If my husband is to accompany me on my conference trip this summer, I have to come up with a day hike base for 2 days or so during the trip that is accessed by main train route or short bus ride from there. I'd love a smaller town with nice scenery. Prefer hills and mountains to lakes.

The conference is in Krakow, but we will fly in/out wherever the price is right to take our vacation, then I will go on to the conference. Usually our airfares are lowest to MUC and BUD and we have never been to Austria, so I am thinking of starting at whichever works out cheaper, such as BUD, then stopping in Vienna, then going by train to ? to hike, then on to MUC for him to return home (or reverse).

Last year you guys helped me find Mittenwald at the last minute and the nature break from MUC saved my sanity. Where would you suggest along this route? Most of the places I've found so far require a couple of train changes that eat up a lot of time. But I think I just don't know Austria well enough.

I did find a neat website at
www.wanderdoerfer.at/english/
but it is taking me a long time to figure out where is location is within Austria.

Last fall my husband and I spent 9 days in a small town called Haus in the Dachstein area. We did a lot of hiking and found this area to be very beautiful and hiker friendly. It is fairly close to Schladming which itself is a smallish town (but bigger than Haus) and which is accessible from Munich by train. Schladming has good hiking trails and nice hotels and restaurants. Hope you find this helpful.

Eichstaett is a city in the Altmühltal north of munich. The area is a big Naturpark, very popular for hiking and biking with German tourists. I don't know whether this is too far from Vienna for your purposes.

I find it somewhat hard to squeeze in 2 days of hiking from BUD via Vienna to somewhere in Austria. It will be quite a ride from Budapest even if the Austrian destination is on a main line.

If Munich will be your port of entry, you could check out the area of Bayrischzell, Schliersee, and Tegernsee. This region is one hour by train south of Munich, and trains run every hour.

Thanks for the help.
I'm looking at Schladming on the map and train schedules. I'll check out what trails are available at Bayrischzell. I'll check into Eichstaett.

I rode through Tegernsee last year enroute to Mittenwald and although it looked like a nice lake area, it didn't seem to have the hills/mountains we prefer.

I don't see the problem in seeing Budapest, travelling 3 hrs by train to Vienna for a few days, then breaking up the 5-hr train ride to Munich into 2 sections with a 2-night stay somewhere. In fact, that's why I thought that would be the best place to plan the hiking--to break up the long train ride.

Hi,
Although not in Austria, Berchtesgaden and the area around it may be a good choice. Just 30 minutes west of Salzburg.

www.berchtesgaden.com/e/e_index.htm

Hallstatt and the Innsbruck (Hall in Tirol) area may be doable also.

www.hallstatt.net

www.hall-in-tirol.at

www.regionhall.com

Paul

Sorry Kay2.. you are absolutely right. I was just confused with all the destinations you mentioned, even though you posted the question quite clear in the headline.

When coming from Vienna by train (on the main line towards Munich), you will be closest to the mountains in the Salzburg area. Nevertheless, you will almost always spend some time connecting to branch lines, since the main lines try to avoid high mountain areas for obvious reasons.

You will find lots of tourist information when you google "Salzburger Land" or "Salzkammergut" or "Berchtesgaden" (the latter in Germany).

Kay2--the official tourist site for the Altmühltal is almost all in German but this link gives some good information, pictures, etc.
http://bekker-romero.com/altmuehl/altmuhl.htm

You can probably tell from its location that this area would qualify as hilly, not mountainous, for hiking.