Budapest, Vienna, Salzburg, Munich

Old Feb 18th, 2017, 11:29 AM
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Budapest, Vienna, Salzburg, Munich

My husband and I are planning an 11 day trip to these four cities in late August/early September. This includes our fly time. I will preface by saying that we are in our 60's and we think this is a good length for what we can handle in terms of being away from home! We are flying into Budapest (2 nights), train to Vienna (2 nights), train to Salzburg (3 nights) train to Munich (2 nights) , then we will fly home from Munich.
We plan general sightseeing in Budapest plus a one hour night cruise on the Danube.
In Vienna, we plan to spend our full day at Schonnbrunn Palace, Belvedere Palace and Stadtpark (to see all of the composer statues). We are staying in the Hilton by Stadtpark. We planned to taxi or Uber to Schonbrunn Palace, do a self guided tour then use some type of public transportation to Belvedere Palace, then walk back to our hotel through Stadtpark. We will spend the partial day that we arrive by train exploring the Ringstrasse area, city center attractions. Any tips on these plans and the transportation aspect would be appreciated.
In Salzburg we plan to take a Sound of Music tour, Eagles Nest tour, and see an evening concert at Mirabell Palace. We also are considering the Salzburg Card for other sightseeing such as the Salzburg Fortress, all of the Mozart sites, etc.
One of the main questions I would like to get advice about is whether it would be feasible to go to Melk Abbey on a tour from Salzburg? I don't know if that would stretch us too much time-wise. I thought of trying to stop in Melk on our train ride between Vienna and Salzburg but we will have our luggage. Maybe there are train station lockers? I am not sure how difficult this would be and if we would book two separate tickets, one from Vienna to Melk and one from Melk to Salzburg. It looks like a 25 minute walk from train station to the Abbey. Thanks for any advice.
In Munich we plan to spend as much of the travel day as possible exploring the city center area. The full day in Munich will be devoted to the Neuschwanstein and Linderhof tour.
The next morning we fly home. I imagine it sounds like a whirlwind tour but we mainly enjoy general sightseeing, not into museums that much. We are excited about the tours we have chosen and just walking all over each city as much as we can handle. Thank you for any advice or tips.
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Old Feb 18th, 2017, 02:13 PM
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Melk is best visited on the way from Vienna to Salzburg.

Take a train Vienna-Melk (like the 08:20, arrives 09:22), walk the few steps from the station to the abbey, walk back to the station, take the local train Melk-St. Pölten and hop on the faster train (that comes from Vienna) to Salzburg.

These Vienna-Melk trains are far less frequent than trains that get you from Vienna to St. Pölten where you change to the local to Melk and back to St. Pölten, then continue to Salzburg.

Both St. Pölten and Melk stations have luggage lockers

Timetables at www.oebb.at
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Old Feb 18th, 2017, 02:54 PM
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This trip sounds very rushed to me -- even given the qualifications you mention.

If you haven't already done so, I recommend that you get some good guidebooks (or spend some time with a few in your local library), identify the things you most want to see in each location, check their opening/closing times on the internet, and mark them on a calendar. Pencil in your transportation, add some time on either side (for getting to/from your lodging, checking in/out, packing/unpacking, getting oriented, etc.). Then see how things fit together.

Although I haven't checked your calculations, I trust that you've determined that this plan is possible. It just sounds, to me, unpleasantly rushed. Too much time in transit, too little time actually doing or seeing anything, for my tastes.

Your call!
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Old Feb 18th, 2017, 03:06 PM
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I don't think you realize how enormous the palaces of Vienna and Munich are, even if you don't trek their entire grounds or visit their art collections. They are just simply enormous. Cavernous. They have driveways a half mile long just to get there, and gardens 2 miles long.

For what it's worth, I found most of them rather boring and aesthetically questionable, with the exception of the tasteful + beautiful Belvedere Palace in Vienna. However, the Belvedere Palace is not really within walking distance of your other Vienna targets. Better to hop a taxi or tram for your tight schedule.

I think your plan to go on a hunt for the great compsoers in Vienna sounds like fun -- and a trek through palaces less so.

If you love to walk, the "Asam" church of Munich is a bit of walk away from the touristic center, but only a bit: 20 minutes. It's the most fascinating sight in Munich if you are not going to be touring the art museums.
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Old Feb 18th, 2017, 05:12 PM
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Thank you for all the advice so far. I have put together a pretty detailed itinerary as far as when we would do the various tours so I know that will work. I think the unknowns are the travel on trains as well as just getting around once we are settled in each city. I am sure that could be an eye opener but there is no way to plan for that other than have a pretty definite plan and then hope it all goes accordingly. I really enjoy the research and putting an itinerary together and I have pretty much nailed it when we were traveling in the US and Canada. This could be more challenging but I am just going to be optimistic. I would add a couple of days if it was just me but my husband gets antsy after a week! I appreciate all of the candor from everyone and I will keep honing the plan. I know the train times between cities but I should probably calculate checking out, getting to train and then getting to new hotel realistically as kja suggests. I have used Google maps extensively while planning to get walking distances and trains from point to point as far as our hotels. This is the first time I have planned a trip using Google maps for all the various types of transit. What a huge difference that makes. I am thankful that I am technologically competent to utilize! Thanks for the heads up on the size of the castles and the info on Melk Abbey. I think we may work that in despite the tight schedule.
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Old Feb 18th, 2017, 05:24 PM
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"when we would do the various tours"

What tours? Visiting most of these places are easy to do on your own. Of course, if you PREFER to join tours, that's a different matters....

