Post Cruise Suggestions for 3 Days- Disembarking Kiel and flying from Frankfurt to DTW

[taylortime05]

Hi,

 

We will be disembarking our cruise on Sat, May 4th in Kiel, Germany.  We got an excellent deal on Delta One from Frankfurt to JFK  on Tues, May 7th.  Then we’ll fly JFK to DTW arriving late on Tuesday, May 7th.   We take care of our grand babies a couple of times a week and hubby really wanted to fly home the same day we disembarked to have time to recoup from our vacation before having the grand babies over.  

 

I’m trying to put together an interesting itinerary for the 2 1/2 days we have before we fly home.  I think this will convince hubby to keep our Delta One flights.   

 

Do you have any suggestions on interesting sights between Kiel and Frankfurt?  We’re both retired and not too interested in night life.  We both enjoy historical sites, museums, nice restaurants, hiking, and beautiful sites.   We are also ok with taking small group tours in any of the cities we visit.   

 

I’d really appreciate your feedback.  

 

Thank you!  

[CCJack]

I am assuming you have not been on a Rhine River cruise (such as a 7 day Viking cruise or similar).  If not, I would recommend a day cruise on the Rhine.  There are lots of options, they run some of those boats similar to hop on hop off bus, and you can get on  and off the boats at different places. .   Just make sure you do the stretch with the large concentration of castles.   I think this is the stretch starting in  Rudesheim then going North towards Cologne.   I think this is one of the most beautiful sights in Germany.  

 

 

[Hezu]

I think one interesting area in that part of Germany is Schleswig-Holstein Wadden Sea National Park. One unique element there is group of islands called halligen, which are quite flat and close to sea level, although the buildings (many built in the traditional style) are built in man-made mounds to protect these from the potential storm flood tides. Much of the coastline is also quite shallow and there is even routes that could be used to hike from one island to another during the low tide. Early May would be also great time to observe birds' spring migration if you are interested in that.

[taylortime05]

On 1/23/2024 at 8:20 PM, CCJack said:

I am assuming you have not been on a Rhine River cruise (such as a 7 day Viking cruise or similar).  If not, I would recommend a day cruise on the Rhine.  There are lots of options, they run some of those boats similar to hop on hop off bus, and you can get on  and off the boats at different places. .   Just make sure you do the stretch with the large concentration of castles.   I think this is the stretch starting in  Rudesheim then going North towards Cologne.   I think this is one of the most beautiful sights in Germany.  

 

 

No, we have not been on a Rhine River cruise.  It’s definitely on our bucket list.  Thank you for the great suggestion.  I will definitely check it out. 

[taylortime05]

On 1/24/2024 at 3:10 PM, Hezu said:

I think one interesting area in that part of Germany is Schleswig-Holstein Wadden Sea National Park. One unique element there is group of islands called halligen, which are quite flat and close to sea level, although the buildings (many built in the traditional style) are built in man-made mounds to protect these from the potential storm flood tides. Much of the coastline is also quite shallow and there is even routes that could be used to hike from one island to another during the low tide. Early May would be also great time to observe birds' spring migration if you are interested in that.

Thank you for the great suggestions. I can’t wait until we can plan a more extensive land trip in Europe so we can see more.  This time we only have a few post cruise.  

[Joey_L]

If you like to visit cities I recommend Hamburg, Münster (North Rhine-Westphalia), Düsseldorf and Cologne. They're all between Kiel and Frankfurt with a slight deviation to the west.

[onyx007]

As I live in Switzerland I travel through Germany (our neighbor in the North) a lot (almost every year once) ....

 

Firstly my recommendation is that you should arrive well in time for your flight; if your flight on the 7th is in the morning spend your night already in Frankfurt, if it's in the evening then it's not that important to be near the airport and you can also have an overnight a little be further...

 

I suppose your disembarkation is in the morning, so it really gives you 2 1/2 days...

 

As you like historical sites and museums I second doing the "Rhine Valley" between Cologne and Ruedesheim...

 

Maybe head to Bonn (which was the Capital City of West Germany from around 1948 to beginning of the 90ties, when they went back to Berlin) - Some great Museums there and it's also directly on the river Rhine...it's with the train within 6 hours reachable...

 

So my itinerary for you (which I would do also myself in your shoes)

 

May 4th, take the train to Bonn hbf (6 hours) - if you book in advance through www.bahn.de you might gete some good deals...spend two nights in Bonn 

 

May 5th - visit the museums of Bonn ("Haus der Geschichte" and the Art Museum ) and maybe take also the hop-on-hop-of-bus

 

May 6th - either look if there is a ship from Bonn to Ruedesheim or go by train to Koblenz and take a ship there to Ruedesheim, then depending on your flighttime the next time overnight in Ruedesheim (lovely little village) or carry on by train to Frankfurt