Jancen

This is a follow-up to our 1st and 2nd planned itinerary which many here have commented that we are trying to see so many sites with a very limited amount of time so we came up with a 3rd one which we hope will work this time. Here is our 3rd itinerary and please feel free to comment:

1. Vancouver, BC to Berlin
2. Berlin - 4 full days with a day trip to Potsdam
3. Fly or take train to Vienna
4. Vienna- 3 full days with a day trip to Prague
5. Munich with a stop over for a few hours at Salzburg. Question: Where can we store our luggages while checking out the sites at Salzburg?
6. Munich - 4 full days with a day trip to Neuschwanstein and Linderhof and another day trip to Rothenburg, Romantic road and Harburg
7. Fly or take train to Barcelona
8. Barcelona - 5 full days;
9. Madrid - 4 full days
10. Fly back to Vancouver, BC

Some questions that we have:

1. Should we skip Vienna and Prague and spend these days in Spain and visit Toledo, Granada and/or Seville instead aside from Barcelona and Madrid? If we are not doing Vienna and Prague, we are planning to do a day trip to Salzburg from Munich.

2. We are leaving on July 1st and flying back on July 24th. Did I count the days right for our itinerary?

3. Are there any cities we should skip or add?

4. Should we fly or take the train from Berlin to Vienna if we are going to Vienna or from Berlin to Munich if we are skipping Vienna and from Munich to Barcelona

Thanks in advance!

Sassafrass

Here is a problem. You cut Amsterdam, Belgium, Switzerland from your first itinerary and in your second itinerary, put in several places in Italy. In your third itinerary, you have cut out Italy and put in Spain. You then mention cutting Austria and adding Southern Spain. It is impossible to give you good advice because each itinerary is so different from the other, no one can not tell what you really want from this trip.

It will be super, burning hot in Spain in July? Would that bother you? I have done it by touring a bit in the morning and sitting by a pool or naping in the afternoon, and I love hot weather. You are coming from a much cooler climate.

You said once you had no interest in Vienna, but it is still on your itinerary. Why keep it if you have no interest in it?

You still have day trips that do not work. Prague is 4&1/2 hours each way from Vienna. It is not possible as a day trip.

So, you have 21 days on the ground. Here is my suggestion. Pick three major cities or areas that are your "big dream, must see" and focus on those, period - no more that that! They must be your choice! Write those three in stone! No matter what else you add or cut, those will not change!

Figure out how much time you need in each and if there are good day trips from them, so figure total time needed for things you really want and do not underestimate time. Don't add a bunch of places like Vienna if you have no interest.

You will do more, but until you can really pin down your personal priority, there is no point making up itinerary after itinerary.

After you have those times nailed down, think about another city or two (or country area) that could fit logistically with your first three. If you can't come up with that, make an itinerary with only your first three and ask for suggestions on adding things to them that make sense logistically and that would interest you.

mytravelove

I think Prague and Vienna shouldn't be left out. They'll be much more pleasant than Spain, heat-wise.

As Sassafrass has mentioned, Prague as a day trip from Vienna is not really possible. Well, technically it is if you go super early and come back super late, but you'll be miserable and Prague deserves a little more than a few hours of running around. It's one of the cities that grow on you with time, so allowing at least 2-3 days would be better.

I'm quite curious how this itinerary develops and if there's a fourth version coming..!

Good luck with the planning, it's understandable that you want to see as much as possible..

mytravelove

One more thing - Prague is well on the way from Berlin to Vienna/Munich, train and bus connections are good, so you might consider making use of that.

Fussgaenger

Currently you have 14 nights between Berlin (5) Vienna (4) and Munich (5) - correct? I'd like to address this part.

"1. Vancouver, BC to Berlin
2. Berlin - 4 full days with a day trip to Potsdam"

So far, so good.

"3. Fly or take train to Vienna
4. Vienna- 3 full days with a day trip to Prague"

NOT good. I too thought Vienna was unimportant to you. It is a LONG trip from Berlin - like NINE hours plus! And your plan means 8 hours on the train so you can see Prague. Why bother? Vienna is definitely a place to SKIP, IMO. I suggest instead that you make the 4.5 hour trip directly from Berlin to Prague for 2 nights.

