we're considering doing the king ludway walk hike in the beautiful bavarian area including Neuschwanstein Castle
Go to Croatia if you can, Dubrovnik is beautiful and so are the islands just off the coast, I went there a couple of weeks ago and will definitely be back.
Brady it's gotta be said you sound the like most boring young lad since Bill Gates, and he must have been boring. Are you taking a David Attenbrough audio commentary with you on your road trip?
Or a William Hague audio tape, that will be interesting. He keeps saying we anarl, are these imaginary friends?? O/T but Hague's sprinting out of public life pretty quickly isnt he?? Hmmm
100% yes. I love that area. The story behind that castle is intriguing. His mams place is not far away and is all gold, and slightly bonkers as well. Have spent a lot of time in S Germany, love it. There's some Salt Mines, might be more in Austria, that you can tour. Underground lake which you cross on a small boat is pretty fab. The area is REALLY lumpy mind, lots of mountains, though I guess that is obvious! Places in that region like the Eagles Nest are less interesting, for fairly obvious reasons they don't tend to put many Hitler displays up cos they'd end up shrines or something, so going to the top of that to find its just a restaurant was slightly sad, however, fab view.
Start in Holland mate. Get the train through to Arnhem which is a famous town from world war 2. Go and see the bridge where the British so bravely hung on while outnumbered 4:1 from the German soldiers, under the bridge is a little museum and the airborne museum is on the outskirts of the City. (Watch 'a bridge to far' to get a better understanding before you go), Arnhem is close to the border of Germany and you can take a train from there across into Berlin, there's plenty of sites from the war for you to visit while there, including the Luuftwaffe museum. Then from Germany you can continue by train through to Poland where you can visit the Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration camps. Good luck
Can I suggest you go wherever I went on holiday? Judging by the other replies that's always the best place to go.
One of my favourite tours was in '96, started in Haifa, Isreal (where I was working on a Kibbutz) and got a ticket as a 'deck passenger' on a ferry which called in at Cyprus, Rhodes & Crete before docking in Piraeus. Then stayed in Athens, saw the Parthenon & all the ancient Greek sites before getiing the 3-night ship back to Isreal.
I went Inter-railing back in 2000 with 3 friends from work. Jesus - just realised we went 14 years ago tomorrow! As all working, we each saved up approx. £1000 so could afford not do the full student experience and stay in hostels/camp at each place. I think we used hostels in Budapest and Lucern, and a campsite in Perpignon, but tended to stay in cheap 2-star hotels. It wasn't that much when sharing a room between 2/4, but still probably double what a cheap hostel would cost. I would also recommend using Sleeper trains as much as possible as gets you to a destination but saves a nights accommodation. The biggest expense was obviously the Inter-rail pass which cost just over £300 back then for a month's travel and somehow I think we all somehow got student ones. Not sure how much they are these days. You'll definitely need a European train guide and probably a good European guidebook (Lonely Planet - often recommends good, cheap places to stay and best places to visit in each city). I would only plan a basic route as you'll probably change your mind about how long to stay or where to go next. Our route was ferry to Amsterdam, sleeper train to Prague, sleeper to Budapest, Vienna, Sleeper to Mainz, Sleeper to Lake Como, Lucern, Sleeper to Nice (+ Monaco day trip), Perpignon, Barcelona, back to Amsterdam via another sleeper. Stayed in each place approx. 3 days. I would go back to most of the places for a longer stay, but personally Prague was my favourite (cheap beer, nice people, fantastic architecture/history), followed closely by Como (relaxed Italian lifestyle) and Barcelona (Los Ramblos, nightlife, and the stadium tour). Wasn't keen on Perpignon (but I think that was due to some ignorant French people). I hated Budapest - we were there mid-week and the hostel was out of the town centre with a 11pm curfew so absolutely no nightlife (or we didn't find it). I also didn't find it that nice a place in general.
As has been mentioned by a few posts if you don't get as far as auschwitz there is a surprising amount of WW2 museums in Berlin, the holocuast memorial & museum and the topography of terror on the site of Gestapo HQ, with preserved Berlin wall alongside.
