Day Trips in and Around Frankfurt

July 28, 2011 11:34 AM

My brother (18) and I (23) are in the Frankfurt area visiting relatives. We're looking for interesting and fun day trips in and around Frankfurt (let's say anywhere within about a 2 hour train ride) for this weekend and next week: museums, festivals, interesting places to grab a drink, cool shops or places/neighborhoods we should just plain walk around and see. We don't have a car so everything needs to be accessible by public transport. Thanks!
posted by smokingmonkey to Travel & Transportation (4 answers total)

Best answer: Take the train, or a KD boat, down the Rhine (north) to Rudesheim, the Party Town of Germany. Take a cable car ride over the vineyards, up to the Germania monument. Don't miss the Medieval Torture Museum, or fail to have drinks in each and every one of Rudesheim's many local wine bars. You can catch trains to Rudesheim from Frankfurt Hauptbanhof, or from the airport. It's about a 45 minute train ride from the airport.
posted by paulsc at 2:55 PM on July 28, 2011

Best answer: With the ICE train, Cologne ist just an hour's ride from Frankfurt and a very nice city for a daytrip.
posted by ironicon at 12:07 AM on July 29, 2011

Best answer: Wiesbaden is a 45 minute train ride away, with mineral baths ("Baden"), some Roman ruins, medieval gate, and wine tasting ("Weinkellerei" or "Weinhaus") or wine bars ("weinstube"). Luckily for you, the drinking age in Deutschland is 18! A little further down the Rhein is Hattenheim, a sleepy little wine village with a neat monastary, Kloster Eberbach. Even further, but still less than two hours, is St. Goar, which has one of the biggest (though not the best condition) castles, Burg Rheinfels.

Don't overlook Frankfurt, though. It has a bad rap, but we had a lovely 36 hours there.
posted by wnissen at 9:04 PM on July 29, 2011

Response by poster: Thanks everyone for the ideas! Yesterday we took a train to Strasbourg in France and checked out one of the bunkers on the Maginot Line. It was really cool, and Strasbourg and the surrounding area is absolutely beautiful! We're going to Frankfurt tomorrow and will probably do one or two of the trips you guys suggested later in the week.
posted by smokingmonkey at 1:17 PM on August 2, 2011