"5. Munich with a stop over for a few hours at Salzburg...
6. Munich - 4 full days with a day trip to Neuschwanstein and Linderhof and another day trip to Rothenburg, Romantic road and Harburg"

The day trips as outlined are not all doable. 5 nights in Munich altogether, right? If you do as I suggest just prior to this - 2 nights in Prague - you could first leave Prague in the afternoon of your 3rd day there and travel to NUREMBERG for one night. This trip takes less than 4 hours. Book a room near the station. Then do what you had in mind:

"We... want to experience having a drink in a German pub/restaurant that will give us some feeling that we are really in Germany and are enjoying what it has to offer."

Nuremberg has many wonderful pubs:
http://www.europeanbeerguide.net/nurnpubs.htm

SOOOO... You have now spent 3 of your 4 Vienna nights more wisely and are already in Germany. Now to Rothenburg, Munich, etc.....

Wake up in Nuremberg, check out, and take the train (about 75 minutes) to Rothenburg (which is TOO FAR from Munich for a day trip.) I would stow bags in a locker and spend several hours there. Then catch an afternoon train to Munich (about 3 hours) and begin your 5-night stay there.

You CAN day trip to Salzburg from Munich.

You CAN day trip to Füssen etc. from Munich - but it is NOT a day trip I recommend for many reasons. (If you like palaces, I say stay in Munich and visit Nymphenburg Palace, Ludwig's birthplace.) It would be enormously difficult for you to do Linderhof and N'stein on your own. If you do go, book a tour.

You CAN day trip to Harburg - though I'm not sure you want to spend 3.5-4 hours on the train to get there from Munich.

Instead of spending 5 days total in Munich - 2 days (and nights in Munich) for those day trips to Harburg and the Füssen area - You could spend 2-3 nights in Rothenburg and take day trips from there to the Romantic Road towns and other fine towns nearby. It's only about 1 hour from Rothenburg to the Romantic Road town of Würzburg, a little less to Ochsenfurt and Bad Windsheim.

Ochsenfurt:
http://www.wasi-online.de/Bilder/Pos...erkhaeuser.JPG

Würzburg:
http://www.blaek.de/_images/baet/A_M...ecke-05.07.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...-Wuerzburg.jpg
http://www.ferienhof-henn.de/files/i...marienberg.jpg
http://www.stbawue.bayern.de/imperia...reppenhaus.jpg

Bad Windsheim - fantastic open-air museum:
http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attractio...conia_Fra.html

So here are what your bookings would look like with the 2 options I've suggested.

Berlin (5 nights)
Prague (2 nights)
Nuremberg (1 night)
Munich (6 nights) (See R'burg on the way to Munich, day trip to Salzburg, maybe Harburg, maybe Füssen)

Berlin (5 nights)
Prague (2 nights)
Nuremberg (1 night)
Rothenburg (2-3 nights w/ day trip to Würzburg and/or Ochsenfurt, Bad Windsheim)
Munich (3-4 nights) (w/day trip to Salzburg)

dwdvagamundo

Jancen--

Count nites--that is, make a schedule showing the nites (not days) for which you will need lodging. Then the days will fall into place.

With the time you have, I'd do either central Europe or Spain but not both.

nytraveler

There is no way I would do Andalusia in mid summer. The typical daily high is 100 degrees and it can get up to 120. Unless you love heat (and even then) you need to spend the afternoons in either an AC room or a pool out of the sun. (We visited in April and temps were already well up in the 80s - much as I love the area you could not pay me to go in the summer.)

Jancen

Hi there,

Sassafrass- I beg your forgiveness for coming up with multiple itineraries and asking for your suggestions. A couple of things. When I asked my wife about Vienna after I mentioned here that we will skip Vienna, she said that it was her dream to go there and so I added it again on the revised itinerary. The other night, I mentioned to her that as much as I would like to include Vienna, it seems out of the way and will cost us quite a bit of time. She now said it is okay to skip it. We removed Milan and Cinque Terre and then added Spain but I was not aware that it is blistering hot in July.

