Munich/Austria. What to do leaving Vienna ???

Day trip to Bratislava? Day trip to Melk on the Danube? I've only flown into Vienna. It was an easy airport to navigate, plenty of English speakers.

John - Vienna has an international airport. It's easy to fly out of there. If you choose to stay in Vienna for a day or two then take a Danube river ferry ride to explore the Wachau Valley. The town of Melk is very appealing with its Abbey. There are also other villages worth visiting on the valley such as Dürnstein and Krems. You will also find many vineyards along the coastline of the river.

If you're taking Rick's Best of Munich, Salzburg & Vienna tour, then you'll already stop at Melk and boat along part of the Danube. Vienna's the kind of city where I always want more time. The one day spent there with the tour is not enough, especially if you're interested in art museums.

I concur on the day trip options either to Bratislava or to Melk with the cruise down the Danube. Vienna airport was easy enough to fly into, so I doubt flying out would be all that different. Not a huge airport at all. Only thing that might concern me is that I don't believe any US airlines fly in or out of Vienna, and Austrian only has a few US destinations.

At least when i went to Vienna, Delta flew into there. And if you are already taking the RS tour, and they do not cover Vienna much, I would use the days in Vienna. Vienna, itself, is lovely with a lot to see.

EDITED TO ADD: I do love the typical tourist choices like the Hofburg, Schoenbrunn, St. Stephens, St. Peters, and the large art museums, I would also suggest the library that some consider among the most beautiful libraries in the world. Other places would be the Albertina (art museum in a former palace), the Belvedere and a walk thru the Naschmarkt, especially to see the art nouveau buildings.

There are at least 4 museums worth visiting. There are the wine taverns. There is the Schoenbrun Palace and the Hofburg Palace. There are several churches. I'd say that 3-4 days could not exhaust Vienna.

When we flew there in 2011, we connected to Austrian Air in Heathrow. Austrian Air is super. Free wine to begin with, and gemütlickeit to spare.

I'm taking this tour next week!

Vienna will be beautiful in the spring so I would go to Schoenbrunn Palace and go through the gardens as well as the palace itself. This palace is second to Versailles.

I am taking an extra day after my tour to see some special art exhibitions that will be on. The art museums in Vienna rival the best museums anywhere! Immerse yourself.
I think this tour is going to be amazing.
I'm sure you will enjoy your time too.
And, I fly Delta to Munich and home from Vienna through Paris. Atlanta airport for me. What airport do you use to fly to Europe>

Delta doesn’t fly to Vienna and hasn’t for at least 12 years. Austrian is an excellent airline and has direct flights to DC, Newark, JFK, Miami, Chicago and LAX.

But of course you should plug your details into a travel search engine like kayak for the best fares and routes.

In September we flew out of the Vienna airport on Delta flight #9523 which is the same as KLM #1840. We flew from Vienna to Amsterdam and then to the US. The Vienna airport was great and even had places open early for breakfast. We loved our time in Vienna, especially the Schonbrunn Palace and gardens, the Belvedere Palace, and a cute area called Spittelberg which had a pedestrian area of restaurants near our hotel. The Volksgarten rose garden is beautiful and dessert on the Palmenhaus terrace was fun.

I flew Delta. Just did a search on Delta, there are many choices, there are codeshares with Air France and KLM. The tickets can be purchased on the Delta website.

Or Lufthansa to Frankfurt / Munich and home from Germany -- we did SFO > Vienna with a quick but efficient connection in FRA.

Folks, no Delta flagged plane flies from Vienna directly to the US. None of you flew on a Delta plane in or out of Vienna. That’s my point. Of course any airline flies anywhere with a codeshare!

Emily, not quite sure what your point would be at all. If it would be to use Austrian air, at least from my location, it would be a poor choice, and since the OP is from Louisville, it may likely be the same for him. Expensive and involving several changes of planes, which incidentally, would be code shares and not Austrian aircraft at all. If a person is wondering what airlines to use to fly to or from Vienna, Delta is actually a reasonable choice that the OP can research on a DELTA website or other search engine. Whether Delta uses their own planes or they codeshare with another airline assigning their own flight designations, it really isn't relevant. Seems to me part of the discussion was the size of the airport and airlines that utilize the airport. Delta whether they use code share or not IS an option.

This conversation has definitely become sidetracked. As stated above, Vienna has a major international airport, which is 20 minutes from the city center. It is modern and user friendly. Please use a major flight search engine to determine the best flight/cost for you. To get to Louisville, you’ll need to make one change minimum each way as there are no direct flight from Vienna to Louisville. I definitely prefer and use Austrian airlines out of Vienna as that is the only method to fly directly to the US from here. From one of the Austrian destinations in the US you can definitely change planes for a Louisville flight, meaning one stop only. All other options, flying from Vienna to another European city to a city in the US and then to Louisville, will require two stops. As noted above, this will be a codeshare arrangement. If cost is important to you, you may find this option cheaper, but more inconvenient. Often, however, the Austrian option is cheapest. Again, use a search engine and see for yourself and what works for you.

Now for the fun part, what to do with two extra days in Vienna. Looking at the itinerary of this tour, it seems it doesn’t cover Schoenbrunn. That’s a major attraction and worth half a day. A visit to the world famous Kunsthistorisches Museum, a market, a cafe for cake, the Belvedere Palace or churches would fill up your time easily. A trip to Bratislava doesn’t really make sense to me as your tour only scratches the surface of Vienna. Plus, after 8 days of running around, it would probably feel good to stay put for a while. If you could give a better sense of your interests, that would also help with recommendations.

Emily has some great suggestions. When we were there in 2011, my son was tired of art. So we went to the Natural History Museum. In some ways, it is a minor natural history museum. It has one spectacular exhibit: The Venus of Willendorf, a small doll or religious figure which is very very old, perhaps 25,000-28,000 years old. It's certainly one of the oldest human artifacts I have ever seen. For that reason alone, the trip to this museum was a treat.