ira

HI C,

Looks like a very good plan.

>some in our party want to shorten our berlin stay and lengthen our munich stay<

You have only 3 nights in Berlin. I wouldn't shorten it
You have 4 nights in Munich (1 daytrip). I wouldn't lengthen it.

TimS

In my previous post when I said that Salzburg was a border city, I didn't make it clear that you can travel there on a Bayern-Ticket. And since 31 May is a Sunday, you won't have to wait until after 09:00 to leave Munich.

Mimar

Did you consider flying into Munich and out of Berlin? Open-jaws tickets save time and money backtracking and often don't cost much more than round trip.

clueless20

thank you so much GeoffHamer, ira, TimS, and Mimar for your wonderful replies! thanks so much for the clarification of the prague stations, we will be sure to get to the holesovice station ourselves by metro to catch our train to berlin. and thank you also for the clarification of s bahns - i kept thinking they were the subways, i didnt realize there was also a local train system (will definitely need to read a little more about how the transport system works in berlin! ). to simplify things, i assumed we would be staying somewhere near the Zoologischer Garten station to make catching a bus for an early morning flight the next day easier, and so i chose to end our train at Savignyplatz, which is one stop away from the garden stop (so we can get off the train earlier or later depending on where the hotel is located). thank you for the recommendation of berlin/munich day stays, ira - i'm glad i prevailed against the parents (the 25 euro flight out of berlin on 5/28 also helped my cause) i'm so happy to learn that salzburg is included in a bayern-ticket, thank you! that means we can even go on the subway or do more sightseeing in munich before heading over to salzburg! btw, i was just reading more about the bayern ticket on the bahn.de website - does it cover 5 people for 28 euros each or total? from the website it seems that all 4 or us could travel to/from neuschwanstein for 28 euros, and from munich to salzburg for another 28 eutos (total!), which sounds too ridiculously too good to be true. is it not 28 euros a person? that would make our decision making about renting a car in munich to visit neuschwanstein that much easier! also, any thoughts about renting a car from salzburg to vienna ($93+ ~40 tolls/gas = ~$133 vs $230 train tickets for 4 of us)? we did consider flying into berlin and out of munich (or vice versa), but it's not too feasible on continental (huge price difference), and all things equal we'd prefer to fly continental b/c of convenience, airline credit, airline status reasons. plus w/this itinerary hopefully there's not much backtracking, since we're flying from berlin to munich directly. i'm really excited about the bayern ticket possibly covering all 4 or us for 28 euros. that would seriously be amazing!

speaking of amazing, for anyone reading this thread to learn more about different itinerary possibilities (i read a bunch of them to get an idea of tickets, routing, sites to see), i posted this in another thread but can't praise them enough:

while planning my own upcoming trip, i found the most amazing website while googling european budget airlines - www.skyscanner.com . it truly is terrific and will give you an idea of when and how much flights are. i was even bored enough to double check them (using another website that lists all the budget airlines that fly in and out of the various countries we were planning on visiting), and they were 100% accurate


thank you all again for all your help, i couldnt have planned this trip without all your wonderful suggestions and help!

molker

Bayern ticket is 28 euro for up to 5 people

clueless20

thanks so much molker! i'm thrilled - we went from thinking it would cost from munich-fuessen RT 22,20 euro X 2 (roundtrip) X 4 people = 177.6 euro to 28 euros total! that's incredible! plus now it'll only be 28 euros instead of 102 euros from munich to salzburt! yay! and these are tickets we can buy directly at a selfservice ticket station in munich, yes (or from the airport as we will be arriving by plane). thanks again for all the help!

clueless20

sorry, meant to write "no" not "yes" before:

and these are tickets we can buy directly at a selfservice ticket station in munich, no (or from the airport as we will be arriving by plane)?

too excited to think properly

clueless20

help please for those of us familiar with the austrian website:

i'm looking for promotional train tickets from vienna to prague on june the 3rd. from the oebb.at site it seems that that 10:58-15:01 train should be 29 euros, but when i try to click to buy i am only shown the trains leaving at 1658 and 1858 for that rate. am i doing something wrong? thanks in advance

ira

Hi Clu,

I see the 29E fare for the 10:58 on June 3 at oebb.

Palenque

is it a difficult drive from salzburg-vienna?

not if your take the autobahn - very simple and straight forward and rather scenic as well IMO

clueless20

hi ira and palenque,
thank you so much for your quick replies, i really appreciate it! ira, i still cant seem to see the 29euro fare from oebb's website - i'm not sure what i'm doing wrong? from the train schedule page i click the "ticket by post option." i see the 29 euro 10:58 option listed under Preis ohne Ermässigung and click that. from there i'm brought to a page asking for my departure date and then i click on "search for offers." then i see only the 1658 or 1858 trains. ideally we'd like the 858, 958, or 1058 trains, but none seem to have the promotional fare available although the 1058 train is listed under the origical "tickets by post" link. is there another way for me to purchase the tickets for the 29 euro price? thank you! thanks palenque for letting us know about the straightforward autobahn route - from michelin;s website it looks simple enough, but it's hard to tell in 2D i'd love to do a little driving in europe, as i've never driven there and definitely never on the autobahn. thanks again!

Palenque

This is an Austrian autobahn and Austria loves rules and enforcing rules IMO (they give tickets to jay-walkers!)

so it is not an autobahn without speed limits - at least i think not - like in Germany where on about 50% of autobahns there is no speed limit except what your car can do.

clueless20

thanks palenque! i promise not to drive recklessly (or over the speed limit!) especially with 2 parents in the car
would you mind answering a quick question if you have time? i'm trying to buy our vienna-prague train ticket, and by hitting the online-ticket option, and then vienna-prague, i was able to pull the 29 euro fare/passenger:

valid on a specific train Ticket from Wien Südbahnhof (Bstg. 01-09) TRAIN EC 172 from 09:58 to 14:29 (04:31)
6 seat 2nd class 29.00.-

this seems perfect (the fare i was trying to get before! ). this isnt just excluded to european travellers, is it? and i assume it'll be cheaper than the 1-PLUS-Freizeitticket? i dont think our EC or SC trains qualify for the Einfach-Raus-Ticket? thanks again for your help!

clueless20

so apparently the website pulls up special fares depending on whether i selected a train ending at prague hln or holesovice fortunately there are a lot more early trains under the holesovice option so it works for me!

i think we might go the 1-PLUS-Freizeit ticket option (seems to be full price+1 euro for 1st passenger, 1/2 price for all the remaining passengers) for our salzburg-vienna journey since we're looking at a total of ~US$145 vs ~US$133 rental car. my mom should qualify as a senior citizen but i dont think it's worth it to get her the seniorscard (or is it)? thanks!

clueless20

received an error message after entering my name, email address, and credit card number (3 different credit cards - amex, mc, and visa). hopefully the website will be fixed soon!

clueless20

oy, still getting the same error message:

Error 8 01621PLATZLAGE FALSCH 01

Unfortunately an error has occurred while generating the ticket.


any thoughts?