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Car or train between Munich,Vienna,Salzburg and Innsbruck

Three of us need to return to Munich by May 14 in the afternoon. Between May 9 to 13, we plan to leave Munich for Vienna(2 nights), Salzburg (2 nights) and Innsbruck(1 night). Would it be a good idea to rent a car from Munich and return it there? How is the road condition between Munich, Vienna, Salzburg and Innsbruck? Or it it better to take the train to all of them?We understand we need to park the car outside of Vienna after we get there. By the way, which rental agency would you recommend for Munich city center or main train station area ?Thank you for your help.

Posted by
8889 posts

I would say train. Munich - Salzburg - Vienna are all in a line and have regular (hourly or better) trains. Faster. more comfortable and no parking problems. All 4 cities have car-free centres, parking only outside the centre and city-centre hotels usually DO NOT have parking.

Innsbruck is a bit of an outlier, it is directly south of Munich, but there are mountains in the way, so the train (and road) take a circuitous route. You can get trains to and from both Salzburg and Munich.
But, 1 night only in Innsbruck is probably not a good idea. You would only have ½ day there, once you take away travelling time, check-in and check-out of the hotel etc.

Lookup times, prices and buy tickets on the Austrian Railways site: http://www.oebb.at/en/
There multiple cut-price options for Munich-Salzburg. I am sure somebody will post the slightly complicated details.

Posted by
16028 posts

The train is much better. You can sit back and enjoy the scenery on the train, and you will not want a car in Vienna.

I agree with the above that Innsbruck is the outlier and not worth the detour for just one night. Add a night to Vienna instead. There is so much to see there you will want more than one fullmday.

For journeys that originate or end in Munich (or elsewhere in Germany) you can buy your tickets on bahn.de instead of the Austrian train site. OeBB website is quirky, nd many have found their American credit cards do not work. (My AmEx card worked fine, however).

Between Salzburg and Vienna, I have read that the Westbahn is usually a better (cheaper) option than OeBB. I believe you just buy tickets on board for Weatbahn, but check on that as we did not actually ride their trains.

Posted by
48 posts

We took your trip last summer (sans Innsbruck). I agree with the comments about leaving out Innsbruck…not enough time. If you want a small village experience in the mountains take the train from Munich up to Mittenwald or Garmisch area. We did it as a day trip but could easily spend the night. It is two hours south of Munich. We used the Westbahn train heading from Vienna to Salzburg. It was cheaper and easier. Just bought the ticket right on the train.

Posted by
8 posts

Thank you so much for your suggestions and shared experiences. We are grateful for your help.

Posted by
1875 posts

OeBB website is quir, and many have found their American credit cards do not work.

You can't blame OeBB for enforcing security measures to prevent credit card fraud.

Posted by
16028 posts

I was not referring to the credit card issue when I said the website is quirky; those were disjunctive comments. I have absolutely no problem with them enforcing credit card security measures; I was just warning the unwary that their card might not work on this and other European train websites.

The "quirky" comment was addressed to the difficulty of navigating the OeBB website to find and buy tickets. I am an experienced user of bahn.de, SBB.ch, Trenitalia, and various UK train sites to purchase train tickets, and never found these difficult. The OeBB site had a steep learning curve for me, and even after buying my tickets I found it difficult to navigate the site to check schedules or look up other information. Even if I logged in, it often would not display the button to get to "my trips" without some maneuvering around. It just does not feel user-friendly.

I saw a lot of complaints about this in the Austria forum on TripAdvisor, and thought I was prepared, but it still was a frustrating experience.

Posted by
1875 posts

I agree that the OeBB website is worse than others because it is not intuitive.

Posted by
7181 posts

Although it was not a recent year, we did all four by train, which was comfortable and easy. We had an Austrian Air open-jaw, to Innsbruck via Vienna, returning home from Vienna. I would suggest (can't tell if your OP is meant to be in itinerary order) that you do this in a straightish line like we did, Innsbruck-Salzburg-Munich-Vienna. Since these are all major walking cities, I see no point in having the mighty steel steed at my beck and call. Yes, we did take a scenery bus tour in Salzburg. But we got to Schloss Helbrun on our own, without a car. Do you want to be parking it and driving on medieval street plans?

In my experience, most European roads are in better condition than tax-starved American roads. But I haven't driven in Austria.

Posted by
32523 posts

Austrian roads are as good or better than most, if expensive. But nothing is as easy, fast (up to 300 kph, try doing that in a car which goes no more than 130) or comfortable than a train - with fabulous scenery that all occupants can look at......