pheleven

Hi!
Our family of 2 adults + 2 toddlers (age 2 and 5 years old) will be traveling to Germany, Austria and Switzerland in mid Jul for 15 days trip. While we had been on road trip in UK and France, this will be our first time here.

We have a draft itinerary however we would very much appreciate your input to fine tune the plan. Traveling with 2 young ones, we prefer to go for more scenic route instead of adventurous ones. Here's the draft:

Frankfurt (1 day) -- pick up car
Nuremberg / Rothenburg (1 day)
Munich (2 days)
Salzburg / Hallstatt (2 days)
Lucerne (1 day) -- by train from Salzburg
Basel / Colmar (3 days) -- drive from Lucerne
Black Forest (2 days)
Frankurt (1 day)

Questions:
1. Is the above routes alright, or are we over ambitious?
2. We plan to rent a car except for the journey from Salzburg - Lucerne (which seem like a long journey). Is this economical and is the road condition too challenging considering we are right-hand drivers here? We though renting a car allow us better flexibility with the kids.
3. Which would be the recommended car rental in these countries?
4. After reading much feedback we're considering to leave Neuswanstein Castle and Zurich out from our itinerary. Will prefer to choose a castle that does not have such long queues and not too long drive. Are we making the right decision here..?
5. Understand there are travel pass / permit requires when driving in Switzerland, is it mandatory and how can we purchase that before the trip?

Thank you,
PH

asps

It looks to me that you are moving every day, basically you just have time for lunch and little more in most destination. For example, you have little more than half a day in Salzburg, as most of the morning in the first day is spent travelling from Munich, and the second day you are already tripping to Halstatt.

janisj

>>Traveling with 2 young ones, we prefer to go for more scenic route instead of adventurous ones.<< . . . and therm you create a frantic itinerary like that?

W/ two little ones I'd cut the number of stops nearly in half and slow down and <i>relax . . .

marg

Your itinerary would probably work with two fit young adults but throw two littlies into the equation, and you are trying to do far too much. I'd pick two places and do day trips.

lavandula

How do your kids do in the car on road trips? My daughter was OK on planes but terrible in the car - more than two hours and she spat the dummy.

I tend to agree with the other posters. I would go for a central base (or two) and do day trips. Nuremberg could be one base, Basel maybe another.

Lavandula

asps

Austria is very children friendly. Salzburg has a fortress with dungeons, a toy museum, the water jokes at Hellbrunn (be ready to come out completely wet, maybe not so good for very small children),a funicolar, a nearby cable car, an open air museum with a small railway in the woods. Any restaurant offers children menus. With two small children I would consider staying there some time instead of spinning around. Even too many day trips are tiring - but one is marvellous: the day trip from Salzburg (or Munich) to Herremchiemsee castle. First you travel by train, then you board a small train (sometimes with steam engines) to the harbour, then a ferry, then an horse drawn wagon in the woods, then a castle with gilded rooms. So many emotions in a single day for a small child...