3 days, 4 nights in the Alps - July
 

My husband and I are planning our trip to Germany the second half of July. We will spend 5 nights in Munich, 4 in Nuremberg, and then the remaining 4 nights in the Alps. We will rent a car in Nuremberg on a Tuesday and have until that Saturday afternoon when we need to be back in Munich for our flight home.

Our plan is to spend most of Tuesday driving from Nuremberg to the Fussen area, stoping along the way to see what we can see. Then Wednesday visit Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau castles.

Thursday and Friday are open and I am thinking we will go to Austria those days. We'd like to do some light hiking, take a tram to the top of one of the peaks, and do some general sightseeing. Nothing too strenuous.

So what do you all think? Any resommendations for a good place in Austria, close to the German border, to spend a couple days? Is it even reasonable to stay in Austria Friday night if we have a 3pm flight from Munich on Saturday? Should we visit Austria first, then come back to Fussen to visit the Ludwig castles?

If we were to decide not to stay in the Fussen area at all and spend all 4 nights in Austria, would it be relatively easy to take a day trip to see the Ludwig castles?

Just trying to get an idea of the logisitics.

Hi J,

You might want to consider Salzburg and the towns of the Salzkammergut.

See http://www.wolfgangsee.at/

((I))

The answer to most of your questions is "yes." Barring something unusual, you wouldn't be more than a couple of hours drive from the airport anywhere in the Fuessen, Garmisch, Reutte, Innsbruck area.

I like the Lermoos/Ehrwald area of Austria. But there are so many beautiful and interesting places that you will have lots of options.

Lermoos/Ehrwald isn't more than a 40 minute drive from Hohenschwangau village where Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau castles are located. And about 45 minutes from Linderhof or Oberammergau. And just a few minutes from the Zugspitze cablecar at Obermoos.

You should get a lot of other options from Fodorites before you're done.

You have a whole list of great towns to base in. I like Oberammergau, Mittenwald is great, Bertschesgaden is a favorite, we love Salzburg and you can go for a night in the Saltzkammergut as recommended, probably in Hallstadt. I realize that the Saltzkammergut is not really in the alps but you could do a lot worse.

Excellent. Thanks for the recommendations.

I thought that it would be reasonable to stay in Austria since it is just over the border. Just wanted to make sure though - the idea of driving in from another country the day of our flight is a little strange.

It does take getting used to driving in those little countries. Just seems odd to be able to drive through 3 or 4 or 5 countries easily in one day. It's all what you're used to.

And with kilometers instead of miles, the distances just seem to melt away. Intellectually I know that a km is only 5/8 of a mile, but something internal is still looking at the number instead of the label--so it's surprising when we travel 100 kms in less than one hour. Yes, I know it's really only 62 miles, but my internal distance analyzer is still expecting 100 miles.

I'm reminded of our overseas friends who were vacationing in the USA. They were spending time in Hilton Head, South Carolina and wanted to know if we could drive down from Maryland for lunch one day. It didn't look that far on the map to them.