Tours Characteristics
Tours Characteristics |
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Similarities, Differences, Features |
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How to Choose? We now offer many tours, some similar to each other, some quite different. All of our tours are different from most of those offered by others. This page is intended to explain the unique characteristics of our tours and to help you choose between them. It is divided into several major sections: |
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The Bavarian Castles Tour (King Ludwig II's Castles and the Bavarian Lakes) is the most popular tour, and usually the one which repeat participants took first. It features inside visits at Germany's most famous tourist attractions, lots of castles and palaces, and a wide variety of other features in beautiful Bavaria ranging from medieval towns to a cable car ride to the top of Mount Zugspitze. The castles are mostly much newer than on the other tours, are generally glitzier and in better shape, but less historically significant. Efficient accommodation arrangements allow this to be the least expensive tour. Detailed tour description page
The Christmas Markets Tour ( King Ludwig II's Castles and the Bavarian Christmas Markets) is an early-December Christmas version of the Bavarian Castles itinerary. The same visits to Ludwig's castles are included, but a visit to Innsbruck in Austria and time to explore the Christmas markets there and in Munich, Oberammergau, Bad Tolz*, Fussen* and Kempten replace the excursions to Zugspitze and Lake Constance. Detailed tour description page * If your are puzzled by our spellings, please see the insiders' note on Spelling below.
The River Castles Tour (The German Rivers Rhine, Moselle, Neckar and Main and their Castles) is the most focused on castles, and features the oldest ones (and some very old ruins). The vineyards of the Rhine and Moselle valleys are the scenic backdrop, and cruising on the Rhine is the unique transportation experience on this tour. Most travelers on this tour developed an interest in castles and an appreciation for Astrid's approach to touring on the Bavarian tour. Detailed tour description page |
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Kids and Castles Tour (The Best of German Castles and Towns) is the one tour designed specifically for families with children. It combines the castle highlights of the Bavarian and Rivers Castles Tours and adds a few features specifically for kids. The tour begins in the Rhine Gorge and includes four castle highlights from the Rivers Tour in that region. As the tour moves south it stops at a zoo and at Legoland Germany before reaching Neuschwanstein, Germany's most famous castle. The return to Frankfurt is via the medieval walled town of Rothenburg. Detailed tour description page
The Imperial Castles Tour (Castles of Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic) focuses more on elegant palaces than on the types of fortified castles along the Rhine. This somewhat longer tour visits more of the grand and internationally-famous sites in the capitals, and fewer of the out-of-the-way and local features of the other tours. Both Prague Castle and Schonbrunn Palace are amazingly huge complexes incorporating a wide variety of features. Detailed tour description page
The Best of Germany and Austria Tour (Rhine and Danube, Castles and Mountains) is a new tour for travelers who want to see the highlights of both Germany and Austria but have limited time. It starts in the Rhine region with a cruise on the river and tours of ancient castles and medieval villages. In Bavaria it visits Munich and King Ludwig's castles. And in Austria this tour takes in the highlights of Innsbruck and Salzburg, and ends in stately Vienna. Detailed tour description page
The French Castles Tour (Paris and the Loire Valley) is one of only two tours not based in or including Germany. French culture is the defining difference here. There are some fortified castles on this tour, but they are far outnumbered by the elegant chateaux of the Loire Valley. The tour begins in Paris and visits both palaces and other must-see Paris landmarks, but then moves to a home base in Amboise Valley for more leisurely daily excursions to the stunning array of royal residences and grand chateaux of the Loire Valley. Detailed tour description page
The Italian Highlights Tour (Rome, Florence and Venice) is less oriented towards castles than the other tours, though it does visit its share of palaces. This is a more conventional tour that takes in the major attractions in central and northern Italy from bases in Rome, Florence and Venice, and features excursions to famous locations such as Pisa, Siena, Assisi and Verona. This tour was re-designed for 2010 to respond to client requests for an Astrid Baur approach to sightseeing in Italy. Detailed tour description page
The Royal Delights Private Tour (Munich, Salzburg and Vienna) is a six-day private tour (eight days including international travel) that combines the most outstanding highlights of Bavaria with those of Austria. It features the creations of two monarchs – King Ludwig II of Bavaria and Queen Maria Theresa of the Hapsburg Empire. The tour begins in Munich, visits castles and other features in Bavaria, and then moves to Salzburg and Vienna. The tour returns to Munich for its final night. Royal Delights is offered only as a private tour. Detailed tour description page |
Tour Name |
Origination & |
Days including |
Accommodation Arrangements |
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Bavarian Castles |
Munich |
