A Journey through Germany

Dear Back-Roads,

Yay! We were in Germany, the land of precision, filled with industrious people who design marvels of engineering, where everything runs on time!

But whoever organised the Back-Roads tour of Germany’s Romantic Roads has mischievously thrown a spanner in the wonderful Germanic precision machine. How amazing is that? It is as if the administrators in your head office did little planning or advance work for the 2023 tour. Did you just pull out your cheat sheet from 2019?

None of these issues would be a deal-breaker, but when added up the experience was decidedly unimpressive. We are unlikely to take another Back-Roads tour. We would not recommend this tour company.

The tour guide, Kinka, and the bus driver, Tomaš, were great. They tried very, very hard. Their English was excellent, but neither the driver nor the guide could speak much German. For a tour of Germany!

Why can we not have a German who speaks German as a tour guide in Germany? Is it because Eastern Europeans are cheaper? Don’t care.

I am aware that those who work in the tourist industry speak English, but some situations might benefit from a native tour guide fluent in the local language who can navigate the subtleties of the language and the culture to sort out unusual difficulties. Yes, horrific problems unfortunately occur from time to time. We were lucky on this tour, but please… This is a lawsuit waiting to happen. What are you thinking of?

Sadly, I have so much more.

All ten of us on the tour came from far away, and booked travel to Munich a few days early to settle in, recuperate from ridiculously long flights, and see a couple of attractions in Munich. We could not learn in a timely manner the name of the hotel where the tour would start, except that it might be Le Méridien. Apparently, it simply was not possible, it violated the laws of physics, to know this information well in advance!

So, fingers crossed for good luck, our group of six booked several pre-tour nights at Le Méridien, which turned out not to be the hotel from which the tour departed. What fun we had dragging our cases along the congested and bumpy Munich footpath across from the busy central train station from Le Méridien to the tour accommodation selected at the last minute, the Hotel Dre Löwen! Is it not possible to organise the hotel at the start of tour a few months early so travellers could plan? Actually, it is. That would be so nice.

Gleefully holding up the middle finger to German notions of timeliness and preciseness, we began the tour 45 minutes late, thus crowding adventures scheduled during the first day. A day later, a walking tour of Bamberg also began 45 minutes late, apparently because the local guide, who was excellent, had no idea he had a tour booked.

On to Rothenberg, a town surrounded by a wall with gates. Alas, our Czech-registered tour bus could not fit into the gate of the adorable town, so the bus parked outside the walls of Rothenburg and our tour guide gamely unloaded all of our bags so we could drag them hither and yon, over rough cobblestone streets and footpaths to our also adorable hotel. One American guest could be heard saying, ”If I wanted a Rick Steve’s tour, I would have booked a Rick Steve’s tour”. * It was good that the tour guide found a route to the hotel that was mostly downhill.

Every single tour participant had a “spinner” bag, a style that is designed to glide happily over smooth airport and hotel floors. Spinner bags are not useful…no, they are actually shameful…to drag over cobblestones. We also had to haul our bags back over cobblestone streets to leave the next day. The tour guide attempted to organise transport for the bags for the return trip to the bus, but had no luck. Not even a taxi was available.

As far as I know, no one ended up with a broken bag.

Let me take a moment to mention that many of the participants in the tour were in their 70s, one was 80. This was not fun for them.

We had only overnight stops in Rothenburg and Baden Baden. Pit stops, really. These looked like interesting towns, much more compelling than Freiburg, where we stayed two nights. The hotel in Freiburg was not close to restaurants, apart from a pizza cafe two blocks away. One of the older, single participants deemed the hotel to be in a dodgy neighbourhood, skipped dinner and hungry, stayed in her tiny, tiny room for the evening. When we found out about this, our group of six rounded her up for dinner the next night, for a second meal at the not-too-far-away pizza cafe.

At this point another solo participant attempted to escape from the Back-Roads tour, but could not find a train from Freiburg that could take her to a place that aligned with her itinerary after the tour. So she stuck with the tour. Nevertheless, I am not sure this is the reaction from your guests that you are looking for. Escape? Really?

I am not even going to get started on the uncomfortable bus…who designed the seats? And organised their placement? Have these designers ever met an adult human? On the positive side, the charging stations above each seat were a good idea.

In 2018 our group of six took a Back-Roads tour of Italy, which was great.

What happened?

Cheers, Phylis

* Rick Steves is an American travel guru who operates value-oriented tours of Europe where participants are expected to carry their own bags over moderate distances and up and down staircases at “authentic” European hotels. His website encourages travellers to limit their baggage to a backpack. Rick Steves also sells bags that are lightweight to accommodate the travel style he promotes.

Back-Roads,

Yay! We were in Germany, the land of precision, filled with industrious people who design marvels of engineering, where everything runs on time!

