zurich 10 day itinerary october
 

We are planning a trip flying into Zurich for 10 days in October. The itinerary we are discussing seems too much. As we are novices would appreciate your opinions and help. How many nights should we stay in Zurich? My husband wants to go to Strasbourg, France since this is where is family is from. From there we were thinking about traveling to Innsbruck and then down to Nice\Cannes. Visit Torino on the way back to Zurich. Is this doable in 10 days? Do you have other suggestions for a 10 day itinerary. Don't want to travel too much in France as we do not speak the language. Will be renting a car. Please give us any ideas or suggestions.

Too much driving in your itinerary. Here's a strawman:

1 night in Zurich.
2-3 nights in Strasbourg area, Colmar/wine route and villages in the area, meandering your way down to Torino, spending 2-3 days in Piedmont, 2-3 days in the Lakes area (Maggiore/Como), and the last day/night in Zurich.

Skip Nice/Cannes and Innsbruck, otherwise all you would be doing is a drive-by shooting of the areas. ((b))

Use the following to figure out just how much time it takes from A to B to C:

www.mappy.com

www.viamichelin.com

But first you need to get a good big map that shows all of Switzerland and Eastern-Southern France and Northern Italy and a bit of Western Austria - your itinerary is all over the place.

If you stick with the list of towns you mention, a logical order would be Zürich - Strasbourg - Nice/Cannes - Torino - (Verona) - Innsbruck - Zürich.

For Switzerland and for Austria your car needs to be equipped with two separate "vignettes' - road tax stickers. Ask for a car that already has them installed - they are needed whenever you drive on major highways - which you will, it's tricky to try and avoid them and still make good time, so don't even bother trying that.

In Italy and France you pay roadtolls as you go. There is nothing like that in Germany.

If you have second thoughts about driving (which is not the best way of going from city to city, a car is best for extended driving and exploring of countryside where no trains go, but in cities a car is a royal pain), here are the train sites:

http://plannerint.b-rail.be/bin/quer...p;L=profi&

www.rail.ch

www.trenitalia.it

www.bahn.de

WK

Before I provide suggestions can you tell me:

1. Is this early or late October, makes a big difference in weather in many areas.

2. How much time does your husband feel he needs to spend with the relatives.

3. Can you do an open jaw ticket to fly out of another city like Milan or Geneva or have you already purchased a non-changeable ticket that commits you to go in and out of Zurich.

4. Why do you want to go to Turin. If it is to see Alps, there are many mountain areas you could also get to more easily, and October is not a great month in the mountains anyway. If you want to see the city or relatives, that is another matter.

5. What is your interest in Innsbruk. I am trying to figure out what it is you want to see, as you may be able to see something similar closer to Zurich or in France or the Geneva area.

6. Are your interests active like walking and hiking, or more like musums and historical sights?

Don't worry too much about not speaking the language in France. You don't speak the language in Italy or Switzlerand either. Millions of people do it every year.

The Colmar suggestion above is excellent, I would put that on the list IF you are interested in small very charming villages with antique shops, lovely hotels and excellent restaurants in rolling green hills with some vineyards (from your proposed itineary, this does not appear to be the case, but you never know). It is also in the direction of Strasbourg.

We were trying to keep the airfare down below $650. We can do that flying into Zurich from the East Coast. Have not purchased the ticket yet, plan on doing that next week. My husband just wants to visit the area his family is from, has no family there at this time, so we just wanted to tour the Strasbourg, France area, can be for any length of time. We are planning on arriving on the 11th of Oct and departing on the 22nd of Oct. No special reason to go to Turin, just thought if we were passing by we could stop. We have been to Innsbruck in the winter, and again, just because I know nothing about any of this area thought we could stop there too. These places weren't really important to us, just picked them because they were places that I knew on the map. Not a very good reason is it. Our interests are museums, historial, love charming villages, excellent restaurants, and lovely hotels. We especially love the towns that we have visited in Tuscany, Umbria, with the small winding streets. Normally we drive town to town, my husband does not mind the driving and we normally plan to drive 2-3 hrs one day and stay in the area for a day or two, depending what we can see there or travel close by too. Took the train once from Brussels to Paris, but the train scares me because we do not know any of the language. I usually map out an area on the viamichlen website to get the directions and the time between places. I am just so confused about this area and wanted help picking places to visit. Seemed so overwhelming.

Also, we figured we would do another trip next year to the Lake Como area and the Italian Riveria area so we were going to eliminate that area this trip.

What kind of prices are you seeing? I am looking at round trip from JFK to Zurich at $720 for mid-May 2007. $650 would be great. ((b))

joycegg
You mentioned driving 2 to 3 hours per day. From Zurich to Nice is about nine hours of hard driving. This road down the Rhone valley is full of traffic, so just driving so little per day will take three days down and three days back to Zurich.

Between the mileage from Zurich to Nice is about 900 kms. The average driving speed will give you about 100 kms per hour.

Go back to your map and actually measure the distances. Run your ideas on Mappy and see what you can visit. You want a vaction and not a major traffic jam for ten days.

Blackduff

went to kayak.com - Continental from Newark this morning the price was $632

That's even better. Thanks. Now to convince my wife to book this far in advance. :-) ((b))