Austria-Switzerland itinerary need help
 

ok 10 night trip to Austria-Switzerland, this will be our first time traveling by train and bus, we usually rent a car.

Here's the plan:
-fly into Munich, train to Salzburg staying 3 nights with day trips to Mattighofen KTM factory and Berchtesgarden
-2 nights ?? Hallstatt, Innsbruck, or ??
-4 nights Lauterbrunnen
-1 night Zurich before flying home.

I'm looking at rail lines and looks like it will be a 10 hour ride with 4+ changes from Hallstatt to Lauterbrunnen, making for a pretty long day.

So any suggestions to replace Hallstatt? Somewhere halfway in Austria? We've already seen Bavaria and Feldkirk.

Thanks so much

When will you be taking this trip? The time of year can make a difference.

Both Hallstatt and Lauterbrunnen are small towns tucked away in the mountains, slow to get to, not on fast train lines, and about eleven hours apart by rail. There's no reason not to go to Hallstatt if you like to go to Hallstatt, or to Lauterbrunnen, either.

But surely you can find a place in between that appeals? Seems that you are drawn to mountain locations - Hallstatt is close to Salzburg, maybe cut back on the days you have planned to stay in that region, look at a night or two near Innsbruck where there are plenty of mountain spots also (a good four hours from Hallstatt), then it will be "only" six and a half hours from Innsbruck to Lauterbrunnen.

But there are many more gorgeous mountain locations along the way until you get to Lauterbrunnen, or instead of Lauterbrunnen - for example in the Davos region - it's only four hours from Innsbruck to Davos, and less than 3 hours from Davos to the Zürich airport.

So if you're flexible and do a little research, you can find mountain locations that are closer together and economize on train travel.

If you want to go to Lauterbrunnen (famous with overseas people, Swiss people would never have the idea to stay there), do it.
If you only want to go to snow and ice, visit the glaciers of Hochzillertal, Stubaital, Oetztal, Kaunertal, all much closer to Hallstatt than Lauterbrunnen.
http://www.tux.at/en/glacier.html
http://www.stubaiergletscher.at/?lang=en
http://www.soelden.com/main/EN/SD/SO...bus/index.html
http://www.tirolgletscher.com/en/portal

Lauterbrunnen is a must, been there several times and enjoy hanging out at the campground with 'Swiss people', their campers are so much fun to watch rolling into town.

Really trying to see something else unique to Austria, does not have to be mountains.

Traveling next July.

So shifting towards Innsbruck, want to find something similar to Feldkirk.

The region where Feldkirch is located, at the far western end of Austria bordering on Switzerland and Liechtenstein, is called Vorarlberg - it has a lot to offer:
www.austria-holidays.info/en/summer-austria - but mostly it is mountains since that's the geography.

For something not in the mountains, leave Austria for the nearby Bodensee (Lake Constance in English), Germany on one side, Switzerland on the other, lots of pretty places like Mainau and Lindau and others, plus the historic city of St. Gallen not far away.

If you travel in July/August (you never found it necessary to give an answer to kja) you may assist to a opera performence of Bregenz Festival or explore Lake Constance from Bregenz with a boat of the Austrian Lake Constance fleet.

yes, necker, I did answer kja.

Repeat... Traveling next July.

Thanks michelhuebeli, great website for Vorarlberg, looking into the area along railway.

Sorry. So you can fully enjoy the Summer along the Austrian shore of Lake Constance.