I guess I just don't understand what you hope to see -- and what you plan to skip -- on this trip. And you will, indeed, be skipping a LOT.
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Old Feb 19th, 2017, 03:19 AM
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Well, kja, we are taking tours for Sound of Music, my favorite movie of all time, Eagle's Nest, and the Castles from Munich. Otherwise, we are doing things on our own. We have only been to Italy as far as European travel. That was an invitational trip through my husband's company, all expenses paid and we were part of a group the entire time so ALL was arranged although we did have quite a bit of free time throughout each place. We have never been on a cruise and have no desire to do that because we do like to be on our own most of the time. I guess I thought that to get to these places that we are taking tours for would require figuring out various modes of transportation or renting a car. I am trying to simplify for those three things. Yes, we could somehow get to the sites that are on the Sound of Music tour, but I look forward to the experience of that tour with the guide, touristy as it may be. And we really don't want to rent a car because of the added expense of hotel parking, and other logistics of whether to rent in Budapest and return in Munich, rent in each city, etc. That would add much more expense and require some time throughout the trip as well. So in some cases, it will be much easier to just go on a tour for at least ease of showing up to the meeting point and having the transportation. And the tours we are taking are not that expensive.
If you have suggestions of places that we will have to skip due to time constraints that would be helpful. You sound like an experienced traveler as far as Europe at the least. That is what is great about these forums, you get so many different opinions and it does in the end help you make adjustments.
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Old Feb 19th, 2017, 05:22 AM
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I'm always trying to figure out what trips some other people take to Europe where they don't miss a LOT. I was just reading someone else's trip report to Naples, which they've yet to finish, and I was remembering my own glirous 9 days in Naples -- easily twice as much time as most people spend in Naples, especially since we didn't go to Capri or Pompeii -- and when I left I knew we missed a LOT of Naples. The guidebook I was carrrying had more than 80 pages on Naples alone, at least half of those sights to see. The trip report I was just reading already has 3 things I didn't do, and it's only half done (and they only stayed 3 or 4 days I think).

Vienna was the seat of a long-running empire that spanned the entire globe (including much of what is now the USA. It got its name from the Roman Empire, so it's also runs deep as well as wide. I was only in Vienna 5 days, busy as a bee every day. Of course I missed a LOT, and would have done so had I stayed another 5 days. (I brought 2 guidebooks with me for Vienna, each close to 100 pages long. Saw less than a 10th of things mentioned in the books).

But I had a great time and Vienna made a deep impression on me. It is surprising how much you learn on a trip because you are paying so much attention to everything, even just who is standing next to you at the tram stop, or what the upholstery is like in a Viennese cafe. As indicated, I wished I had spent my precious time doing something other than visiting Schonnbrun palace -- but my travel partner was surprised I said that afterwards because they got a tingle from walking through rooms where so much consequential for the history of the world had transpired.

I NEVER try to see everything on a trip, and I can think of anyplace I have ever gone where, when I was done I thought: "I've seen everything there is to see here." But big cities like Vienna or Munich for less than 15 days apiece? Of course you are going to be skipping a LOT, unless somehow you were woefully underinformed about the complexity of these culturally important places (or maybe if you just have a different idea of what travel is for than I do.)
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Old Feb 19th, 2017, 06:12 AM
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I can easily understand your interest in those particular tours. But there's a lot else that you might want to see n these wonderful cities -- things that are covered in good guidebooks.

And good guidebooks also cover transportation -- trains, buses, etc. For a preliminary sense of your options, check rome2rio.com or even google maps. You shouldn't need a car for any of the places you are considering.
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Old Feb 19th, 2017, 12:21 PM
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Thanks. I will check that website and I am actually getting a bunch of books at the library tomorrow. I have used Google maps a bunch already to figure out transportation combined with walking in each city. It will be invaluable for getting around for sure.
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Old Feb 19th, 2017, 07:44 PM
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We live in Vienna, and routinely visit the neighbors on your itinerary for one reason or another. Honestly, I think you're trying to "do" too much and may not actually "see" anything. Check your travel dates for holidays and Sundays (when stores and many restaurants will be closed), as well.

I'll just offer my thoughts on Vienna. First, please consider using the city's affordable and highly efficient public transportation rather than clogging the streets with vehicle traffic. Staying at the Hilton Stadtpark means you are steps from the U4 U-Bahn which will drop you across the street from Schloss Schönbrunn. The same U4 will take you back to Karlsplatz, where you can transfer to the U1 toward Belvedere, then back to Stadtpark via Karlsplatz. All of that for ~€7.50 per person.

But more to the point. Do you really want to see Schönbrunn and Belvedere, or do you feel that you "should" because "everyone" does? Schönbrunn can eat the better part of the day if you do not purchase your ticket in advance and if want to take the palace tour (audio-self guided, about an hour) and want to tour the gardens; maze; labyrinth; Gloriette; observe a student-making demonstration; and visit the carriage house. After all of that, it's Belvedere with "The Kiss" and a whole bunch of Austrian art dating from the middle ages.

"The Ringstraße area" is the InnerStadt, with Stephansdom, and so forth. The Ringstraße is the road around the InnerStadt, comprised of former stadt villas, The Vienna Opera, Parliament, Rathaus, Votivkirche, and much more. To appreciate, each require more than the time you may have to devote. So, once again, I ask, what is it you really want to see in Vienna?

I hope this does not come across as harsh or critical. I have seen so many visitors following (and have dragged so many family and friends through) the "must-do," and looking bored and miserable, that I can not stress the importance of deciding upon what interests you most about Vienna.
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Old Feb 20th, 2017, 04:31 PM
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Thank you Four for travel. I will research further and try to figure out the best plan based on your advice. I am sure we will try to utilize the public transportation, I have looked at those options. I have no doubt that Vienna is a city deserving of much more time. We still have time to work on a better itinerary.
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