Switzerland & Austria Itinerary
 

My wife & I (both age 72) will be in England to attend some brass band competition on 17-18 September 2017. We have been to the UK 5 or 6 times and we are very comfortable with the driving, etc. I imagine we will spend a week to 10 days in England. After that (or before), my wife would like to visit the town in Switzerland where her mother's family came from. Schaffhausen is NNE of Zurich. While there, I think we should try to drive from Schaffhausen through eastern Switzerland and through Salzburg and finally to Vienna, seeing the sights along the way. I would rent a car and drive. We could even try to squeeze Budapest into the schedule.
Assuming we allocate about a week to 10 days in England, we would have another 2 to 2 1/2 weeks to devote to Switzerland & Austria. How would you recommend we get from England to the Zurich vicinity? Fly? Take the train & chunnel to Paris and then on to Zurich? We might rent a car in Zurich and then drive it to Vienna. I assume there are many wonderful B&Bs along the way. We could fly back to the US (Texas) from Vienna or even Budapest.
I know this is really fuzzy at this point but I need to start the conversation and planning. Does any of this make sense? Is it doable? Advice and suggestions are welcome!
Jeff

I'm glad to read that you give it more than two weeks on the continent - a refreshing change from the many rushed itineraries we get here.

There are a great many cheap flights from various UK airports, around London and elsewhere, to Switzerland, to both Basel and to Zürich. Even with the baggage surcharges the budget airlines charge over and above their basic rates, you wont' get hurt if you plan and book wisely.

Look on www.skyscanner.net and www.whichbudget.com and go directly to easyjet and ryanair.

Also look at https://matrix.itasoftware.com and use the "nearby" feature that brings up airports you didn't even know about.

While near Schaffhausen, make sure to visit the nearby broad waterfalls of the river Rhein, in German called Rheinfall. See www.rheinfall.ch (it's in English)

Another target, easily reached from Schaffhausen or from Zürich, is the Säntis near the picturesque traditional town of Appenzell - a great day excursion! See http://www.myswitzerland.com/en-us/s...hwaegalp2.html

Your plan for renting a car on a one-way trip could work out quite expensive, with the one-way drop-off and the cross-border drop-off fees. Somebody has to bring that car back, and that costs. But if the budget allows, it will be a good trip with the leisurely schedule you have planned.

If you do it by car, note that Switzerland has a different road-tax sticker (called "Vignette") from the Vignette in Austria. A car rented in Switzerland will certainly have the Swiss sticker in place (it allows you to drive on the major freeways), but you need to have Austria's own sticker, which you can buy at or near the border, at convenience stores and "tankstellen" (gas stations).

Germany does not require such a sticker.

Hope this helps.

You might consider using public transportation while in Switzerland -- it is excellent, and would free the driver to actually see some of the stunning scenery through which you will pass.

I would fly from London to Zurich, unless you're near another airport.

Public transport between Schaffhausen and Vienna is excellent along all possible itineraries like
Lake Constance - Bavarian castles (with or without Munich) - Salzburg;
Alps of Eastern Switzerland and Tyrol - Salzburg;
South Eastern Switzerland (Bernina) - Dolomites - Grossglockner/Tauern - Salzburg.....

If you want to travel by car, rent it at Bregenz (Lake Constance/Austria) in order to avoid high charges for drop off in another country.

Some gems along the direct itinerary between the airports of Basel/Zurich/Stuttgart/Friedrichshafen (all suitable for Schaffhausen) and Salzburg (google for them):

medieval Stein am Rhein
tiny medieval Engen
Arenenberg Castle (where emperor Napoleon 3rd grew up)
Reichenau Island and Abbey
Subtropical gardens of Mainau Island
Celtic Lake dwellings of Unteruhldingen
Meersburg Castle
Aviation and aerospace museum at Friedrichshafen
Rhine Rvier boats Schaffhausen - Stein am Rhein - Constance
Lake Constance boats Constance - Mainau/Unteruhldingen - Meersburg - Friedrichshafen - Lindau - Bregenz
St. Gallen monastery (Unesco site)
Appenzell
Saentis (panoramic views over Lakes and Alps)
Werdenberg Castle
Lindau im Bodensee
Mount Pfaender above Bregenz
Silvretta road (summer only)
Oberstdorf and Nebelhorn
St. Anton am Arlberg and Valluga
Glaciers of Pitztal and Oetztal
Castles of Schwangau, Neuschwanstein, etc.
LInderhof Castle
Ettal, Oberammergau
Ehrwald, Garmisch and Zugspitze
Seefeld
Innsbruck
Glaciers of Stubaital
Swarowsky Kristallwelten at Wattens
Ethnographic Museum at Schwaz (mostly African culture)
Glaciers of Zillertal
Boat tours on Achensee
Rattenberg am Inn
Krimml Falls
Grossglockner road
Zell am See
Kitzsteinhorn
Werfen-Eisriesenwelt
.......

