Planning trip to Bavaria

Subscribed. I too am planning a trip for my family (me, wife, 10 year old son) to that area. We are going to include Salzburg. But I haven't gotten past the initial planning stages. I have a short list of stuff we're going to see: Ludwig's castles, the Berchtesgaden salt mine, stuff like that. I will watch for anything useful about hotels and restaurants and share if I get anything good.

 

OK, got our flights with my wife's miles. Since this is a soccer forum, to put the dates in context, we are leaving the day after the LA Galaxy visit San Jose at Stanford Stadium (game on June 25, we are flying on June 26 and arriving in Munich on June 27), and coming back the day before the Quakes host Dallas (leaving Munich on July 7, coming back for the game on July 8). Bonus points to me for not missing any home games, although jet lag may prevent my wife and kid from enjoying the game the day after we get back.

Now searching the internet for apartments or homes to rent for our time in Munich. Found a site "live-like-a-german.com" which has some vacation rentals available - anyone have any experience with vacation rental sites for Munich and Salzburg? We used a similar system for our trip to Paris a couple of years ago and it was really worthwhile - a little place with a kitchen for us to crash at, close enough to transport to enjoy the city. We may relocate to the countryside for a few days to drive around to the various castles - I will look into the pensions that @White/Blue_since1860 mentioned.

 

OK, I've picked hotels. The process was, go to Google Maps, zoom in on the area that you want to stay, search for hotels, and for each hotel in the area, go to their web site and see if it looks good. My wife nixed the idea of staying in an apartment, she wanted a hotel that got cleaned every day. Apparently my son and I are too grubby to live in an apartment without cleaning for a few days.

We're staying in the Schwabing area of Munich for the first few nights when we arrive, at the Hotel La Maison. Close to the English Gardens, and close enough to the U-bahn that we can get around the city and do the city stuff that we want to do.

After that, we are getting a car and relocating to Bad Tölz, which is south of Munich. Staying at the Hotel Alpenhof. This will be our base of operations for trips to castles and mountains and stuff.

Then, we are relocating to Salzburg, staying at the Hotel Hölle. This is on the outskirts of the city but on the trolley bus line so we can get to the city center without driving, but some of the things we want to see are outside the city so we will still have our car.

Looking for any suggestions about stuff to do. I tend to pick the most touristy places, and then when we go, they are full of tourists and aren't a good representation of the local culture. Example: Neuschwanstein castle. Yet we're still going there, because, you know, it's Neuschwanstein. I expect that we will want to see the following:

In Munich: BMW museum, maybe one of the Pinakothek museums, Marienplatz, Englischer Garten, beer gardens, etc.
Outside of Munich: Neuschwanstein, Herrenchiemsee. Any good mountain walks for a day trip?
In/around Salzburg: Schloss Heilbrunn, Mozart stuff, Berchtesgaden Salzwerk. Maybe the Eagle's Nest, but my wife and kid aren't into that stuff.

 

OK, trip concluded.

A few days in Munich, doing the city things. Our hotel was near the English Gardens, so we could walk to various beer gardens and restaurants. The beer gardens were great - the had a big screen for whatever soccer game was on (Spain-Italy the evening we got there - did not manage to stay awake for England-Iceland which was later that evening), and there was a playground to send our kid to while we feasted.

After a few days, got a car, went to Bad Tölz, which we really enjoyed. We did go down to Lenggries and took the cable car up to Brauneck, and hiked, and stopped at huts for beers and stuff. Very civilized. Hiking in the mountains around here is a project - you have to plan everything and bring all the snacks and stuff - but in the Alps you can just take the cable car up and stop at one of the many restaurants for refreshment. The hotel in Bad Tölz had a pool / spa which was great after a day in the mountains. The hotel and restaurant were surprised to see Americans nearby - in Munich everyone spoke English if we asked, but my limited German was tested in some of the restaurants in Bad Tölz. They were very friendly, and I got to see a couple of Euro 2016 games with the restaurant staff - aside from the Germany game where every restaurant and garden was packed, the restaurants were happy to show games but there weren't that many fans watching e.g. Wales-Belgium.

We went to Salzburg and embarked on the "Disneyland" portion of our trip. My wife didn't like the hotel I picked, so we moved to the Schloss Leopoldskron, site of many "Sound of Music" scenes. Schloss Hellbrunn and the salt mine were very much to my kid's liking, not so much for my wife. Our final night there was at the Augustiner Bräustübl, with beer and snacks and Wales-Portugal in one of the big halls. It was pretty awesome.

My wife wants to go back - we can skip the Salzburg stuff next time, and maybe do some more hiking out of Garmisch-Partenkirchen or something, but she really liked the hotel in Bad Tölz.