But whoever organised the Back-Roads tour of Germany’s Romantic Roads has mischievously thrown a spanner in the wonderful Germanic precision machine. How amazing is that? It is as if the administrators in your head office did little planning or advance work for the 2023 tour. Did you just pull out your cheat sheet from 2019?

None of these issues would be a deal-breaker, but when added up the experience was decidedly unimpressive. We are unlikely to take another Back-Roads tour. We would not recommend this tour company.

The tour guide, Kinka, and the bus driver, Tomaš, were great. They tried very, very hard. Their English was excellent, but neither the driver nor the guide could speak much German. For a tour of Germany!

Why can we not have a German who speaks German as a tour guide in Germany? Is it because Eastern Europeans are cheaper? Don’t care.

I am aware that those who work in the tourist industry speak English, but some situations might benefit from a native tour guide fluent in the local language who can navigate the subtleties of the language and the culture to sort out unusual difficulties. Yes, horrific problems unfortunately occur from time to time. We were lucky on this tour, but please… This is a lawsuit waiting to happen. What are you thinking of?

Sadly, I have so much more.

All ten of us on the tour came from far away, and booked travel to Munich a few days early to settle in, recuperate from ridiculously long flights, and see a couple of attractions in Munich. We could not learn in a timely manner the name of the hotel where the tour would start, except that it might be Le Méridien. Apparently, it simply was not possible, it violated the laws of physics, to know this information well in advance!

So, fingers crossed for good luck, our group of six booked several pre-tour nights at Le Méridien, which turned out not to be the hotel from which the tour departed. What fun we had dragging our cases along the congested and bumpy Munich footpath across from the busy central train station from Le Méridien to the tour accommodation selected at the last minute, the Hotel Dre Löwen! Is it not possible to organise the hotel at the start of tour a few months early so travellers could plan? Actually, it is. That would be so nice.

Gleefully holding up the middle finger to German notions of timeliness and preciseness, we began the tour 45 minutes late, thus crowding adventures scheduled during the first day. A day later, a walking tour of Bamberg also began 45 minutes late, apparently because the local guide, who was excellent, had no idea he had a tour booked.

On to Rothenberg, a town surrounded by a wall with gates. Alas, our Czech-registered tour bus could not fit into the gate of the adorable town, so the bus parked outside the walls of Rothenburg and our tour guide gamely unloaded all of our bags so we could drag them hither and yon, over rough cobblestone streets and footpaths to our also adorable hotel. One American guest could be heard saying, ”If I wanted a Rick Steve’s tour, I would have booked a Rick Steve’s tour”. * It was good that the tour guide found a route to the hotel that was mostly downhill.

Every single tour participant had a “spinner” bag, a style that is designed to glide happily over smooth airport and hotel floors. Spinner bags are not useful…no, they are actually shameful…to drag over cobblestones. We also had to haul our bags back over cobblestone streets to leave the next day. The tour guide attempted to organise transport for the bags for the return trip to the bus, but had no luck. Not even a taxi was available.

As far as I know, no one ended up with a broken bag.

Let me take a moment to mention that many of the participants in the tour were in their 70s, one was 80. This was not fun for them.

We had only overnight stops in Rothenburg and Baden Baden. Pit stops, really. These looked like interesting towns, much more compelling than Freiburg, where we stayed two nights. The hotel in Freiburg was not close to restaurants, apart from a pizza cafe two blocks away. One of the older, single participants deemed the hotel to be in a dodgy neighbourhood, skipped dinner and hungry, stayed in her tiny, tiny room for the evening. When we found out about this, our group of six rounded her up for dinner the next night, for a second meal at the not-too-far-away pizza cafe.

At this point another solo participant attempted to escape from the Back-Roads tour, but could not find a train from Freiburg that could take her to a place that aligned with her itinerary after the tour. So she stuck with the tour. Nevertheless, I am not sure this is the reaction from your guests that you are looking for. Escape? Really?

I am not even going to get started on the uncomfortable bus…who designed the seats? And organised their placement? Have these designers ever met an adult human? On the positive side, the charging stations above each seat were a good idea.

In 2018 our group of six took a Back-Roads tour of Italy, which was great.

What happened?

Cheers, Phylis

* Rick Steves is an American travel guru who operates value-oriented tours of Europe where participants are expected to carry their own bags over moderate distances and up and down staircases at “authentic” European hotels. His website encourages travellers to limit their baggage to a backpack. Rick Steves also sells bags that are lightweight to accommodate the travel style he promotes.

Read previous comments. I will not be travelling with Back Roads again.

I've already answered this.

But all my comments about Germany equally apply to my Scottish trip.

Too many people crammed into the bus - no knee room.
it was like cattle class economy in a cheap budget airline.

You should only have had a max of 16

Provision of complimentary drinks with included meals would have been a nice gesture given the cost of the tour.
The (mini) bus had luggage on a seat due to full numbers which required 4 people seated on last row which was not ideal for comfort.