steve_Australia

Hi Palen,

It's getting tougher by the day now. My wife and I have discussed that to see Germany/Austria properly, we should consider dropping Denmark from this trip. That would give us an extra 8 days. That said, my wife suggested we use a few of those days to revisit Brugges - one of our favourite destinations from last time.

Now we have no inbound or outbound city. Ideally we would love to fly into Hamburg and out of Brugge - which of course is impossible. And making our way out of Frankfurt, for example,and from Brugge to either Amsterdam, Paris or Zurich would use up all of the extra days we just gained!

It's not easy being green.

lavandula

Have you thought of flying from Frankfurt to Hamburg? It may not add that much to your ticket to do so. Lufthansa I think is the only airline to do it, and it will cost you maybe half a day. Can't help with flying to Belgium, but Bruges is pretty close in to Brussels. Could you fly to Brussels from Vienna? Try Brussels Airlines or Austrian.

Lavandula

PalenQ

Bruges is only 2.5 hours or so from Paris by train - Paris is another option to fly out of and perhaps you want to revisit the City of Love once again?

steve_Australia

Hi Lavandula. Yes, we did consider that option, but would prefer to fly in and then train to Bruges if possible rather than having another flight. The flight from Australia is horrendous enough without adding another.

Hi Palen. Your suggestion is what we are mulling over at the moment. Our last trip was a train trip from Amsterdam to Bruges via Brussels. So we are debating whether to revisit Paris or Amsterdam - both are nice.

The other scenario we are contemplating is to reverse our trip - arrive in Munich and work our way through Austria and Prague up to Hamburg before heading to Bruges. This would at least remove the inbound flight problem plus it would probably make sense to head north as the weather gets warmer.
What do you think?

trotters

Steve,back to your Salzkammergut query. Why not consider staying in Salzburg and then spending a few days in St. Gilgen. You can easily explore the lakes via public transportation. It's an easy 40 minute bus ride from Salzburg to St. Gilgen.

We recommend staying at Hotel Schernthaner and taking day trips to St. Wolfgang & Hallstatt. Highlights for us were the cable car up the Zwoelferhorn and the Schafbergbahn cog railway up to the Schafberg--both offering great views of the lakes & mountains. Take the paddle steamer from St. Gilgen to St. Wolfgang for more pretty lake scenery.

Hallstatt is 1.5 hours from St. Gilgen by bus/train. Check out the schedule on the German rail site, De Bahn. In the morning there are departures every hour to Hallstatt. It looks like the last feasible return to St. Gilgen is 18:30. And be prepared for lots of tourists.

St. Gilgen is smaller than St. Wolfgang and has a lovely park along the lakefront. It's also less congested than St. Wolfgang. We were glad we chose St. Gilgen as our base last August. It was an idyllic getaway from the more touristed areas we had visited.

We previously visited the Salzkammergut by car and think it's easy by car or public transportation.

steve_Australia

Hi Trotters.

Thanks very much for the info. St Gilgen sounds a wonderful idea. I was hoping not to have to hire a car, so the public transport news is good news for us. I look forward to checking out the Hotel Schernthaner.

Regards, Steve.

PalenQ

Hallstatt is 1.5 hours from St. Gilgen by bus/train. Check out the schedule on the German rail site>

a bit quicker than I had thought so a possible day trip from Lake District - and goes via Bad Ischl where a brier peak in Franz-Josefs old hunting lodge can be a highlight of your trip. (change to train in Bad Ischl).

steve_Australia

Okay. We are now very close to our final 6-week itinerary. The latest plan is:

1. Fly into Munich - stay 4 nights
2. 4 nights Garmisch-Partenkirchen
3. 4 nights Berchtesgaden
4. 3 nights Salzburg
5. 2 nights St Gilgen
6. 5 nights Vienna
7. 3 nights Prague
8. 2 nights Dresden
9. 4 nights Berlin
10. 3 nights Hamburg
11. 3 nights Bruges
12. 2 nights Amsterdam - fly back to Oz from Schiphol

With the above itinerary, we still have 2 nights yet to fill.

My wife would like to see Heidelberg and Rothenburg. Is it possible to see both places over 2 nights using public transport? Remembering that after night 2, we would need to make our way to Garmisch-Partenkirchen.

Help from my Fodor experts would be much appreciated.

Thanks and regards, Steve.