Roughly like the best city public transit system you ever saw. There’s at least one train an hour between most major cities in Germany and frequent regional and local trains between smaller places. Use the German rail system website http://reiseauskunft… for schedules anywhere in Europe and to price tickets for trains in Germany (or that start or end in Germany). You can price tickets for French trains at www.sncf.com You can compare the prices you find to various railpasses. If you can commit to purchasing the tickets in advance from the rail company websites you might find specials that are cheaper than using a railpass. If you don’t want to buy non-refundable tickets that far in advance, then a railpass that covers France and Germany (or a railpass for each) will probably be cheaper than buying regular fare tickets.

I would strongly recommend train for most of your city to city travel. I would recommend renting a car for a day or two in Normandy — driving was surprisingly easy although driving is pretty much full time for one of you and navigating/“spotting” (looking for signs, intersections, parking, etc.) will be full-time for the other. “The memorial” in Caen, the cemetery at Colleville sur mer, the museum about the artificial harbor at Arromanches and the battlements at Longues “can’t miss,” IMO. There are several well mapped and signed self-guided driving tours of the D-Day beaches. We picked the things we most wanted to see from 3 of them and developed our own “tour.” Caen is an easy place to start — good train connections to Paris and the car rental places are right across the street from the train station.

We travel to Europe all the time and always use a Eurail pass. This allows you to get on and off the trains as much as you like,and depending on which pass you purchase, it can be used in 21 countries.
You travel 1st class, and dont have the hassell of driving etc. I would suggest that you check out their website www.eurail.com
If you would like more info please let us know.

Uh, we’re budget travelers here. Most of us prefer “cheaper” to the fairly minimal convenience of using a railpass. A railpass is great for some itineraries, but in many cases it’s a waste of money — particularly if you’re not willing to spend a fair amount of time figuring out which railpass is best. A rail pass will often be a waste of money if you have a set itinerary in Germany and can advance purchase tickets. A railpass that covers Eastern Europe usually means you’re paying Western prices for much cheaper Eastern trains.

A railpass is more convenient than point to point tickets in some situations. However if you choose to take trains that require reservations, the convenience factor pretty much disappears. In Italy, where you’re almost sure to end up on some trains that require reservations, I think it’s more convenient NOT to use a railpass. It’s fast and easy to buy a ticket with reservation from the kiosk. Buying “just a reservation” to use with your railpass may mean hours of waiting in line.

Also, for most trains, 1st class is a huge waste of money — 1 1/2 times the price of second class for a very small improvement in overall comfort. The reason eurail passes for adults are 1st class only is because it’s one way the eurail system can get a few people into the 1st class cars — Europeans almost never pay the extra for 1st class.

Well,pardon us. Guess we are not so experienced as you. As for no difference in standards, between 1st and 2nd class, one must question your odservations.
As for cost we use our pass all the time, and after each trip,add up the cost of normal travel and eurail, I can assure you that we always come out Thousands of dollars in front. It appears that unless everyone has the same opinion as you ,then everyone elses ideas are wrong. These people asked for other ideas and these were ours. They are still the easiest and quickest form of travel, especially if these people wanted to go to other countries. And Iam very dissapointed as to your comment about everyone being budget travellers…..well for your information, we save lots of money and time doing it the way that suits us!!
PS This coming trip will be our 22nd backpacking trip to Europe, and always have used eurail…. Guess that doesnt count in your eyes.

Thank you for your suggestions so far. I guess I just need to figure out how many days we will be traveling by train??

Any ideas on a itinerary? We are open to flying into one city and out the other.
My only concern in we want to visit Munich and the time we are going I think Octoberfest may running. We want to go the last 2 weeks of September. When would you suggest booking hotel accomodations for that? And what hotels do you suggest? Will it be insanly busy?
Thanks!

I can’t image thousands of dollars if you’re comparing to 2nd class and to the actual price you’d pay for tickets in Europe as opposed to the highly inflated prices you get from the railpass websites. I’ve certainly had railpasses that save money, but $300 in actual savings (over the actual prices as opposed to inflated prices)on a whirlwind trip through several countries was the absolute top,

A railpass is probably not going to save money right now for travel in Germany since there are so many specials available from bahn.de. It may be more convenient and will be more flexible.

Aparently I didnt explain the savings in a simple enough form. We always buy a 2 month global pass. When doing the maths, we add up the total cost of all train fares that we would purchase at a station and then compare to the cost of the eurail pass. And guess what….. the savings over this period are in the thousands!!And you dont pay reservation fees for all trains.

Hi Gernay2010. September will be insane in Munich during the time leading up to,including and for a period after. We would recommend you book your accomodation as far out as possible to avoid missing out. A couple of towns I would highly recommend are St Goar on the Rhein,Lubeck in the north and Berlin. If you travel by train you will see many locations which are worth seeing. Please dont try to do to much in such a short period of time.Enjoy the towns you do visit. if you rush all the time you wont do any place justice and you will get very tired very qucickly.
Cheers

So are you saying it would be cheaper to just buy point to point tickets? How do you exactly use the bahn.de website?
Thanks again for your helpl

If you are only staying in Germany, I would compare the prices of a German rail pass,Eurail and point to point costs. You can get the details from Eurail.com and other tickets from the german rail site. I dont think 2 weeks is long enough, so if you can stay longer i certainly would. It is a long way togo and a lot of money as well. Hope this helps you. Cheers

As initially stated: IF you’re willing to commit to exact days and times a few weeks in advance and are fairly flexible about the time of day you travel you will probably save money with point to point tickets. This will take some work and planning and if that isn’t what you want to do you should probably buy a railpass.

I use bahn.de from this link: http://reiseauskunft… Just fill in your cities, dates and approximate times and then look at the prices. Choose what works best for you and buy the tickets on-line — pick an option that doesn’t require mailing the ticket to you: ticketless, print your own, print at the kiosk at the train station. If you can’t find specials that work for you, then you’ll probably want to do some further investigation of a railpass. A railpass will probably save money over regular fares if you don’t find specials and/or don’t want to buy tickets for exact dates and times that far in advance.