Austria Itinerary
 

We are planning to see Austria for a week on our way to Venice next April, and I'm wondering how the following allotment of time sounds to those who have spent time in Austria. I toured the country some in high school, but that was on a group tour, so how much time we spent in various cities is a bit sketchy to me now.

Vienna - 3 nights
Salzburg - 2 nights
Hallstatt - 1 night
Innsbruck/Hall - 2 nights

Are there any other cities that are "must sees" that we are missing out on?

Also, we will be traveling by train, and I'm not able to find routes on raileurope.com between Salzburg/Hallstatt or Hallstatt/Innsbruck. Any ideas? Do you think we should get a railpass for this trip or pay for each leg individually?

Thanks in advance for any input and thoughts.

Statia,

Raileurope only shows SOME routes/times. Try www.bahn.de for routes. And try your itinerary at www.railsaver.com to see if a railpass is worth it.

I'm familiar with Austria, but don't know your interests, so can't comment on an itinerary.

Thanks elberko. I'll check out those two sites.

Your allotment of time sounds fine to me. Austria was our first european destination and still a favorite.

Thanks for the input, Julie.

BTW - Our interests are quite varied. History, culture, art, museums, a bit of shopping, good food, good wine, mixing with the locals, along with exciting cities, as well as rural, scenic areas.

I usually touch off a round of disagreements with this statement, but Innsbruck is not my favorite place. I would spend one more day in Vienna, because I think you will find plenty to do there, particularly if you like classical music.

Tickets to the Volksoper are reasonable $40 to $70 range last I looked, and performances of lighter fare like The Merry Widow and Die Fledermaus and even Gilbert and Sullivan farces are superb.

I thought the Merry Widow was exceptional, even better than Die Fledermaus and La Traviata. The interpolated CanCan line in the final act, which is not really in Lehar's script, brought the house down with applause. The singing was great and the orchestra was equal to the task. I know the Cancan was repeated twice, with the singing actress who played the role of Valencienne leading the dance. She was dead tired by the end of the 3rd go round. Fortunately, she was through singing at that point. The trumpet players were about blown out as well because they stood up and helped lead the Cancan performances with some rousing playing. I don't recall better trumpet playing anywhere. Great great fun.

A knowledge of German is helpful, but certainly not required to enjoy the music.

I agree with Mr. Brown. Vienna is definitely worth as many days as you can give it; there is much to do and see. Volksoper is absolutely great and I have heard that sometime during the year they will be adding supertitles for translations. Either way the music is wonderful, even if you don't understand German (read a libretto before you see a performance there and you will be fine).

Statia- You can get by quite nicely in Oesterreich (Austria) without speaking German-however, don't make the mistake of many in thinking that everyone speaks English there-Austria is not Holland (in Holland literally everyone DOES speak English!). As to city allocation, I believe you could EASILY spend 3 days in Salzburg and Vienna- Salzburg is, like Vienna,(Wien) herrlich! (lovely)

Myself, I'd go with a day or two more in Salzburg/Wien, and maybe cut out entirely Hallstatt/Innsbruck. Believe me, you'll have no shortage of things to see and do between those two cities!

Statia

I notice you have the same number of nights in Austria that we did. We did your itinerary, in reverse, but with 4 nights in Vienna and 1 in Innsbruck/Hall. Four nights in Vienna was barely enough. Have fun.

All this input is very helpful in planning. Thanks to you all! We originally thought of arriving Innsbruck and heading towards Vienna, but realized it made more sense to do the reverse, considering our final destination is Venice. So, we're still tweaking.

Thanks again for the ideas Bob, Operaman, Airlawgirl, and Sue. I've been to Salzburg and Innsbruck before, and really enjoyed both, but we want to do something a bit different with the both of us this time. However, I'd enjoy seeing a bit of the same cities I saw before....albeit 20 year later. :)

Any other suggestions or tips are more than welcome in the meantime. Thanks again.

Don't omit Halstatt, or if you must, be sure to include a stay in a small lakeside village somewhere. Once again, one's preference of where to stay the longest has so much to do with one's interests. Your original plan seems to be well balanced to me. I'm already looking forward to your trip report.

Thanks jmw. Actually, in doing my research I'm finding that Hallstatt is one of the places I'm most looking forward to seeing. I might need to add a night there and subtract one elsewhere.

We just visited Salzburg and Hallstatt and I definitely would say keep Hallstatt on your itinerary. It's lovely. we took the train from Salzburg, which turned out to be about 2 hours each way. We had some lovely and dramatic scenery from the train. And it's such a beautiful little town to explore. It's hard to believe it's real when you're there. Have a good trip. Marge

We just returned from Austria/Germany on Wednesday. As always we had a delightful time. We spent two nights in Salzburg, one week in Inneralpbach, one night in St. Johann, two nights in Koningssee, Germany and our last evening was in Munich prior to our flight home. We have been to Austria several times and find Vienna to be incredible, so much to do and see. This was our 4th trip to Salzburg and we visited Hallstatt on a day trip. In the past we stayed overnight there but would not do so again. It is a lovely village but we like to try different things. One place you may want to consider is Melk, they have the most incredible Abbey you will ever see. I believe it is not too far outside of Vienna. Innsbruck did not excite me much either but I can't tell you why. This forum has been a wealth of information for me in years past and I hope some of these comments will help you in preparing for your journey.

Statia;
Though we are doing a little constuction on our site, you will find a good bit of information on Vienna, and some villages from Aschach an der Donau down to Durnstein. Here is the address: http://alexstarke.tripod.com/

Thanks for the info Marge & Annie. I appreciate it. Operaman, I will check out the site!

It looks like you'vre done Innsbruck and intend to return along with a visit to Hall-in-Tyrol. As for Hall, this speck on the planet is truly a 500 year throw-back. Check it out.

If I was you I'd swing south and see Graz rather than Salzburg and Hallstatt.

I'm intrigued, hopscotch. Tell us about Graz.

Jocelyn,

The Zeughaus in Graz is IMO one of the top 10 sites in Europe. It is the original 17th century armory and still stocked with 30,000 swords and coats of armor and everything else you could imagine, or couldn't.

I happened to arrive one fall during a local fair. It was very interesting to see the local agricultural and manufactured products.

Try www.viamichelin.com for much more info. Use the map feature to find Graz and then the Tourist sites link to find out more about the Zeughaus and other places of interest.

BTW, Michelin rates Graz 2 stars, "worth a detour."