re: 4 Days in Germany - Recommendations Needed!

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Boppard / Koblenz / St. Goar

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These are all closely situated on the Rhine, great area to cruise.

We made Bacharach our home base but visited St. Goar for Rheinfels Castle, and did Boppard for the chair lift up to a great bar/restaurant overlooking a huge bend in the river.

If you choose this area or Bavaria, I can give more detailed recs.

First, Germany is HUGE. Like almost the size of Montana huge. You don't waste what little time you'll have on trains trying to get from A to B. I've been a couple of times but don't feel like I've done squat in terms of seeing the country. We're going to Freiburg in April, so that'd certainly qualify as "quintessential Germany".

Seems like you'd want to concentrate on just one area to go to and immerse yourselves. Where I have been:

Does it get more "quintessential" than Neuschwanstein Castle? Stay in the nearby village of Hohenschwangau?

A close second for us would be Rothenburg.

I haven't been, but Research Monschau?

So many choices, so little time.

if you are trying to stay away from bigger cities, then

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Other cities we were looking at were Dusseldorf, Cologne, Frankfurt, Münster

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i would stay away from these places. düsseldorf and cologne are right next to each other, but the citizens of each city have a chip on their shoulders about the other city. frankfurt is huge and lacks any kind of character. it's like a german houston. haven't been to munster, but it still counts as a big city.

the problem with finding an authentic german town is that most of them were destroyed in the war. the ones that weren't are much further afield - places like quedlinburg and wernigerode in the harz mountains.

lots of people have mentioned strasbourg, which is a solid choice. they also have the "petite france" area that preserves the old medieval feel.

if you are coming from paris, there is a tgv train to stuttgart. that opens up small towns like tuebingen (a small university town, and a place i used to live so that's why i always talk it up!) and heidelberg further north. strasbourg isn't too far from stuttgart. (baden wurtemburg is overlooked as a travel destination in germany IMHO). lots of good advice in this thread, really can't go wrong.

It is awesome; however, it is actually in France, not Germany.

I would also highly recommend Freiburg.

NeuSchwanstein Castle is an awesome visit and a memorable never forget views of Bavaria...