gaurav2307

Hi All, I am arriving on 3rd Aug to Vienna and flying back from Vienna itself on 13th Aug. Please advise itinerary for the trip. i plan to cover Prague, Budapest, Salzburg And Innsbruck.. Please suggest if this is fine or any other places I can cover and exclude these

bilboburgler

Probably too many places in ths short time you have, the days of arrival and departure are pretty useless. So that leaves 9 days. 5 cities means that you move every other day. Vienna needs 3 whole days min, while Prague needs 3 days too which all begins to show a drastic lack of travel time.

It depends on what you want to do, do you want to visit the countryside or cities? If cities I'd probably drop Salzburg and Innsbruck. Of these two Innsbruck is famous for its bus terminal and its use in the middle of winter as access to ski areas. In summer, I honestly have no idea, despite being close to it on a number of occasions over the last few summer, so only you can tell why you want to go there? Salzburg at least is pretty and is the birth place of Mozart (you know he is dead right?).

Of the three interesting cities Prague will be the most packed with tourists and if, for travel reasons say you decide to drop one of the three I'd take this one.

Others; well no, these are the three main places to go in the area.

DebitNM

If you haven't already bought your plane tickets...buy it open jawed. Fly into your starting city and leave from your last visited city. Saves time and should cost about the same. It will give you a bit more time to see things.

nytraveler

With your very few days you really can;t do more than 2 cities and actually see anything - versus spending half your time just getting from one place to another.

For me the most interesting would be Prague and Budapest - but if you are stuck flying in and out of Vienna there may not be much you can do about it so I would do vienna and prague - to minimize time lost to travel.

Agree that you need 3 full days to even begin to see either city - which means 4 night in each place - and that takes your entire time plus a day in transit in between.

PalenQ

Are you going by train? If not consider it if just going to large cities where cars are rather useless - check these sights for lots on central European trains - www.budgeteuropetravel.com; www.ricksteves.com and www.seat61.com. Also check into the Eastern European Railpass if doing all those places - lets you hop on any train just about in Austria, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland.

thursdaysd

To minimize travel time, and possibly crowds (Prague will be worst, Vienna next worst) I'd do Vienna and Budapest.

I had no problem finding things to do in and around Innsbruck in the summer, but it's a long train ride to get there.

Bedar

Vienna is the star of the three. We also enjoyed Buda section of Budapest. Since Prague will be so crowded, would drop it if necessary.

BigRuss

What about these cities interested you? The general comments like "Vienna is the star of the three" are just seashell echoes until and unless you know why you decided you wanted to go to these places.

If you're interested in communism and life under the commies, Vienna is useless. If you're interested in Jewish history, the city you cannot miss is Prague. If you're interested in the Holocaust, visit Prague (and Terezin) and Budapest. If you're interested in Baroque whatever, then Vienna is primary. If you're all about classical music, then Vienna first, Prague second.

Etc.

Therefore, prioritize based on the simple question a tour guide could ask you upon arrival (courtesy a small green muppet): "I am wondering, why are you here?"

scdreamer

Big Russ is right - you should know what it is you are looking for.

Just returned from these three cities two days ago. First time for all for me - I loved Prague and Budapest, found Vienna a little stuffy, although enjoyed a fairly decent concert there, but would have been happier to have spent more time in Budapest and Prague.

We had a week and a half in Prague and five days in Budapest (visited Cesky Krumlov and Bratislava for two days each as well). Last five days spent in Vienna, and I was ready to come home. Maybe it was because we did it last that Vienna wasn't my favorite by a long shot; I really could have spent more time in Prague, where we had a great apartment outside the tourist zone. We did visit Terezin (highly recommended semi-private tour with a guide Pavel Batel, you can google him).

Because Prague is the only one of the three that wasn't bombed during World War II, there is a more authentic feel to its old town, in my opinion. Over 80% of Budapest was destroyed in the siege before the Russians drove out the Germans.

Plenty of (sad) history in Budapest, still some bullet holes evident in buildings that were in the street fighting areas when the Russians liberated the city from the Germans, and plenty of sad history from the 1956 unsuccessful uprising against communism.

bilboburgler

"Because Prague is the only one of the three that wasn't bombed during World War II,"

You are kidding right?

Google the following

"WW2 Prague war damage" and click images

Still I was once told that Warsaw old town had avoided bombing and any damage!

Christina

I think it is obviously too much also in such a short time, unless you really just want a day or two in such major cities. That isn't for me, but if that is really all you want, it's up to you.

Personally, I would drop Innsbruck and Prague. Prague is just too far away, so you could just stay in the Vienna/Budapest area. I think you could add Salzburg, but that is also kind of inconvenient due to its location, but not impossible. You'd have to take the train there from Vienna, then take it back, so that's kind of a waste of time. I took the train there once from Vienna and that isn't too bad, about 2.5 hours. But then taking the train from Salzburg over to Budapest would take up a day, so the logical itinerary would be fly into Budapest, train to Vienna, train to Salzburg (but then you'd have to come back to Vienna to fly home, no doubt. If you take the train from Budapest to Salzburg and then back to Vienna for Departure, I guess you'd end up with the same train time and it would be more convenient flying home.

This itinerary is just inconvenient due to local travel time. You could just do Vienna and Prague, actually, and that would work well as the train between them is 4:20 hrs, less than from Salzburg to Budapest (or vice versa).

If you have bought your tickets, then forget Prague, it's too far away.

PalenQ

Prague may have been bombed to bits in WW2 but it don't show it like Warsaw still does with many blah blah buildings in the city centre - Prague retains one of Europe's finest old-world romantic town centres.