Itinerary Help- 12 day trip to Munich, Salzburg, Vienna and Prague
 

We (2 adults and 3 grown children) will be traveling end of June to Munich, Salzburg, Vienna and Prague. Need advice on length of stay in each city and what are the must see sites, attractions and hotels.
Thanks!!

For must see sights you should start with several good guide books and determine what is important to you.

For suggestions on hotel you need to give a specific amount per night in euros - and if you are looking for two rooms - one double and one triple - or a suite for 5 people (quite rare).

How many nights do you actually have on the ground? You can;t count the day you arrive or the day you depart. If you have 12 full days (13 nights) on the ground I would do:

Munich -3 days (4 nights)
Salzburg - 1 day (2 nights)
Vienna - 3 days (4 nights)
Prague - 2 days (3 nights)

The time to get from one place to another needs to be deducted from the list above - so 1 day for Salzburg is really 1/2 day and Vienna is 2.5 days etc.

Frankly I think in this time you should stick to 2 or at most 3 places. You are really giving these cities short shrift - but without knowing more about you and your specific interests it's really not possible to determine which city(ies) to drop from your list.

Sorry - if you really only have 10 days on the ground I think any more than 2 cities (with a day trip from one) would give you just a very fast-paced tour of the train stations of europe.

Is your entire trip 12 days (which only nets you 9.5 days free on the ground) . . . OR . . . is it 15 days total (netting you 12.5 days)?

If the former -- too much in too little time. If the latter -- doable but awfully rushed since you'll lose about half a day every time you move. And w/ a group of 5 things will take longer/be less efficient.

You could do Salzburg as a day trip from either Munich or Vienna.

You like to spend 4 days sitting in train stations, nytraveler?

We do have some serious time manipulation/defining going on;

"can't count the day you arrive or the day you depart"
"time to get from one place to another needs to be deducted"
"only nets you 9.5 days free on the ground"
"lose about half a day"

Can't we just presume that someone with the intelligence to submit a question to this forum is aware that it takes time (which, by the way, is a constant thing that cannot get lost or disappear) to get from point A to point B?

Munich to Salzburg - 1:40
Salzburg to Vienna - 2:25
Vienna - Prague - 4:30

Uggh - that is about 9.5 hours of travel time over 12 days. Why even go such a trip? It works out to between 4.9% and 5.4% of all available waking hours (depending on whether one uses 11 or 12 days worth of "24" hour periods in the calculation and a wake to sleep ration of 2:1).

That averages to between 49 and 52 minutes of travel time per day.

The average commute in America is about 25.4 minutes or 51 minutes round trip. If that is a ridiculous amount of time to spend travelling while on vacation in a foreign land while learning things, interacting with other travelers, and seeing the countryside, then what the heck is it when it is spent on a commuter train or nose to nose on a highway?

Who wouldn't think time spent commuting daily, for a week, was a more acceptable "loss" of time than taking a train from Vienna to Prague (about the same time required)? You could only arrive by early afternoon and would only have more than half the day to enjoy Prague; enjoying a late lunch, a nice dinner, and a stroll across the Charles Bridge.

Go ahead, let me know how I have "forgotten" (I must be simple minded, too!) to include the time and energy needed to pack, get to and from the train station, check-in, check out. Doing that 3 times instead of just once really changes things. The extra 4 hours that takes would make anyone want to forego Salzburg and Vienna entirely!

Man, if we factor in the amount of time it takes to actually plan and book the trip and get to Europe and back home, the entire exercise seems like a waste. Do you know how much time is lost doing that. It's days and days.

I may never leave home again - except to go to commute to work.

