Daytripping into Bavaria
 

We are leaving for a timeshare 30 miles south of Salzburg on June 20th. We're there for 1 week and would like to visit various places in Germany. My problem is everything looks close, but I know that what looks close can be on the other side of a mountain and double or triple what looks like a short drive. So I'm looking at the area of Eagles Nest and also the Castle area. Can someone give me an idea of driving times? We're staying in St. Johann im Pongau. Thanks in advance.

Check out www.viamichelin.com. For an example, from St. Johann im Pongau to Berchtesgaden is approximately 66 km and takes under an hour.

If you are talking about the King Ludgwig castles, I'm not sure you would want to do this as a day trip. It is over 3 hrs one way to the Fuessen/Schwangau area from St. Johann.

bettyk is right. The castles around Füssen are not exactly next door from St. Johann. And Berchtesgaden area is really an easy drive from St. Johann.

But Herrenchiemsee palace is also one of King Ludwig's castles (and not a small one) and much easier to reach than those in the Füssen area or Linderhof. You will find it very close to the Salzburg-Munich motorway (A 8).
http://www.herrenchiemsee.de/englisc...lace/index.htm

Unless you want to take a scenic road trip (of which there are many from where you will be staying), your best bet to get into Germany is to take A 10 motorway to Salzburg and go west from there towards Germany.

But you will also have that many sights and destinations in Austria in close distance that I would rather take the opportunity to visit those than spend all day in the car driving to destinations in Germany which are far from the border.

Weather-wise it may also be good to have some destinations in southern Austria (e.g. in Kärnten/ Carinthia) since the southern side of the Alps often gets much better weather than the northern side.

Hi zwho,

I agree that Neuschwanstein/Hohenschwangau is a bit too far for a day trip, but agree that if you want to see one of Ludwig's castles/palaces, Neues Schloss/Herrenchiemsee is terrific. We saw it last year and it is amazing. It would take under 2 hours to get to it.

http://www.herrenchiemsee.de/englisc...lace/index.htm

To get to Berchtesgaden/Eagles Nest area, bettyk is correct in that it's less than a 1 hour drive.

For places in Austria...

A castle closer to St. Johann i Pongau is Burg Hohenwerfen.

www.salzburg-burgen.at/de/werfen/

A drive over the spectacular Grossglockner Road is close by also.

www.grossglockner.com

By the way, Zell am See is very close by. We were there last year and found it to be a beautiful town with a stunning lakeside setting surrounded by Alps.

If interested, we have some pic's at:

www.worldisround.com/home/pja1/travel11.html

www.worldisround.com/home/pja1/index.html

Hope this helps.

Paul

Thanks to all of you for some terrific suggestions. I think all of them will work great for our week in this area.

Another great daytrip would be Wolfgangsee. It is very scenic. You could visit St. Gilgen and a then take a boat trip to St. Wolfgang. It's about an hour each way from St. Johann.

Photos from our trip there last September:

http://travel.webshots.com/album/561...xDcvw?start=84