Planning Update – Itinerary Established

We have been working to complete the final touches on the itinerary for this trip.  Since the last update, we have added a few new cities to the itinerary, mainly Prague in the Czech Republic, and Zermatt in Switzerland.  The latest route map and  itinerary for this trip is shown below.  The locations in yellow, italic fonts are the cities that we did not visit on our 2010 trip that was cut short, starting with the last city we visited, Rothenburg, Germany.

We will be taking mostly trains for transportation until we arrive in Nuremberg, where we plan on renting a car before heading to Rothenburg.  This is the main reason for the stop in Nuremberg on the way, specifically to be in a larger German city so it will be easier, and possibly less expensive, to get a rental car for visiting the places in Germany we have listed.  In addition, we are finding that getting to and from Prague, from Munich, Germany, is not the easiest thing to do.  There are no direct trains from Munich, the only direct form of transportation to Prague from Munich is via an express bus.  Since it is almost double in total time duration to take a train to Prague, which is not a very direct route, and about three times as costly, we will be taking our first long European bus ride.  There is direct express bus service from Prague to Nuremberg, and the stopover in Nuremberg gets us closer to Rothenburg than returning from Prague to Munich, which is a second reason for going into Nuremberg.

We will have the rental car for the portion of the trip from Rothenburg, through our last night in Simonswald.  Again, the Route Map shows us going to Freiburg, Germany, which will only be for our rental car drop off point before heading into Strasbourg, France via the train from Freiburg.

We have been doing some research on additional places to visit while in Switzerland, and a lot of recommendations were made to visit Zermatt, which is a small town, mostly known for wintertime skiing, and similar to the USA Ski towns.  Zermatt also offers activities in the Summertime as well. Since it will be mid-October when we are there, it may be a little cooler, so we are hoping for the best.  Zermatt is at the base of the Matterhorn, and there are several cable car lifts (we would call them gondolas in the USA, but I read that gondolas “are in Venice, not Switzerland”.  These cable cars take you to the tops of some of the mountains for spectacular views.   

Here is a link to the main Zermatt/Matterhorn Website, which includes some links to webcams. This website links will open in a new browser window.

Route Map

Itinerary