Driving from Vienna to Zurich
 

My wife and I are planning on flying into Zurich, spending 2 nights in Zurich and flying on to Prague for 4 nights.

Looking for advice on sites and things to do in Zurich.

Then drive or train from Prague to Vienna and spending two nights. Then rent a car and drive from Vienna back to Zurich and flying home. Plan on spending 4 to 5 days to drive back to Zurich.

Looking for advice on sites and things to do in Vienna.

Looking for opinions on whether it is worth it to drive from Vienna to Zurich or take a train. Also where should I stop along the way back to Zurich.

Thanks for any input and advice.

Are you aware that there are heavy cross-border drop-off fees on car rentals?

Thanks for that heads up. I will check into drop off fees. Maybe I should drive round trip from Zurich to Prague and back. But this would take a lot more time and I was concerned that I would essentially hit the same sites on the way there as coming back.

Any thoughts.

Round trips are often looked at as wasting time on the way back. However, if it is circular, chances are that the sights will be different. Thus a RT Zurich, Prague, Vienna, Zurich would not duplicate the travel area for most of the trip.

I would use train travel rather than car travel and concentrate on the large cities if time is an issue. Car travel would be slower if presumably you are not racing from point A to point B but want to stop to see things in-between. There are nice day excursions that can be taken from Vienna to see something other than the cities.

But if you are driving, you might be interested in this album, that essentially covers the area of Austria that you would see on the way to the Czech Republic and between Zurich and Vienna:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mksfca/...26792957/show/

You can easily avoid the cross-border drop off fees if you just drive from Vienna to, for example, Innsbruck or Bregenz. And take the train from there to Zurich.
As Michael said, unless you have a nice road trip worked out, the train will offer more ease of travel.
If you, for example, just think of a stopover in Salzburg and Innsbruck, there is little need to rent a car.
But if you plan to do some mountain driving and explore the countryside, then a car can be very useful.