Hello Everyone!
Looking for thoughts on which city is best to pick up a rental car in Germany after arriving by train from Amsterdam (during the daytime). We would then spend the first nite in this city or close by if there is something more interesting to visit.
For example, maybe train to Koln or Frankfurt, pick up a car, and drive to Heidelberg for the first night (and for some food %26amp; beer of course!). But we are not sure if this is a good idea, can anyone help?!
Or should we pick up the car in the Netherlands??? -- and save on train fare?
We wonder if it%26#39;s best for saving costs %26amp; xtra fees to pick up and drop off a rental car at the SAME location?
This may help:
-We plan to head to the Black forest next for 2 nites, though not sure which towns yet.
-Then spend the next 10 days into Bavaria, to Munich, Berchtesgaden, maybe Salzburg --
-Then drive back to where we picked up the car(?), spend the night, then train back to Amsterdam the next day to fly out.
-We KNOW we would like to drive to see the country and not just train to bigger cities, but not sure if we will really use the car while IN Munich. But will need it to get there and then to Berchesgaden %26amp; Salzburg.
Thank you for any ideas!
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flippergirl,
just some hints from my point of view:
1) there is no special surcharge for one-way rentals if you rent a car with a big car rental company, as long as you rent the car within one country. but it actually does makes a huge difference whether you book in advance via the internet or try the walk-in-rate at an airport or train station. so if you want to rent a car, you should definitely decide before you leave and try to book in advance. me and some guests always made good experiences with sixt http://www.e-sixt.com. one way rentals no problem - let%26#39;s say, renting a car in cologne, dropping it off in munich.
2) within larger cities such as munich, heidelberg you definitely do not need a car. however, judging from your planned route amsterdam-heidelberg-blackforest-munich-southern bavaria... renting a car might be the better option for the second leg of the trip between heidelberg and southern germany.
3) here%26#39;s my suggestion for what you want to see: take a train from amsterdam to cologne. it%26#39;s just a 2.5 hour ride by ICE special train. pay a brief visit to cologne, if you like, maybe spend a night in cologne. rent a car in cologne in advance. choose dropping it off in munich in advance. take the road though the scenic river rhine valley down to heidelberg (approx 4-5 hours), go on to the black forest (approx 2-3 hours form heidelberg), then go to bavaria/berchtesgarden (aproxx 4-5 hours from black forest) and THEN to munich at the end of the trip. spend the nights wherever you want on the way.
drop the car at a rental station in munich since you don%26#39;t need it for the time of your visit to munich. spend your time in munich. then go back from munich to amsterdam by train (7.5 hours).
of course you can take a train between amsterdam and heidelberg and rent the car in heidelberg and then continue. in this case, make sure you take the train route through the river rhine valley which is cheaper, takes about 1.5 hours longer between cologne and heidelberg, but has a lot more to see on the way (scenic river, castles along the way). the same applies if you choose to rent the car in amsterdam and go southbound to heidelberg. i%26#39;ve had guests over to germany a couple of times and they always loved the rhine valley route.
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I want to support Christian%26#39;s view. His idea of renting a car in Cologne seems pretty good to me. Actually, I would recommend to spend a day in Cologne and see the famous Dome and the Chocolate Museum (good fun!). This way, you also get a good experience of the diversity of this country. If you go south to Heidelberg, make sure that you see a bit of the Rhine Valley, even though this means leaving the motorway and taking smaller streets. It%26#39;s well worth it. There is a motorway going south on the west side of the Rhine and one going south on the east side. In your case I would recommend taking the one on the west side, because it%26#39;s a bit more scenic and gives easier access to the Rhine Valley (,whose most scenic part is between Koblenz and Mainz).
Once you are in Heidelberg, everything Christian said sounds very reasonable to me. I would also recommend to visit Munich at the end of your trip and take a train to Amsterdam. That%26#39;s more relaxing than doing the whole tour by car (I would estimate the distance between Munich and Amsterdam as approx. 900 km).
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Once you are in Munich, day trips to Berchtesgaden and/or Salzburg would be easier and cheaper by train. Since you pass within a couple km from Salzburg on your way to Berchtesgaden it might make sense for you to atay the last 1-2 nights in Salzburg, see the city itself as well as Berchtesgaden, than return to Munich and get the night train to Amsterdam (CityNightLine).
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Others have offered good advice. You might like to look at my recent reply to someone wanting to visit Stuttgart about sights in that area. Salzburg old town is a delightful place to stay and a short distance to Bavaria%26#39;s Koenigssee area. There is no need to go through Munich to get there, just drive along the base of the Alps to Salzburg. On the drive from there to Munich stop and see Ludwig II%26#39;s palace at Herrenchiemsee (an island in the large Chiemsee). Then drop your car off in Munich when you arrive to visit this city. The night train back to Amsterdam should give you another day visiting.
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It sounds like a nice trip, but it involves too much driving.
You do not really want a car in Munich - often tough to get in and out of town.
But I think there%26#39;s a good case for having a car in the Black Forest and south of Munich, where the rail lines spread out like spokes from a wheel and east-west movement is difficult by train.
Here%26#39;s what you might do to make it easier:
- Train from Amsterdam to Munich; see city w/o car; pick up car there at end of stay.
- Drive Salzburg, German Alps, Black Forest, Heidelberg, then north toward Amsterdam; drop car in Aachen (or other German border city) and train from there to A%26#39;dam or just drive on to the A%26#39;dam airport and pay the pricey drop-off-in-country-#2 fee.
-Alternatively, you could base yourselves longer in Munich and daytrip by train to the Alpine towns (cheap Bayern Ticket works well from Munich), THEN pick up your car when ready to head west toward the Black Foret.
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First of all, thank you everyone! I%26#39;ve been reading all of the helpful posts and appreciate the above insight.
We searched around some more and found frequent flyer deal so that we can fly into Frankfurt and out of Amsterdam, which will make our trip much easier -- and less driving now to circle back to Amsterdam just to fly home.
We are going to take the train to Munich for the first 4 nights to start the trip so that we can be there for Oktoberfest during the mid-week, as was suggested in the other thread I posted a while back.
Then we will pick up the rental car and head out exploring -- can%26#39;t wait!
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