The Bayern Ticket and the Rheinland-Pfalz Tickets, one-day weekday passes for up to 5 people, are just two of several such offers in Germany. Brandenburg/Berlin, Scleswig-Holstein/Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and Niedersachsen also have similar passes.

You should know, however, that these passes are subject to yanking at the discretion of rail authorities — that is, they can be discontinued whenever. A couple years back, they stopped the Rheinland-Pfalz ticket sales on July 1. It wouldn’t surprise me if they discontinued the Niedersachsen Ticket on June 1 with the opening of the Expo 2000 fair in Hanover.

I’m planning to use some of these this summer. I couldn’t get the regional DB office to return my e-mail enquiries about June and July, so a contact of mine spoke with them and was assured that the Rheinland-Pfalz ticket would still be good in these months. I hope that’s good information.

Besides the Schoenes Wochenende ticket, there’s at least one other offer that may be helpful. The "Guten Abend" Ticket lets you ride the fast trains throughout the country to a single destination, no matter how far, after 7 p.m. and until 2 or 3 in the a.m. It’s either 60 or 70 DM per person depending on which fast train you ride, and I understand there is sometimes a 15 DM weekend supplement. Still, this can be cheaper than point-to-point if you’re going long distances. Also, on Saturdays, you can ride after 2 p.m. instead of 7 p.m., which can take you a long way quickly — much further than the S-W ticket.

The 4-day German rail pass is also a good deal for those with long distance travel in mind. It’s about $174 each, $130 each for 2 travelling together, no restrictions on hours or trains.