Hi all,
my husband and I have a week trip to Austria planned for early July. We have return flights to Bratislava (from London) and have a very rough plan but would love some input from those who know Austria.

We are thinking of not booking any accommodation ahead of time (are we going to have trouble?) and staying
- one night enroute after our arrival at lunchtime
- two nights in Hallstatt or another small town
- two nights south of Salzburg, in a small town or village
- two nights in maybe Melk or Durnstein

We want to avoid big cities and spend time in the countryside. We are hiring a car and places we would like to see, depending on if can manage it timewise, are:

Hallstatt
Grossglockner road (I believe it starts in Zell am See and ends in Lienz)
Ice caves or salt caves
Semmering Railway - not sure if you can see it from the road in a car?
Durnstein
Melk

Open to comments or suggestions. We don't know this part of the world and normally prefer to have 3 nights minimum in places so a trip is not too rushed but there is a lot we'd like to see.

Any thoughts?
Kay

I'd recommend that you spend 4 nights in St. Gilgen on Wolfgangsee. There is much you can do in the immediate area as well as day trips to Hallstatt (and the surrounding area) and Salzburg. It's also just an hour's drive to Berchtesgaden.

Thanks for the thought, do you think we would have any trouble getting a room once we arrive? It would be nice not to be locked in to accommodation. Not sure when peak season is in Austria.

Kay

I would definitely book accommodations in July since that is a busy travel time.

If you do decide on St. Gilgen, we stayed at the lovely Schernthaner Hotel.

http://www.hotel-schernthaner.at/sei.../anreise_e.htm

I'd also recommend that you stay in Durnstein. From there you can easily visit Melk and Krems.

I have never been on the Semmering Railway. However, Semmering is almost 2 hrs from Durnstein. Maybe someone else here can advise you on that.

Thanks. Looking at the map, it seems the Semmering Railway starts near Vienna and as we fly into Bratislava, we will be entering Austria near here. So I thought we could possibly see the railway on our first afternoon, then drive on to find somewhere to stay. Not knowing the area, I don't know if this is a nutty idea.

Kay

Several years ago we spent 3 nights in Heiligenblut at a B and B run by the Kramser family. I think they still own it.

There are also a couple of nice hotels in the village, which is located at the southern terminus of the Grossglockner Hochalpenstraße.

The road itself is steep and winding, but it gave us no problem. My wife has driven over it as well, but she handles about anything calmly.

We also visited the Krimmler Wasserfälle (Waterfalls) by driving to Lienz and taking a road through a couple of tunnels to the northwest.

The Grossglockner is a spectacular drive. We liked it so much the first time that we went back for seconds.

Thanks, this is good info.

Bob - how long did it take you to do the Grossglockner drive? I read in one guidebook it takes 9 hours but I find that hard to believe.

Also, do you remember the name of the B&B run by the Kramsers?

Any other thoughts, keep them coming.

Kay

ice caves or salt caves

They are not similar. The ice caves (near Werfen, south of Salzburg) are a great activity. They are caves in which water has seeped and frozen into ice features.

Salt caves (I think you mean salt mines) are mines that you go into. Great fun. I have done the one at Hallstatt and at Hallein (near Salzburg). I liked the Hallein one better (liked it better in 1970 than I did in 1987)

>> We are thinking of not booking any accommodation ahead of time (are we going to have trouble?) <<

I think you can give it a shot. But you should come prepared with a list of possibilities gleaned from the internet at home together with a mobile phone to make calls from the road. Of course you'd need to be able to speak German. You'd also have to begin your search relatively early in the day and not wait until the last moment.

Hi KayF,

To drive the entire Grossglockner Hochalpenstrasse does not take 9 hours. We drove it Oct. 2006 and it took us about 2 hours with some stops. I'd say if we spent another hour (total of 3 hours) it would have been a lot more relaxed and we could have seen more. It's an outstanding drive!
We also stayed at a wonderful place in Heiligenblut called the Pension Ederhof. Absolutely stunning scenery from our room balcony... actually in every direction around the Pension Ederhof. Their Großglockner Panoramablick Rooms (for an extra 2 or 3 Euros p/p a night) is so worth it.

www.ederhof-heiligenblut.at

Although the website is in German, you can correspond in English with them.