Tina; I will presume you have a working knowledge of time and space. The travel times by train between your desired locations are noted. You could do Salzburg as a day trip from Munich, but I think it probably deserves the second day, so I would recommend 2 nights there. As for your other 9 or 10 nights, you can either divide them equally (3 each) because they certainly each have enough to see to keep you busy for 3 days, or you could pick which one of them intrigues you the most and give it the extra night. Another way to try and assess it is that Prague will get a couple of hours less time because of the travel time to, Vienna, so you might want to give it the extra night to square things up a bit. Vienna is a bit "imperial" in it's presentation and unless that holds particular interest ofr your party it might be worth less time than Munich and Prague.

hi tinade.

have you already booked your flights? i assume you are flying into munich and out of prague?

i'll give you our itinerary between innsbruck and vienna. this might help you with pacing.

hall, near innsbruck - 1. arrived around 1 p.m, picked up car, looked aronund city briefly. hotel.

salzburg - 2. commute fr hall, two half days to explore salz, a full day out in countryside around salz.

melk -1. other 1/2 day salz, commute from salz, stop to pay respects at mauthausen former c camp.

vienna - 4 melk abbey, commute to vienna...some scenic driving. 3 full days in vienna.

we're up to 8 n. i think you need more time in munich than we did in hall/inns. if you shorten time in vienna to 3, or delete melk, then you can have 3 n in munich and be up to only 9 n. the last 3 n, you drive to prague, enjoy prague.

it's a bit tight but doable.

oops, forgot to add, take train from munto salz and from vienna to prague. car drop off fees are v high wth int'l 1 way rentals.

"...what are the must see sites, attractions..."

It's YOUR trip, so first thing is to do some reading on your own - figure out what might interest YOUR family in these places - then decide whether each of the 4 cities you named has some of YOUR "must-sees." No sense in booking hotels and trains in all of them if only 2 or 3 are seriously compelling.

If you dump one but still think you have time for somewhere else, find out what's NEAR your selected places. If Prague, Munich and Salzburg are your choices, for example, but you still have 1 or 2 days, it might make more sense to skip Vienna and see something closer like Berchtesgaden or Hohenwerfen Castle, both near Salzburg.

I must admit that this trip sounds too rushed for my tastes. I recommend that you get some good guidebooks (or spend some time with a few in your local library), identify the things you most want to see in each location, note their opening/closing times, and mark them on a calendar. Then pencil in your transportation, add some time on either side (for getting to/from the train/bus station or whatever, checking in/out, packing/unpacking, getting oriented, etc.). Then see how things fit together.

Have not visited Vienna or Prague but Munich and Salzburg are wonderful especially that time of the year! Don't be discouraged you will get it worked out and have the time of your life!
We drove from Munich to Salzburg and what a beautiful drive, we stopped off at a little town and did a toboggan ride, and ate at a wonderful restaurant. We spent 5 days in Munich and 4 in Salzburg and had plenty to see and do. We also spent some time in the Austrian alps in a town called Maria Alm and did a few day trips from there as well as some hiking in the alps.We spent some time in Regensburg, Germany too but our trip duration was over three weeks. You can take day trips like going to see Neuschwanstein castle from Munich. I felt like having a home base for a good amount of time made the trip more enjoyable.

I don't think TinaDe is still w/ us. She posted and and never returned (may be waiting for a non-existant e-mail notification :? )

Thank you all for the advice! We live in NY so we are used to travel time and train schedules so I'm not too worried about the train travel and scheduled times. I am still tweaking the time in each city. Hoping to finalize all this weekend.

Maybe I missed it. Tinade, did you ever say what your total time on the ground?

It would also help to know your expectations for hotels. All of the places you are going have the full range of accomodations from five star to flop house.

We will be on ground June 26- july7

Do you arrive on the 26th and fly out on the 7th?

If so, you have 10.5 useable days

Yes that's correct- we get in June 26 am and leave July 7 midday.

so half a day (jetlagged) on the 26th through the 6th. 10.5 days - minus a bit over one full day spent traveling point to point. So about 9 full days sightseeing time for 4 cities. If you are set on all four -- I'd consider staying only in Munich, Vienna and Prague.