Germany (Lonely Planet, 6th Edition) - Andrea Schulte-Peevers [421]
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ROAD-TRIP RADIO IN ENGLISH
While tooling around Germany’s southwest, you can crank up the car radio and tune in to a variety of often surprising programs in English.
When atmospheric conditions are right (as they almost always are at night), the BBC World Service can be picked up on 648kHz AM (medium wave) and, if you’re lucky, BBC Radio 4 can be heard on 198kHz long wave.
To feel like you’re in Middle America (or to find out the weather in Baghdad or Kabul), just tune to a station run by the AFN (American Forces Network; www.afneurope.net), whose intended audience is US military personnel serving at places like Ramstein Air Base near Kaiserslautern and the Wiesbaden US Army Garrison. Programming you might come across includes NPR (National Public Radio) favourites such as Car Talk, pearls of populism from Rush Limbaugh, and news from AP Radio and the Pentagon Channel. One music show boasts that it plays ‘music worth fighting for’. The public service advertisements, peppered with nanny-state announcements and unfathomable acronyms, give a taste of US military life in Germany. The most powerful relay frequencies to check are 873kHz AM (transmission from Frankfurt), 1107kHz (from Kaiserslautern) and 1143kHz (from Stuttgart). There are also a variety of local FM options.
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The Rhein-Haardtbahn (RHB; www.rhein-haardtbahn.de, in German) light rail line links Bad Dürkheim with Mannheim (€4.70, 50 minutes, at least hourly); the RNV-Express (www.rnv-online.de) goes to all the way to Heidelberg (80 minutes).
Ask at a train station about inexpensive regional train-tram-bus cards, good for 24 hours for up to five people.
GETTING AROUND
The German Wine Road is most easily explored by car or, thanks to a multitude of Radwanderwege (bike paths and cyclable back roads), bicycle. Area tourist offices carry the free Radkarte Pfalz (Palatinate Cycling Map) and sell more detailed cycling maps.
Thanks to Germany’s superb public transport system, however, it’s possible to get almost everywhere – including to trail heads and from hike destinations – by public transport. Twice an hour, local trains that take bicycles (free of charge) head from Neustadt north to Deidesheim and Bad Dürkheim and south to Landau.
A number of Pfälzerwald villages west of Neustadt, including Lindenberg, are served by bus 517.
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Neustadt an der Weinstrasse
06321 / pop 53,700
The busy, modern town of Neustadt has a largely pedestrianised Altstadt teeming with half-timbered houses (eg along Mittelgasse, Hintergasse, Metzgergasse and Kunigundenstrasse). It is anchored by the Marktplatz, an attractive square flanked by the baroque Rathaus and the 14th- and 15th-century Gothic Stiftskirche ( sanctuary open during services, tower open with guide at noon Sat), a red-sandstone structure that’s been shared by Protestant and Catholic congregations since 1708. The whimsical Elwedritsche Brunnen (fountain; Marstall) is two blocks northwest of the tourist office.
Just off the Marktplatz, Haus des Weines ( 355 871; www.haus-des-weines.com, in German; Rathausstrasse 6; 10am-6.30pm Tue-Fri, 10am-3pm Sat) is an excellent place to sample (€1 to €3 per glass) and buy regional wines and – believe it or not – drinkable vinegar, served in special tiny flutes.
From the Hauptbahnhof, cross Zwockels-brücke (the road bridge a block west of the train station) to get to the Eisenbahnmuseum (Railway Museum; www.eisenbahnmuseum-neustadt.de, in German; 10am-1pm Tue-Fri, 10am-4pm Sat, Sun & holidays).
About 6km southwest of the centre, along the Deutsche Weinstrasse and then Eich-strasse, high atop a forested Pfälzerwald hill, stands the reconstructed Hambacher Schloss (Hambacher Castle; 926 290; www.hambacher-schloss.de; adult/student/family €4.50/1.50/9.50; 10am-6pm Apr-Oct, 11am-5pm Nov-Mar), known as the ‘cradle of German democracy’. It was here that idealistic students, local people, refugees from Poland and even some Frenchmen held massive protests