Zell am See is gorgeous also. We think it's one of the prettiest places in all of Austria.

Just an opinion... you said:
"- two nights in Hallstatt or another small town
- two nights south of Salzburg, in a small town or village"

Pretty much means the same thing, as Hallstatt is South (and east) of Salzburg.

If you didn't want to travel the Grossglockner (or go that far south), I'd highly recommend the Berchtesgaden area. We stayed in Ramsau (15 minutes from Berchtesgaden and 30 minutes from Salzburg) in "06 and '07 and love it there. We stayed both times at a wonderful place called the Mayringerlehen in Ramsau.

www.mayringerlehen.de

Actually, you could make a full day trip from here to drive the Grossglockner and return, but a night in Heiligenblut is nice.

Just so you know about driving distances:
From Salzburg (or Berchtesgaden area) to Zell am See is about a 1:30 minute drive and Hallstatt is also about 1:30 minute drive.

Our recent pic's are at:

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

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


Hope this helps.

Paul

Thanks all, this is so helpful. One thing about ringing for accommodation while on the road is we don't speak German so that makes it hard. I could figure out (at home, beforehand) what to say in German but wouldn't know what the person was saying back to me. Perhaps we would be better off going to the tourist info office in each town and asking them to book something?

Paul, I look forward to checking out your photos.

Thanks again, we appreciate this info.
Kay

>> Perhaps we would be better off going to the tourist info office in each town and asking them to book something? <<

That's okay but quite time consuming. You could also find the office closed when you pull up.

Regarding the spoken German, you can select, from their websites, only those Gästezimmers that do speak English. BTW, in these rural areas you'll find that most folks speak only German...

The tourist information offices (when open) may be a last resort. But you will see many private rooms advertised (a bit like your B&Bs, but usually at a bit less professionell level). "Frei" means vacancy, "Belegt" means no vacancy. Often these signs are either green or red, so you can almost guess what it may mean.
Finding a room even during high season is not an impossible task, except at those places you find mentioned here all the time: Hallstatt, St. Gilgen, Heiligenblut, Melk, Zell, etc. etc.
When you have a car, and don't wait till sunset to find a room, you should be okay. But you should not expect that of all inns or hotels the nicest looking ones will still have vacancies...

The Semmering Railway is UNESCO would heritage, but as a technical monument (first alpine railroad). But you should be a bit of a railroad fanatic to find it fascinating ;-)

sorry .. had too much coffee.. too many typos

Hi Kay. 9 hours for the Grossglockner?
Was that time on a bicycle?

Seriously, we stopped to look and even to eat on most of our 4 trips to and fro over the road. We never spent anything like that kind of time! (Two vists, 2 years apart.)

I don't recall timing our trip, but my estimate is 60 minutes IF if you timed the drive from Heiligenblut to Zell am See. I am assuming in the time estimate that the driver did NOT take the side excursion to the national park but made 4 to 5 short stops along the way.

I could see a full visit taking 3 hours or even more if one stopped at all the overlooks for prolonged views, visited the exhibits, ate lunch, and visited the national park at the west end of the road.

We did not descend to the glacier itself nor did we take any hikes.
Had we done that, our time would have been longer by a major factor.

Now for Landhaus Christoph run by the Kramser family.

http://tinyurl.com/4sy2xy and
http://www.urlaub-heiligenblut.at/

The second one is in German, but has a more accurate description of what the facility has to offer.

If you look at the first url I listed, you will see first a full German version, but look at the top right and click on the English flag if you need to.

HOWEVER, please note that this description is not fully accurate.
The facility has one apartment, but also hotel-style rooms for several people.

I copied some info in German from the Kramser's home page and added some English for you.