Fussgaenger - Thank you very much for your proposed itinerary. You might not like it but I will ask you anyway. Is there a way or does it make sense to add Amsterdam, Milan and Cinque Terre on this trip? Also, how would you compare Prague to other great cities? My wife is not too familiar with it.

dwdvagamundo - Thanks for pointing out to use nights instead of days. Actually, I did that on my initial itinerary but I was told that 2 nights= 1 day.

mytravelove - I think you are right about us probably coming up with a 4th or 5th itinerary

nytraveler- We will probably visit Spain some other time. What month is a good time to visit it?

Jancen

Fussgaenger- We are going to book a tour for the 2 day trips from Munich. I was looking at Viator and they offer these 2 trips. It might sound shallow but we are actually more interested in seeing the Neuschwanstein castle than the other real palace. Do we really have to use Munich as our base to visit this castle? Is this castle in Fussen? Also, from Berlin to Prague, are we able to see Saxon Switzerland when we pass by Dresden?

Sassafrass

Jancen,

Everybody is giving you really good advice.
Fussgaenger has given you some truly excellent itinerary suggestions. Seriously consider them.

No need for forgiveness. I was trying to make the point that you seem to just be pulling random things out of a hat, so to speak, and still not getting to what it is that you, personally, want. It seems to me that you should get to see the places that are important to you.

If you could see or visit only three places, what would they be? Including your wife's ideas is, of course, just as important. If Vienna is the absolute number one dream city for your wife, that is valid.

It seems as if seeing a lot of Germany is now your priority. Is that right, or is it just by default? I ask because Amsterdam seemed important at first and you mentioned it again. Is Amsterdam one of your dream cities?
You have also mentioned Prague more than once. Is that city one of your dream cities? If so, you could take the train from Berlin to Prague, spend a couple of days, then train to Vienna. Is Berlin a dream city or only a base to fly into?
Amsterdam is a whole day by train and at least five hours by plane to Berlin. If you skip Vienna, you could do it or if you skip Prague and fly directly to Vienna, you could to it, but not both.

Amsterdam, Berlin, Saxon Switzerland, Prague, Vienna, Salzburg, Munich, Romantic Road and Castles?
Which to cut? Which to leave in?
I am leaving out Spain because of heat and the same for CT.

Fussgaenger

"We are going to book a tour for the 2 day trips from Munich. I was looking at Viator and they offer these 2 trips."

??? Linderhof and N'stein are offered by Viator on ONE day trip.

"...how would you compare Prague to other great cities?... does it make sense to add Amsterdam, Milan and Cinque Terre on this trip?"

Great cities... and which ones to see. What's great and what isn't is truly subjective. Me... I loved Rome, but Paris? I just don't get all the love at all... For me, Berlin and Munich are in between somewhere, and Prague is too. IMO Germany IS a great country to visit, and I would keep Berlin OR Munich for sure. Bu you will break no tourist codes if you choose NOT to see both of them, or not to detour to Prague if you aren't dying to go. The plan I gave you was not my idea of a great trip, only a way to help YOU see places YOU had in YOUR plan. IMO the greatest places in Germany are NOT the ones that were leveled in WW II but the smaller old-world towns that survived.

If you don't care much about Prague but want to keep most of the suggested plan, that's no problem. You might consider this instead (still w/ 14 nights.) You will have only 3 places to book and the major train trips will streamlined.

Berlin (5 mights)
Würzburg (4-5 nights) It's a handsome city and train hub... (no overnight in Nuremberg - day trip there instead. Other possible day trips to old-world towns like Rothenburg, Bamberg, Ochsenfurt, Bad Windsheim
Munich (4-5 nights) w/ day trips to Salzburg, N'stein/Linderhof


If you really want to add A'dam, Milan, and Cinque Terre, go for it. And if you need to drop Prague or/and Berlin to fit those in, I don't see the problem. Just keep in mind that northern Italy can also be extremely hot.

