Bavaria Christmas Trip 2016

[saintpeter48]

Looking for advice for a 2 night stay in Bavaria, visit Christmas markets, shopping etc, probably for about 10 people, planning it already for next Christmas! Any advice would be great, thankyou. (I saw a feature on BBCs 'The One Show' a couple of weeks ago and it looked great)

[Buenchico]

So we can look at possible travel routes (and hence at specific towns or cities for your stay, close to your arrival airport), it would help to know which departure airport(s) would suit you best. (i.e it's not much use us suggesting a town or city in Bavaria to visit if it's only served by flights from Aberdeen and you live in Plymouth!)

[saintpeter48]

I live in Southampton, it would be great to fly out from there, or Bournemouth would be suitable also.

[Buenchico]

That's complicated things straight away!

The airports in Bavaria are Munich, Nuremberg, Memmingen and Augsburg.

Augsburg no longer handles scheduled flights. Nuremberg is only served by direct flights from the UK by Ryanair, out of Stansted. The same applies to Memmingen. Munich is served by BA from Heathrow, easyJet from Edinburgh, Gatwick, Luton and Stansted, FlyBe from Cardiff, Lufthansa from Heathrow, Gatwick and Manchester, plus Singapore Airlines from Manchester.

Although it's not in Bavaria, Frankfurt is close enough to be considered as well. It's served by BA from Heathrow and London City, and by Lufthansa from Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Heathrow, London City and Manchester. (Frankfurt's 'other' airport, Hahn, is probably less well-placed for getting to Bavaria, and it's only served by Ryanair from Stansted anyway).

Salzburg Airport is another possibility, as it's only just over the border from Bavaria. It's served by BA from Gatwick, Heathrow and Glasgow, Jet2 from Edinburgh, Leeds/Bradford and Manchester, Monarch from Birmingham and Gatwick (but both are 'seasonal only', so there might not be flights in December), Ryanair from Stansted, plus Thomas Cook from Gatwick and Manchester (again, 'seasonal only').

Looking at it the other way round, there are no flights to Germany (or Austria) from Bournemouth. The only flights to Germany from Southampton are to Hamburg and Dusseldorf, which are both on the opposite side of the country to Bavaria. There are no flights to Salzburg and (despite the destination still being shown on the Southampton Airport website) it seems that Austrian Airlines have discontinued their flights to Innsbruck (which might also have been a possibility).

So it seems that, unless you're prepared to take connecting flights, you'll need to travel to a London airport as your departure point. If you'll be travelling by road, Gatwick might be best (as it's reasonably accessible and has budget airlines operating to Munich and possibly Salzburg). If you'll be using public transport then Heathrow might be better (as you can take a train to Woking and then the Rail-Air coach to the airport) but that then means that you'll be stuck with using 'full fare' airlines.

Any preferences?

[jno]

beware of Germans not accepting your credit card; quite a lot don't take Visa or Mastercard.

[Buenchico]

Some further thoughts:

With about 10 people, it would be reasonably economical to pay for a minibus (+ driver) to get you to/from Gatwick. That would allow you to use easyJet to fly to Munich cheaply, where you'd find no shortage of Christmas markets
http://www.muenchen.de/rathaus/home_en/Tourist-Office/Events/Christmas/Weitere-CM_e
with the 'Original' being the one not to be missed:
http://www.muenchen.de/rathaus/home_en/Tourist-Office/Events/Christmas

Here's the city's official tourism website (with information about accommodation, attractions, etc):
http://www.muenchen.de/int/en/tourism.html

Information about getting into the city, from the airport, can be found here:
http://www.munich-airport.de/en/consumer/anab/index.jsp

If you want to visit neighbouring towns or cities by public transport, you can check train services here:
http://www.bahn.com/i/view/GBR/en/index.shtml

[zebo]

Rothenburg ob der Tauber is lovely if a bit out of the area. We flew into Baden Baden and it's about a 3 hour drive. It's also easy to visit other spots like Wurzburg and Dinkesbuhl from Rothenburg.

[Canary42]

Incidentally, you can get a train direct from Southampton to Gatwick (Southern service, Southampton to London Victoria).

[Buenchico]

Thanks, Canary42.

I should have known that!

So easyJet from Gatwick to Munich definitely seems to be the best option then.