WILLKOMMEN Welcome
Landhaus Christoph
Privatzimmer (private rooms)
Pension

Betten und Zimmer Beds and Rooms
• 9 Betten 9 beds (total)
• 1 Einzelzimmer 1 single room
• 1 Doppelzimmer 1 double room
• 2 Mehrbettzimmer 2 multi-bed rooms
• 1 Ferienwohnung(en) 1 apartment
(I added the English for you.)

We had a room with two beds and a private bath - the double room shown above. I would call it clean and basic accommodations. There was no real problem with the place and it is located on a long, but virtually dead end street by the creek well down the hill from the main part of the town.

At the time, Johannes, the youngest of the 4 children, had just emerged from toddler stage. He could talk, but did not recognize that my wife spoke no German and that I was fairly poor at it. Little Johannes would run up to my wife, jump in her lap, whisper something in her ear, and then rush off giggling. The little boy met no strangers.

The breakfast was adequate but not spectacular. For dinner, we ate at the Post hotel which served the best Wiener Schnitzel I have had, period. Better than Vienna!!

The little town itself is surprisingly up-scale. Several of the shops have very nice products, including Swarovski Crystal.

We enjoyed our short visit there and got to see some of the surrounding area.

Frau Kramser speaks fair English. I only met her husband once for just a very few minutes. He spoke some English too. Friendly people, however.

Kay: I wanted to add just in case it is of interest to you that we also spent almost a week in the Ötztal near the town of Sölden at smaller town called Lagenfeld. I recall it well because that is where we were on that fateful day of 9/11!!

We had an apartment that was the best one we have rented in Europe.
http://www.hausmichael.at/

The valley highway itself leads to a high pass that crosses into Italy via the Timmelsjoch. The pass is well engineered on the Austrian side.
The Italian side is not so good.
Unlighted tunnels and the like.
We did not go very far down that road because it was very very cloudy. We could not see much of anything and decided the drive was not worth the effort.

There were side roads to various attractions including a glacier with ski facilities even in summer.

If interested I can tell you more.

To bob_brown (and KayF),

We also spent 4 nights in Soelden. We stayed in a place just above the town It was called the Hotel/Cafe Herman I think) The Oetz valley is beautiful and the Timmelsjoch is spectacular and was a bit hair raising not so much for myself, but my for my wife!). We also drove the Glacier Road which was terrific.
We went from the Innsbruck area over the Jaufen Pass then over the Timmelsjoch Pass into Soelden. Beautiful!

Paul

I might that in addition to the mountains, there is an outdoor museum located near the entrance to the Ötztal. It is based on life at the time of Ötzi the Iceman. The remains of The Iceman reside in a museum in Bolzano (Bozen) where he is kept frozen.

The museum has animals that have been engineered to be as close to the actual farm animals that are believed to have lived during that time.

I found the outdoor museum to be very interesting.

Thanks all, this is great info.

Bob - thanks for taking the time to translate German to English, that's very kind.

I can't see us having time to get as far west as Soelden as we fly in and out of Bratislava and only have a week. After talking and looking at maps, we are thinking of -

Arrive Bratislava lunchtime,
first night in Melk, see Durnstein if possible on the way

then 3 nights Zell am See, do the Grossglockner road drive (would stay in Heiligenblut if someone could tell me why it's preferable)

then 2 nights Hallstatt

then one night enroute to Bratislava, staying fairly close to Slovakia as our flight leaves at lunchtime

We are now leaning towards prebooking accommodation so if anyone has any places to recommend, I'm all ears. I think if I spoke German I would be keener to wing it.

All comments very welcome.
Kay

Hi KayF,
I suggested Heiligenblut as a stop over just in case you didn't want to do the drive from the Grossglockner back to the Salzburg area in the same day. From Zell am See, a stay in Heiligenblut is obviously not necessary. I will say, although we only spent a day in Zell am See, it's one of the prettiest places we've been to in Austria.

Paul