I would probably want at least 3 nights in Amsterdam. I haven't seen the Cinque Terre myself. Can't tell you how much time you'd need.

With A'dam in the mix, if you need to reduce your time in Germany, you could drop Berlin (there's WW II stuff in Nuremberg, and there's a new Nazi Documentation Center in Munich) and further streamline your train trips. Replace Berlin w/ 3 nights in A'dam and 2 in the Rhine Valley (where the real castles are.) This will still leave you 9 days for Italy or...?

A-dam (3 nights min.)
Rhine Valley (2 nights min.)
Würzburg (4-5 nights) It's a handsome city and train hub... (no overnight in Nuremberg - day trip there instead. Other possible day trips to old-world towns like Rothenburg, Bamberg, Ochsenfurt, Bad Windsheim
Munich (4-5 nights) w/ day trips to Salzburg, N'stein/Linderhof

One area of Italy I have seen in summer and which might be better then is the Dolomites, the Italian Alps - great weather, fantastic scenery, interesting towns, interesting food. Austrian influence in this area means there are some German speakers and some towns have twin names. It's only about 4 hours by train from Munich to Bolzano via Innsbruck.

Castelrotto / Kastelruth
Bolzano / Bozen
Chiusa / Klausen

"Do we really have to use Munich as our base to visit this castle? Is this castle in Fussen?"

Neither Linderhof nor Neuschwanstein is a castle. Both are palaces from the late 19th century.

N'stein and Linderhof are both outside of Füssen in different locations. Linderhof takes 3 hours plus each way from Füssen by public transport. I don't know if Viator or other companies run tours to both locations from Füssen.

Sassafrass

Fussgaenger,
You are being very helpful to the OP. You are so right about what is great being subjective. I hope he gets a trip figured out that is "great" for him.

Jancen

Fussgaenger- Thank you very much for all your suggestions. We pick the sites/cities we want to visit based on our google search and on what we remember from childhood. Here is our revised itinerary:

Amsterdam - 3 nights
Stop by Brussels for around 3 hours and Cologne to see the cathedral before heading to Rhine Valley. Not sure how to use the train to do these 2 stopovers coming from Amsterdam.

Rhine Valley - 3 nights. We want to do the cruise and see Heidelberg. Which part of the area should we stay? Is Heidelberg better to see than Wurzburg?

Berlin - 4 nights. Can we stop by Rothenburg for a few hours on our way to Berlin?

Dresden - 2 nights. We want to do a day trip to Saxon Switzerland. We just added this because it looks like a mini- Grand Canyon.

Prague - 2 nights. This is optional.

Munich - remaining nights. Day trip to Salzburg and Neuschwanstein.

Fussgaenger

"Stop by Brussels for around 3 hours and Cologne to see the cathedral before heading to Rhine Valley. Not sure how to use the train to do these 2 stopovers coming from Amsterdam."

Use the DB itinerary page. Input START and (final) DESTINATION stations. Input a stopover in Brussels and a stopover in Cologne and the amount of time you wish to spend in each stopover.

http://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/en

"Is Heidelberg better to see than Wurzburg?"

Not IMO.

"Rhine Valley - 3 nights. We want to do the cruise and see Heidelberg. Which part of the area should we stay?"

The most attractive part of the Rhine Valley is between Bingen in the south and Boppard in the north. I would prefer to stay there in one of the small, old-world villages.

You can find some direct IC trains from Bingen Hbf to Heidelberg that take 1.25 hours each way. Bingen is the closest of the Rhine villages to Heidelberg. The NH Bingen hotel is a good choice.

"Berlin - 4 nights. Can we stop by Rothenburg for a few hours on our way to Berlin?"

It's not a place I recommend if you're going to Berlin, but there's no law against it. R'burg has lockers at the station for your bags. So does Würzburg. USE the DB itinerary page to decide for yourself if the train schedule is doable.

" We want to do a day trip to Saxon Switzerland."
I am not familiar with Saxon Switzerland and cannot advise you.
http://www.saechsische-schweiz.de/en...itzerland.html