Overall a wonderful trip.

Germany | Aug 20 - Sep 4, 2025

The first few days we felt were a little rushed with city/hotel changes and early morning trains. This led us to cancel one of our scheduled tours due to fatigue and pouring rain in Zurich. After we arrived in Munich on day 5 the pace slowed to be more manageable. Still our bus trip to Linderhof and Neuschwanstein felt very rushed. I would have liked to have spent more time at both locations. Pedro our guide for that trip was very good but to keep the tour on time we left 3 people at Linderhof. I was concerned about making it back to the bus in time at Neuschwanstein, so I missed visiting the castle and waited in town while my husband went. It was probably a good decision as we left another passenger there.

Our 2 private tours in Munich were excellent. Kevin took us on a walking "Beer and Bites" tour which we both enjoyed. Max took us to Berchtesgaden and Eagles Nest. Both tours were well paced, and we enjoyed discussing history with both guides. We had some confusion with our guide in Nuremburg. He did not have our name and was looking for another customer and our paperwork said we would be meeting "Kevin" at our hotel. After some discussion between us and the hotel staff we realized that Bastien had booked both the hotel and the tour for us and we were his client for the day. Charlie was also an excellent guide and included some YouTube videos in his car to help give context to some of the WWII sites we visited.

Each of the hotels we stayed in were comfortable. Hotel Beausite in Interlocken was very picturesque and appeared quite old on the outside. The interior was clean, modern and very comfortable. Our room at Hotel Cocoon in Munich was huge and included 1 1/2 baths, sauna and large seating area in the room. The hotel in Nuremburg was next to the market area and an easy walk to the historic area.

I was a little concerned about having a rental car, but my husband did the driving. We had no problems finding parking and navigating from one city to the next. We did have difficulty finding the car rental return location in Frankfurt. The address was shown at the train station but was behind construction barriers. We had to circle a few blocks before final spotting a sign on the fourth floor of a parking garage near the station.

Overall, our trip was fabulous! We have joked that we were touring Europe one mistake at a time. Fortunately, the mistakes were minor and easily corrected. We quickly learned to navigate the public transportation in each city and were even able to add a side trip to Dachau while we were in Munich.