9 days |
All nights at the Landhaus Koessel in Hopfen am See, near Fussen. No daily packing and moving. |
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Christmas Markets |
Munich |
9 days |
All nights at the Landhaus Koessel in Hopfen am See, near Fussen. No daily packing and moving. |
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River Castles |
Frankfurt |
9 days |
First five nights at the Bellevue Rheinhotel in the Rhine town of Boppard. One night on the Castle Road, and the last night in Frankfurt for convenient return. |
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Kids and Castles |
Frankfurt |
9 days |
Three nights at the Bellevue Rheinhotel in Boppard, then Stuttgart, Fussen for two nights, and Frankfurt. |
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Best of Germany & Austria |
Frankfurt / |
10 days |
Two nights in Boppard on the Rhine, one each in Rothenburg, Munich, Innsbruck, Salzburg, and then two in Vienna. |
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Imperial Castles |
Munich |
11 days |
Two nights each in Prague and Vienna. First and last nights in Munich. One each in Cesky Krumlov, Salzburg, and Innsbruck. |
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French Castles |
Paris |
9 days |
Three nights in Paris, two at the beginning, one at the end. All remaining nights at the Château de Razay at Céré la Ronde in the Loire Valley. |
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Italian Highlights |
Rome / |
11 days |
Three nights each in Rome, Florence, and Venice. |
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Royal Delights |
Munich |
8 days |
Two nights in Munich, one in Salzburg, two in Vienna, and back to Munich for the final night. |
In whirlwind tour itineraries, "photo opportunity" means the bus will stop long enough for you to get off, focus your camera, take two shots, and get back on the bus.
On these tours, expert guides provided by the castles and palaces take visitors on inside tours, provide comprehensive background information, and answer questions. In many cases and wherever possible, these inside tours are on a special appointment basis and are private, for the Castles Tour group only. In some cases the pre-arranged special tours visit parts of castles or palaces not open to the general pubic.
Similarly, the walking tours of towns and villages are conducted by specially trained guides, licensed by the local municipalities to ensure that visitors receive the best possible visitor experience. Where Castles Tours can choose, the guides who have been most successful and popular in the past are contracted.
Entrance fees for every castle, palace, and site visit in the itinerary is included in the price. All guide fees are included. All transportation costs (buses, carriages, boats, vans, cable cars, etc.) are also included. There are no "optional" excursions or activities for you to pay for.
All breakfasts are provided, and all dinners except one or two, depending on the tour. Lunches are not included.
Each of these tours was designed to visit large numbers of itinerary destinations without travelers either being or feeling rushed. The goal is to make the experience seem effortless, and is accomplished by a combination of extensive advance planning and careful execution.
The itineraries for these tours are barely secret. The main items are all specified here, but devils lurk behind every detail. Where to find the horse-drawn carriage at Neuschwanstein? How to actually get to Linderhof since it's 15 km from Fussen as the crow flies but 50 km of driving? When's the best time to catch the K-D Rhine boat going downstream? How to make the appointment to bypass the waiting line at Schonbrunn? What part of town has the best places for lunch?
The itineraries are designed to move efficiently from place to place with seemingly minimal effort, and to allow plenty of free time for relaxation and personal exploration.
Successful execution depends on a lot of local knowledge and experience. How do you get there if the road is blocked by new construction or an accident? Best to have a tour director and driver who know their way around on your team.
Small groups make for much friendlier tours. The maximum size of 30 persons means that most Castle Tours are about half the size of major tour groups.
On a small group tour you can actually get to know the tour director and the other folks travelling with you.
Most Castles Tours use a 47-seat bus for the tour maximum of 30 guests. The extra spaces are handy for coats and parcels, they eliminate any sense of claustrophobia, and it turns out they encourage guests to re-arrange themselves to get to know new people every day. For tours with very small numbers of participants, a smaller version of a proper motor coach is used.
Small groups make things easier for everyone – the tour director, the driver, and you. Fewer people competing to ask questions of the guides. A chance to hear the guide in the first place. Shorter lines for the washroom. And fewer stragglers when it's time to move on.
These tours operate in English only for clients who are mostly not fluent in
German and who use computers with keyboards that do not have accents.
Our current "simple" style for web pages is to omit the accents in German proper names that contain vowels with umlauts (ä, ö, ü). When names such as "Fussen" first appear in our Tour, Gallery, and Research pages, we also give the proper German forms "(Füssen or Fuessen in German)" to help clients match our descriptions to maps or other German language materials they may have.
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