Beginning to plan

We would like to visit the Alsace region in 2009. One of the reasons is to visit Urbes, a small town where our ancestors emigrated from. We figure this will take one or two days and we will want a car for that trip. However, for the rest of the time, we would like to use public transportation and visit the many little towns in the area. We would probably want to also go into Germany (Black Forest) and Switzerland. We are just beginning planning and I have thousands of questions. I will try to post only a few.

1. Is it better to stay in Strasburg in order to have access to public transportation. Or is Colmar equally good.

2. Could we rent an apartment in either of these cities near public transportation?

3. When would be a good time to come? We want to make sure the roads are passable (no snow or ice); we would like nice weather. But, we don%26#39;t want to visit when it is crowded. I am thinking May or September? Or is June also possible.

4. I assume we would fly to Paris and take the TGV?

5. Would 10 days be a good length of time? We could choose two locations in that time.

We are retired so are flexible as to time and dates.

Thanks in advance. I am sure I will be posting more and more.

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Hi EthelSue,

Public transport is generally pretty good so I would say not to make it a decisive factor in choosing where to stay. Plan the places you want to visit then pick the town you want as a base. You can rent apartments or self catering rooms in most places no trouble.

The peak holiday season in France is from July 14th to the 3rd/4th week of August so i would say avoid these times. May, June and September will all be very nice (although there is a fair chance of some rainy cloudy weather at the end of September.) Even in the middle of winter the roads are passable - bad snow is possible up in the mountains but the Alsace valley doesn%26#39;t really get much.

Look for the best flight deals, Paris is an obvious choice but Zurich would work very well too and if you got a good deal to Frankfurt why not. As all have good train links (less than 3 hours) to Strasbourg and Colmar pick the best price and most convenient route for your flying.

10 Days is fine, but you could easily spend more time in the region. Others will give you plenty of their highlights but here are mine. Driving along the wine route, Spa towns in the Black Forest, driving through the mountains of the Black Forest or the Vosges, Strasbourg, Colmar, Basel and Freiburg for city visits.

Hope this helps, i%26#39;ll look out for your next posts.

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I%26#39;d like to add Baden-Baden to the city trip suggestions, even Heidelberg is only a 90 minutes train ride from Strasbourg away.

A good site for planning trips by public transport:

http://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/e

4. Air France has cheap flights Paris-Strasbourg and, for Colmar, to Basel/Mulhouse.

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