We will be driving from Salzberg to Vienna in April 2006 (part of our 2 week trip for Munich - Prague)and would like some recommandation on charming little towns for couple stops and possiable for an overnight stay. I want to stop over at Hallstatt because of it beautiful scenary(even it's not exactly on the way)so any other suggestions? We will again travel with our 2 sons (age 7 and 8 at that time) so if there is any activities they could enjoy will be nice. I am planning on 1 night near Herrenchiemsee for the castle, 3 nights in Salzberg, 1 night between Salzberg and Vienna, 3 nights in Vienna and 5 nights in Prague. Thank you in advance for the inputs! This forum made our yearly trip to Europe special every time.

You might want to stop and see the abbey in Melk - absolutely incredible.

The town of Mondsee is delightful and has a fine Baroque/Gothic church.

The scenery between Salzburg and Vienna is gorgeous, and there are plenty of charming towns along the way. I think my vote, though, would be for a town in the Wachau Valley

Several of the towns along the Danube in the Wachau Valley are small and charming and would meet your requirements. We drove our car to Krems, rented bikes, biked to Spitz and then took the boat back to Krems. Along the way we passed Durnstein, a lovely town filled with great wineries and a splended view of the crumbling castle where Richard the Lionhearted was imprisoned. Spitz is also a great town. Melk, as mentioned above, is also in the Wachau and is a very charming small town with the added bonus of it's spectacular Abbey. All three of these would make excellent stopping points. See http://www.wachau.at/wachau/default.asp?tt=atlas for more details, and click on the name of each town for more info. Durnstein is about an hour from Vienna by car.

Austria is a gorgeous country; regardless of where you stay you will have a lovely time.

Tracy

Sounds like you have a WONDERFUL trip planned. We drove to Halstatt as a day trip just this past April. It IS pretty, but you will see so much beautiful area on your trip tht I don't think it is worth the detour. IT's "in" and "out", the town is VERY tight, you park way out and walk (we just drove through and got an overview)

Someone above mention the lovely town of Mondsee and its church. If you are staying in Salzburg 3 nights you will no doubt be taking the "Sound of Music" tour (since you have 2 young sons) and the church in Mondsee where Maria was married is on the tour. The tour is fun, (a little frilly) but a wonderful way to see the countryside around Salzburg.
What a fabulous vacation you will have...and your boys will love it. There is much for them to experience and have fun with on the trip you have planned. We lived overseas (with 3 children) and traveling , when they were 8,9,11 ,was a wonderful time of our lives.

If you are firm about stopping in Hallstatt, which is a good thing to do, you will need 2-3 hours minimum to walk around the little village and get a feel for the area. That stop will dictate your route to a great extent. You will need to decide whether to head back for the autobahn or to continue on some more local roads. I'd suggest that while in the area, you also plan to stop at Bad Aussee and Altaussee just a little distance from Hallstatt. Any of those would also make a good overnight stop.

From there, I'd stick with the more picturesque route and go to Bad Mitterndorf, Tauplitz, then turn east toward Admont and the Nieflau. From there to Mariazell, which makes a great overnight stop, then north to Ybbs an der Donau, then east along the river valley to Melk and on into Vienna along the river.

There are lots of neat places to stop along the way for an overnight or a lunch. You could hustle back to the autobahn rather than what I've recommended, but if you like beautiful scenery, I'd suggest you take the route suggested. Good luck.

Thank you all for the wonderful suggestions esp. Tracy for the very useful website. I think we will definately stop at Melk for the Abby and I am thinking doing a day trip for Hallstatt from Salzberg do that we don't have to detour on the day we drive to Vienna. I want to stay overnight in the Wachau Valley to allow us enough time to soak up the beautiful scenary and wonder anyone has any suggestion on which town we should stay and any suggestion for hotels for our family in the price range of below 200 euros? Tracy, do they have bikes with attached child carriage for rental? Your bike trip sounds fun but my boys are not experienced bikers so I don't think they can do that by themselves yet. But then it will all depends on the weather since I heard that April could be quite rainy in the area.
Thanks again for the help!

baby108, I'm glad I could help! We did the Wachau as a daytrip from Salzburg so unfortunately I can't give you any tips on hotels, although if you try typing "Durnstein", "Krems" or "Melk" into the search engine, you may (hopefully) find some suggestions.

The bike ride was a lot of fun and a perfect way to spend an afternoon. The bikes we rented were 10 speeds, and we picked them up from the gas station directly across the street from the boat dock in Krems. I don't recall if they have children's seats on the back or not, although I would assume so. For more information on the boat ride, you may want to check out the following, which is what Rick Steves has to say about the region and the bike ride:

http://www.ricksteves.com/plan/desti...chauvalley.htm

He also includes web links for the two boats that travel up/down the Wachau. Both of these were useful as they give you an idea of the timeframes, packages, etc.

We did this in May and the weather for our whole trip was iffy but we got lucky because that day it happened to be beautiful! Some of the ride is uphill, although nothing too bad, but the rides through the towns and countryside were amazing. The bike trail is very easy to follow, with signs posted constantly.

If you have any other questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

Good luck!
Tracy

Thank you Tracy for the quick response. I took a quick look at Rick Steve's link and looks like the boats don't start running till May. There are couple hotels mentioned in the link which have bike rentals and I will check that out later. Wayne's suggestion is good but I don't think I have enough time to do 2 nights for stop over in between and maybe I will add one more night to Salzberg so that we will daytrip to Hallstatt and have enough time to see the town. I guess I will have to cut out one night in Prague at the end. I am sure I will have many other questions to ask before our trip

Ahhh...the joys of trip planning! Its so much fun and so stressful at the same time, trying to plan how many days to stay where! We had our trip planned for about 5 months before we decided, at the last minute, to make changes! It sounds like you have the makings of a wonderful trip planned.

Bummer about the boat! I didn't even think about the time frame. If you do decide to stay in the area (Wachau Valley) and don't cycle, the towns are easily reachable by car. Since most are fairly small, a day and night should be fine.

Tracy