Brender

Hi, I'm starting to get our itinerary planned out. We're planning on going sometime in Oct. My husband is going for work so I'm going to use FF miles to join him after his work stuff is done and do some site seeing. I think we might try to do an open jaw tix - arrive in Munich and depart from Salzburg. I haven't figured out exactly what we'll do in Munich and Salzburg yet, still reading the guidebooks and posts, I'm sure we'll come up with something!

Day
1 - Arrive Munich - ?
2 - Munich - Schloss Nymphen/Deutches Museum
3 - Munich - Dachau/English Garden
4 - Munich - ?
5 - Pick up car, drive to Garmisch - Neus, Hohen, and Linderhof en route
6 - Garmisch - Zugspitze and explore Mittenwald + violin museum if time
7 - Berchtesgaden - explore Mittenwald if we didn't do this the previous day, Herrenchiemsee en route
8 - Berchtesgaden - Eagle's Nest/?
9 - Salzburg
10 - Salzburg
11 - Salzburg
12 - Depart

Do you think this schedule is doable?
Is Day 7 too ambitious?

BillT

IMHO Salzburg is a one day town.

Dutch

I noticed that you didn't mention Fussen and the two castles nearby. Was that intentional or an oversight? I would add a day to see Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau Castles to your itinerary. Also stop in to see the Ettal Abbey and the fascinating Wieskirche that is in a lovely meadow between Oberammergau and Fussen.

I would recomeend a visit to the Alte Pinakothek while in Munich. It is one of the world's great art galleries and has a great collection of the works of Rubens and Durer.

Brender

I should also mention that we'll be driving along the German Alpine Road.

Thank you so much for your help!!!!

Brender

Dutch - it was my spelling! On Day 5 I was thinking we would stay in Garmisch, but stop by those 2 castles en route. I was hoping we could also see Linderhof too.

I did want to see Oberammergau, but forgot to put that in.

Thanks for the recommendation of the abbey and meadow in that region and the art museum in Munich that sounds very interesting, I'll have to read up on it!

Dukey

Re "Herrenchiemsee en route"

Do you realize this may take several hours since you'll have to drive to the "port" of Stock and then take the boat over to the island itself (20 minutes at least) then either walk to the palace itself (another 15 minutes) or take one of the horse-drawn carriages to the palace entrance) then take the tour and then repeat the process to get back to your car.

I am NOT saying don't do it, in fact, I strongly urge you TO DO it.

Why?

This is the largest of all the Ludwig castles and it is a palace and not a castle. Although Linderhoff has wonderful decorations, Herrenchiemsee far surpasses it in decoration and the interior mimics Versailles (to include a Hall of Mirrors) which was Ludwig's intent.

Herrenchiemsee is a very popular spot amongst the Germans and is less frequently visited by others who content themselves with the castles elsewhere (and yes, I think those are worth it also).

But you will not regret seeing Herrenchiemsee..worth every minute of your time IMO.

EmilyC

Combine day 7 - 12 and stay in one place in the area of Salzburg/Berchtesgaden. While you can choose to stay in either, there are many small towns with hotels and "zimmer freis" that will allow you freedom to explore the surrounding areas to include B'gaden, Konigsee, Obersalzberg/Eagle's Nest, Salt Mines/Salzburg, day trips to Hallstadt/St Anton/ many other great spots! In October, the weather may be marginal, so I would pick an area in the valley rather than a high alpine setting.

Dukey

Are you going to take a tour of the Eagle's Nest or do it on your own?

dfr4848

Brender, the schedule is doable but agree that Herrenchiemsee will take more time than you've probably allowed. 3 days for Salzburg itself is probably too long - can be done in 2. If you're planning to use part of that time to explore other areas/side trips, then you're probably fine. I would use at least one of those days to explore the Salzkammergut (Salt Mines) region outside of Salzburg - it's spectacular. Also, I assume you've looked into this, but double check on cost of picking up car in Munich and dropping off in Salzburg. While both countries are EU, sometimes the charges of picking up car in one country and leaving it in another can be unbelievably high.

Brender

Dutch - perhaps en route was a poor choice of words. I didn't mean that we would just stop by for an hour or so, I figured most of our day would be consumed by that and driving. I was planning on getting out of Garmisch early, driving to the castle/palace and then getting to our hotel kind of late. Maybe it would be better to stay over at hotel near the castle/palace. We could cut a day out of Salzburg and do that instead.

Dukey - not sure yet, but leaning against it. Why?

tcreath

I agree with Emily. Berchtesgaden to Salzburg is only about a 20 minute drive. It seems kind of silly to break up the nights. We rented an apartment near Berchtesgaden for a week and used it as a base for exploring Salzburg, B'gaden and its surrounding towns, and the Salzkammergut.

I also agree with Bill. I liked Salzburg but its very small and compact. You could see most of what you want to see in one, maybe two days. In my opinion three days in Salzburg is too long unless you plan on daytripping.

Tracy

J_Correa

For Hohenschwangau and Neuschwanstein, the ticket lines can be pretty long. We got there at 9:30 on a Wednesday morning and the line was already pretty lengthy. It was summertime, so I imagine it wouldn't be as busy in October, but I think by afternoon on most days it would probably be pretty full already. We had reserved our tickets online ahead of time, so we just went to the reservation window and had our tickets in 5 minutes. Really easy. I definitely recommend that if your plans are concrete enough to know about when you will be there.

chriss_hk

Hi J. Can you please let me know the address for online booking of the Hohenschwangau and Neuschwanstein castle tickets? Many thanks.

turnip

Here you go.

http://www.hohenschwangau.de/552.0.html

Cheers, the turnip