Please review this itinerary for our trip starting mid-September 2013.

Fly to Vienna (3 nights)
Depart Vienna, pick up rental car, see Melk on the way to Halstatt
Halstatt (1 night)
Salzburg (2 nights)
Reutte or Fussen (2 nights) - visit Ludwig Castle, drive a little way north along Romantic Road to get a taste
Lucerne (2 nights)
Lauterbrunnen (3 nights) - visit Murren, Gimmelwald, etc.
Staufen (1 night) - drive through Black Forest
Baden Baden (1 night)
Bacharach (1 night) - take Rhine cruise
Frankfurt for flight home (1 night)

The rental car is pretty expensive, especially with the dropoff in a different country. I was contemplating dropping the car off in Lucerne and picking up another one at the end of our Lauterbrunnen stay to continue on to Staufen. Any thoughts on that?

Also, airfares are quite high to Vienna from US compared to travelling to other parts of Europe. Is this because Austrian Air has a monopoly?

Regarding Lauterbrunnen, guidebooks recommend staying up in Gimmelwald or Murren instead. However, I thought maybe it might be better to stay in the valley in case the weather was bad. Do I assume correctly that there will be more options with bad weather if I stay in the valley?

Thank you so much for considering my itinerary and my questions.

Drop the Austrian car in Salzburg, take a train or a taxi to Freilassing - few km. from Salzburg but just over the border in Germany and rent a car there that you will give back in Germany as well. Just remember to check if you are authorized to take the car for a few days in Switzerland (and pay the highway sticker if necessary).

The Romantic Road is a marketing name that links together a number of wonderful towns and cities from Fuessen to Wurzburg. I don't say that to criticize the route, but to point out that in between those great sites, there is nothing particularly scenic or romantic about the highway. The rolling foothills of the Alps around Fuessen are nice as are the hills in north Franconia around Rothenburg, but when you say "drive a little way north along the RR to get a taste, you aren't going to get a taste of what the route is really famous for until you hit Augsburg and north of it. Sure, there are some nice Bavarian towns, but nothing very much different than what you will see if you headed straight to Lauterbrunnen. For the 3-4 hour time it will take you to drive to Augsburg and back I think you would be better off just picking a nice route through the Alps to Lauterbrunnen, which is pretty much in the opposite direction of Augsburg. If you want to get into the most popular part of the RR, then it will be a 6 hour return trip with no time for stopping.

If you want a taste of something different, you could try driving from Fuessen along the north shore of Lake Konstanz, and visiting Lindau and/or Meersburg. It is a little under 4 hours from Fuessen to Lucerne, on that route.

You do have a lot of 1 night stops - I would see if you might find a way to condense a couple of them into adjacent stops; Staufen to Baden Baden is only about 1:20 and Lucerne to Staufen is only about 1:40, for example.

The advice to pick up the car across the border in Freilassing is spot on - you should save a lot.

Airfares to Vienna are higher because it is not as "popular" of a gateway airport into Europe and it is an hour or more farther east than most of the major European gateways. There is no monopoly.

Austrian has no monopoly for flights to Vienna.
You obviously like driving, otherwise you wouldn't have chosen an itinerary where you stay longer in your car than elsewhere. Therefore I'm a bit surprised that you want to go to Murrren or Gimmelwald, 2 of the only 10 Swiss mountain villages which cannot be reached by car.

If the weather is bad at Murren and Gimmelwald, it's bad at Lauterbrunnen too. For day trips out of the valley (Berne, etc.) count about 20 min more OW, if you start at Muerren/Gimmelwald.

Never heard about Staufen im Breisgau. But with a car, it doesn't matter in which village you stay. Visit Colmar, the Ecomusee d'Alsace and Freiburg, Mulhouse if you are interested in the car museum, the railway museum or the textile museum.

>>>"You obviously like driving, otherwise you wouldn't have chosen an itinerary where you stay longer in your car than elsewhere."

17 nights with 15 hours driving between stops.
What math are you using?

>>>"Therefore I'm a bit surprised that you want to go to Murrren or Gimmelwald, 2 of the only 10 Swiss mountain villages which cannot be reached by car."

Funny?

I don't know why anyone would want to stay in Gimmelwald.

If I were a French film star and I wanted to flee my ex-lover and the paparazzi, then maybe I would stay in remote Gimmelwald.

Thin, who once at a can of Pringles on a bench in Gimmelwald whilst contemplating a wasp on his $200 Nike trainers

ate a can of Pringles

North along the Romantic Road to get a taste and then doing a 180 degree turn to get to Lucern I think is a waste of time but to each their own.

As an alternative you could drop your car in Salzburg and take the train to Lucern and then to the Berner Oberland. From there take a train to Baden and rent another car.

Hi,

Have you looked at flying into Munich and then training to Vienna? Just a thought. Try to rent and return the car in Germany. It's usually cheaper to rent in Germany than in Austria.

Take the night from Hallstatt and add it to Salzburg. Day trip to Hallstatt. It's close enough. One less night of changing hotels.

Get a "taste" of the Romantic Road"... that would be a waste of time in my opinion. Even at it's "best", the Romantic Road is no different than any other road. It's actually less scenic than most in my opinion. It's a few of the old towns it "connects", such as Rothenburg, etc.

There's really no need for a car based in Lucerne or the Berner Oberland. I'd recommend staying in Wengen. There's no advantage to staying in Lauterbrunnen in case of bad weather. It's only a 15 minute train ride from Wengen to Lauterbrunnen.

Paul

Aramis:
"What math are you using?"
Obviously not the same as you do!
Vienna - Wachau - Salzkammergut - Hallstatt - Salzburg - Oberbayern Fuessen - Rothenburg - Fuessen - Lauterbrunnen - Bacharach - FRA:
30 hrs of driving (without intermediate stops on days 4 - 9:
5 hrs without stops and about 7 hrs with stops every day. Add to that the visit of Melk monastery, Hallstatt, Salzburg, the castle of mad Ludwig, the many small towns along the Romantic road and of course the many other gems along the road like the lakes of Salzkamergut and Oberbayern, Ettal, Wieskirche, Linderhof castle, Oberammergau, Lake Constance, Appenzell, etc. etc. ..

Yes, you can do it faster by using boring motorways only, but that's certainly not the adequate soluton for a holiday trip.

Indeed, the cost of flights to Vienna are higher from my city too.
I have to go to Vienna for a meeting but also am taking some holiday, so I am looking at gateways that will reduce my cost substantially that are also near where I would want to vacation. Those cheaper airports for me are Prague, Munich or Zurich. It sounds like you might consider Prague or Munich.

Lauterbrunnen hotel stay will be more convenient than Gimmelward or Murren. If you by car to Lauterbrunnen then at the end of the valley after Stubbach falls there is one Jungfrau camp located. It is a fantastic location right in front of falls and will be memorable stay.

I wasn't impressed by the Romantic Road either. However, I loved Staufen. It's a charming little town with an outdoor bar more or less in the center.

Be sure to look at the two murals on the sides of buildings. One tells a historical story; the other shows the devil taking Faust to hell and claims that room 15 in the hotel is the very room in which this event occurred.

By the by, I think you're doing too many one night stops.