I appreciate the helpful suggestions. Since the drop off of the rental car in Vienna would increase the rental cost significantly, maybe I should rent a car in Zurich or some other comparably located city and do our driving from there and plan to return the car where it is rented? I need to look into flights from Zurich back to the US and see what sort of choices we have.

If you were going to start and end in Zurich, and wanted to spend about 2 1/2 weeks with this part of the trip, what places would you include? We love B&Bs. I would rather 2 or 3 nights in each place and just do day trips from that home base. I don't want to have to pack and unpack every day or two. This 2 1/2 weeks could include driving into Austria, Germany, and even northern Italy in addition to Switzerland. I don't want to be driving at night.

Again, I'm open to any and all suggestions. It is now February 14 and I need to get serious about planning an itinerary now. I think we will leave England about September 20 and head to Switzerland/Germany.

You would do well to get yourself a good guidebook or two -- or consult some at your local library. I recommend the Michelin Green Guide and Rough Guide.

In the meantime, you might find some useful information in my trip report:
http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...any-thanks.cfm

And again, no need for a car while in Switzerland, where it could actually be a costly detriment. Check your public transportation options on the Swiss Rail web-site:
http://www.sbb.ch/en/home.html

This potential trip has made a twist and turn and it now looks like we'll leave the US about Sep 14 and spend a week in the Midlands & Yorkshire, UK. From there we are thinking of taking the train from London to Paris, maybe on Sep 20 and spend a few days there. From Paris, we would take the train on Sep 24 and ride to Switzerland, maybe to Zurich. My wife wants to visit Schaffhausen where her mother's family came from. Schaffhausen is NNE of Zurich. After that, we could see Switzerland and either southern Germany or Austria - all via train. Assuming we arrive in Zurich on Sep, we would have about 2 1/2 weeks to see those countries. We would like to be back in London by October 12. Our flight back to the US would possibly be on October 15 or 17.
I'm particularly interested in any suggestions about Switzerland, Austria, & southern Germany. A few of you have suggested the travel on the continent be via train and avoid the rental car driving.

You may have a look at
http://www.myswitzerland.com/en/home.html
http://www.swisstravelsystem.ch/en/
http://fahrplan.sbb.ch/bin/query.exe/en

I think using public transportation is a great decision!

In addition to itinerary advice, I would like to know which travel guide (book) is the best for this part of the world? The ones I am aware of are Rough Guides, Lonely Planet, Rick Steves, Fodors, Frommer, etc. Thoughts?

Good sources on train travel in those areas- www.seat61.com; www.budgeteuropetravel.com and www.ricksteves.com and for Switzerland www.swisstravelservice.com.

Trains are so so good -check your car rental about age limits and steep fees for picking up in one country and dropping in another.

IME, the best guide books for Switzerland are the Rough Guide and Michelin Green Guide. I would urge AGAINST the Rick Steves book -- too cursory, IMO.

Rick Steves is precriptive but on the places he covers he gives a nice in-depth often unorthodox approach. for practical things I like Let's Go Europe (or Let's Go Switzerland better yet).

The national tourist offices and local ones to me have the most current and best advice- guidebooks are becoming 'dinosaurs' in many ways- Fodor's, TVdvisor, etc are great resources with eclectic viewpoints.

No matter how much information becomes available on-line, a fundamental advantage of a good guidebook is that key information is in one place -- and that includes the things you don't even know to ask about or google.

Yes guidebooks still are useful -I used to go to the library and copy the relatively few relevant sections for my trip -from several books to have different takes on each. For up-to-date info however guidebooks are out of date as soon as they are published so for things like entry hours, etc go right to the source.

The ones I am aware of are Rough Guides, Lonely Planet, Rick Steves, Fodors, Frommer, etc. Thoughts?>

That depends on the individual as some guides are tailored to more upscale hotels and restaurants and others bottom end (Let's Go Europe).

I don't use guidebooks for hotels or restaurants. I want to have a good, comprehensive sense of the options I have for exploring, seeing, and doing (even though I always confirm hours on line). I want good information about local foods. And I <b>definitely</b> want the basics -- local norms, information about transportation options and rules, passes I might want to consider, at least a very limited list of words, etc. IME, some guidebooks do better than others in covering the things that I find valuable, and for Switzerland in particular, the guidebooks that I found most helpful and most accurate were, as mentioned above, the Rough Guide and Michelin Green Guide.