My husband and are I are leaving next month for 11 nights in Germany/Austria. Our current itinerary is:

Fly into Nuremberg (flights were a LOT cheaper than to Munich, our first choice), overnight in Rothenberg for one night
7 nights in Schonau (Berchtesgadenland, we have an apartment booked)
2 nights in Vienna (we have already been there)
1 night Fussen (to see Neuschwanstein)
1 night Nuremberg (early flight)

My question is this: we are now considering skipping Vienna this trip and instead heading down towards the Dolomites (Cortina?) for 2 nights. The area looks and sounds stunning. However, do you think its necessary to add the Dolomites since we will already be spending the rest of the trip in mountainous regions? We both absolutely love Italy, and would love to go back. Would Cortina give us Italian flavor or is it close enough to Austria to have a more German flavor instead?

By the way, we are spending 7 nights in Schonau because on top of doing the things around the area, we are planning daytrips for several of the days, including daytrips to Lake Bled, Cesky Krumlov, and the Wachau Valley.

Because we are leaving next month, we would like to decide very soon if we are going to the Dolomites or not so we can make hotel reservations.

Any advice will be appreciated.
Thanks!

Tracy

Cortina is Italian, while the South Tyrol area (Bozen/Bolzano, Meran/Merano, etc) is essentially Austrian. So Cortina will give you an Italian flavor, while the rest of the Dolomites may not.

Definitely check out Nuremberg on your last day - nice town (castle & all).

chtiet, thank you for your advice. We definitely want some Italian flavor if we are going to be in Italy. We thought about Bolzano but it seems that Cortina may be a little more scenic. Is this true?

Topping because I could really use some advice!

Tracy

Cortina is too far---I would go to Ortisei in the Val Gardena.
You seem to be very ambitious with your day trips. Have you run viamichelin to see the times to Lake Bled and Cesky Krumlov--I hope you like driving. What about Hallstatt?

bobthenavigator, thank you for your reply. I don't know much about the area so I will look into the suggestions you gave.

We did use viamichelin.com. According to the website, its 154 miles from Berchtesgaden to Cesky Krumlov (and 101 miles on motorway) and 138 miles to Bled. Both should be reachable in under 3 hours, I'm assuming. We figure that we will leave fairly early in the morning (we are early risers) and spend the day at each location, coming back to the apartment in the evening. We have never been to this particular area. Would this not be doable? We are planning on going to Hallstatt well.

We chose to stay in one location so we would not have to drag our luggage around. We also chose to daytrip to small towns so that we can see as much as we can in a day as opposed to daytripping to bigger cities which require more time. We do like driving and exploring the area. We are mixing our daytrips up with hiking and biking through the Berchtesgaden area.

Thanks again!
Tracy

Hi Tracy,

(could it be we exchanged messages last year?)

If I were you I would definitely skip Vienna this time, esp. since you have been there before.

Like Bob said, your daytrips sound very ambitious. Lake Bled e.g. is IMO not worth the long drive, since you'll see a more beautiful lake/scenery around Königsee a short walk from your apartment.

Cortina will definitely give you Italian flavour. I am a bit concerned that it might be too early in the year for a visit there. Am I right that you will travel in May? Most things will be closed, cable cars not open etc.

Meran is to prefer in May, but it is definitely "Austrian/Tyrolean" style, not Italian.

Ingo

Btw, Ortisei and the whole Val Gardena are pretty much Tyrolean style as well, not really Italian.

I.

Ingo, thank you for the information. I have been planning this trip for awhile so we probably did exchange messages at one time!

My husband was the one that wanted to see Lake Bled. So its not as scenic as some of the other lakes in the area? It looks quite beautiful but perhaps we will rethink that daytrip and decide if its worth going to.

Is 3 hours too ambitious for a daytrip? I guess I'm just surprised. We live in St. Louis and have driven to both Chicago and Indianapolis and back in the same day and never thought anything of it, really. Neither Cesky Krumlov nor Bled seemed like they had that much to do, really, besides take in the ambiance and scenery. We do want to explore the castle at Cesky Krumlov. I just assumed that if we got there by 9:00 or 10:00 a.m. and leave around 6:00 or 7:00 p.m. that would give us plenty of time to explore and take in some of the sights. But I have never been to the area before so I value your opinions and will take them into consideration.

Tracy

Hi, Tracy. I guess it's all about what you want out of your vacation. We all have different objectives.

For us, taking a 6-hour round trip for a daytrip would be giving up too much of our relatively short time in Europe for one daytrip.

We don't mind driving 3 or 4 hours to New York City for a long weekend, because it's not using up our expensive "foreign" travel time; it's something we can do any time without taking much away from something else we want to do.

But if we fly 9-16 hours to get to Europe or Asia for just a 2 or 3 week visit, then, for us, losing 6 hours driving on a daytrip wouldn't be worth it.

But we aren't you--only you can decide what is important enough to spend time on.

I probably wouldn't mind it as much if I wasn't the one who has to do most of the driving--it irritates me when we do drive someplace and Mrs. Fly is oooing and ahhhing over various fabulous sights, while I have to focus on the road and the traffic.

LOL Rufus! I guess I can see your point...my hubby drives while I am the one "oohing and aahing" at the scenery!

This was the part of the trip that was difficult for us to plan. We originally had planned on staying 2-3 nights at different locations but decided that it would be more relaxing to stay in a central location and daytrip from there. Now I am having second thoughts but its too late to make any big changes since we leave exactly one month from tomorrow. Due to the responses though, we will sit down tonight and go over our itinerary and rethink some portions of it. We may end up picking just one daytrip (either Cesky or Bled) instead of both. We will probably stick with Wackau Valley (we love winery and want to bike the trail since it was too cold to do it when we were in Vienna last year).

Thank you everyone for your comments and replies!

Tracy

You know what Tracy? No matter which way you decide to do it, I bet you will have a great time.

Thanks RufusTFirefly. Its so easy to get bogged down with itinerary details that its easy to forget where you are actually going and why you are going. Thanks for the reminder.

Tracy