll take that North, which I think is the only way you can go.  At this point, you'll be on the west side of the Rhine river.  You'll see tons of castles and vineyards, and altogether just a great drive.

-Stop at Rheinstein castle just past Bingen.  You should be able to buy a castle guide there for the rest of the river if you want (if you stopped at all of the castles on both sides of the river, it would probably take you a couple of days).

-Continue up B9 to St. Goar, and just past St. Goar is the Rheinfels Castle ruins (top 10 castle in the world according to Rick Steve, I think).  You can also do the underground tunnels there if you want.  Stop there for sure.  After that, you have some choice.  If you want to see Koblenz you'll have to modify this itinerary to plan for an overnight stop either there or south of it along the Mosel river in Cochem.  For purposes of this, I'll assume you'll skip Koblenz

-Continue on B9 and follow it north of St. Goar to Boppard.  It gets very tricky here, so pay attention to the roads and be prepared to do some map navigation.

-Find the road west from Boppard toward Buchholz.

-Just after you cross over the A61 (which you do not want to take), you'll turn right (north) onto B327 (dir: Koblenz), which is before you actually get to Buchholz.

-about 4 KM north on B327, you'll turn left (west) toward Noertershausen (if that's even marked, but you should see where I'm talking about on the map).  Follow that to Alken and find the Thurant castle (it should be on the map as well).  It's just a neat, two tower castle that's fun to go see.

-After the castle, cross the bridge toward Lof (you're crossing the Mosel river now) and turn left (south) onto B416.

-Follow B416 south to Hatzenport where you should see direction signs to Burg Eltz (castle Eltz).  My favorite castle in Germany.  It's a bit of a winding, confusing drive from there, but stick with it and you'll be rewarded.  http://www.burg-eltz.de/e_index.html

-Along that road, you can stop in the small towns and find the "Weingut" houses...people who make wine.  If they have a sign on the house, you can generally sample (probieren...not sure if I spelled it right).  One that I particularly like is in the town of Muden.  On Gorrestrasse 7 is the Weingut Dehen winery.  Ring the bell down by the garage and someone will come and let you taste...if you do this, you aren't required to buy, but it's general courtesy to buy a few bottles.  Buy a case if you really like it (that stuff is 3 to 10 euros a bottle there....$20-30 a bottle in the U.S.).  Do some research on ripeness markings on the label and how to read a german bottle, or ask the proprietor and he'll explain dry, half-dry, and sweet).

-Ok, almost done...Continue to Cochem.  Cool town.  Walk around for a while and go to the castle there as well.  Also in Cochem is a cellar store when you first turn to start heading up the hill toward the castle.  You can try (for a small fee) and buy some great examples of wine from the region.

-Now find your way home.  It's best to plan it out on the map, remembering that most of these roads are small and windy, so the shortest way isn't always the fastest.  I usually just continued south for a while and crossed the river just past the town of "Kaimt" onto B421 east.  Stay on that to B50/E42 east and eventually link up with A61, which you can take over to Bingen and connect with the A60 again.  If you have more time, or stayed overnight, you can continue on the road and hit Bernkastel and Trier.

For Romantic, some GREAT restaurants, if your budget allows:  one of the best restaurants I've been to (ever, anywhere) is the Marcobrunn, in Eltville between Wiesbaden and Rudesheim.  here's their link if you're interested:  http://www.rma.de/eng-rmaweb/freizeit/re...

It's incredibly expensive and fancy, but worthwhile for a special occasion...definitely need a reservation.  Another top restaurant is in Wiesbaden across from the casino in the Nassauer-Hof Hotel.  It's called the Ente. (http://www.nassauer-hof.de/go/ente)  Same story about cost and being fancy, but not quite as much.  Both have incredible menus and some of the best wine lists you'll ever see...enlist the help of the sommelier for suggestions instead of randomly picking something (just tell him your budget for wine, taste preferences if any, and he should be able to offer something pretty great at both of those restaurants)  If you go to the Marcobrunn, the menus (at least when we went) changed often and were hand written and tough to understand (think fancy restaurant speak...but in German.  Definitely not in my German vocabulary yet)...so don't be afraid to ask them to translate...Sorry for the ranting, but I love both of those restaurants and both are within 45 minutes of Frankfurt.  Just another warning, though....by expensive I mean expensive as in you could easily spend 300+ euro at Marcobrunn for two (including a great and memorable wine, though...probably about 150-200 without a top wine) and probably about 150-200 euro for two at the Ente (100 or less w/o top wine)...For service, atmosphere, presentation, and food quality, the Marcobrunn is worth every penny.

***EDIT:  As much as I love the Mosel-Rhine tours, it just occurred to me that many of those places may not be open in the winter.  Definitely conduct due diligence before taking my advice on that trip (I only went in Spring-Fall).

-Also, seeing a show at the Frankfurt Opera  (Oper Frankfurt) is a great experience.  www.oper-frankfurt.com