Salzburg or Innsbruck

Both are lovely places. Have you considered splitting your time between them? Spend 4-6 days in Salzburg and a similar amount in Innsbruck.

Salzburg is a good place to stay. Lots to do in and around there.

Hi Steve,

I like the idea of splitting your time between the two. The alpine scenery around Innsbruck is worth the trip alone. You can also do day trips to:
Hall in Tirol
The Zillertal (Zell am Ziller, Mayrhofen, Hintertux, etc.)
Tratzburg castle
Northern Italy (Sterzing/Vipiteno, Brixen/Bressanone, even Bozen/Bolzano or the
Val Gardena/Dolomites)
Mittenwald, Germany

We've stayed 18 nights over five stays in Hall in Tirol at the Gasthof Badl, about 15 minutes outside Innsbruck.

Paul

Thanks All! Now I am more undecided. Was planning 4 full days in Munich with a few side trips (Thinking Nuremberg and Newschwanstein, possibly Dachau but I don't think my Muslim friend would like that). Then to Austria for 4 or 5 days basing in Salzburg. I definitely want to visit spectacular mountain scenery but also want to do adventure things like bungee and white water rafting. We would fly in and out of Frankfurt so I need to include that in the plan. Me from New York and him from Algeria. I am open to itinerary suggestions.

I just love the whole region east and south of Munich.
Rent a car and take all of Tirol in. There's so much to do in the area in the Summer for adventure seekers. The mountains around Innsbruck are absolutely beautiful. I love to watch the hang gliders and gliders soaring along the mountain tops @ 10,000' elevation.
Salzburg is not in the Alps, however it's a pretty little tourist town. We absolutely love to sit in the beer garden on a Summer day at the Augustiner--one of the best.

You could easily visit both Innsbruck and Salzburg as day trips from Munich. If you saw one or both of them as day trips, it would save you some travel time.

We just spent few days in Bavaria/Tirol and then drove to Salzburg. We could easily have filled 5-6 days in each place.

First, get a car. We got a last minute car from Hertz at Garmisch (€8 taxi from train station) and it was a beautiful ride. Linderhof was 15 invites away. The grotto was very weird and cool.

Second, stay in Ruette. It is 20-30 minutes from Neuschwanstein and an hour from Innsbruck - windy road and I saw traffic the other way. You get an Activ card which gives you access to free activities in the area for each day you stay. We visited a local pool a few times, museum, highline suspension bridge, there were hiking, rafting and paragliding opportunities - some free and some at a discount. Lots of gondolas for free to take you into alpine hiking areas. Lots of challenging, hilly hikes. We stayed at Gasthof Klause at the base of Ehrenburg. Not cheap at €88/ night but central to outdoorsy stuff given the vast number of day trippers who showed up each day.

Third, gorgeous drive through Austria then Germany to Frielassing where we dropped the car. €2.50 train to Salzburg.

Fourth, stay at der Salzburger Hof hotel which is a block and within sight of the train station. It is cheap, stylish and the breakfasts were amazing - the best of Germanic and English breakfasts without the baked beans is how my 7 year old described it.

Finally, take the Fraulien Maria Bike Tour. They have both a Mozart and Soynd of Music, I believe. It is 10 to 15 km of riding in around 3 hours. Our Sound of Music tour was full of geek/fans of the movie. It was a mix of hill and flat and was fun and challenging even in the pouring rain!

I found Ruette, Füssen and that area more spectacular than Innsbruck. It's also smaller and more personal.

We will definitely be back to that area in the future. Our time in Germany / Austria was marred by torrential downpours so I hope you have good weather to enjoy the outdoors. We didn't get to do a summer luge. : (

We are not oudoorsy, but it seemed like Innsbruck was much more about active outdoors than Salzburg. Salzburg seemed to feature bus trips to see mountains, lakes, castles, and salt mines. I saw (from the cable car, not on foot!) that the hiking in Innsbruck might be more interesting and varied. I don't know if The Sound Of Music counts as culture as much as Mozart, but Salzburg is more about culture than Innsbruck. However, we hated the marionettes and left early, because of the canned opera recordings-not because of the puppets.

Google 'kletterwald' or 'fun forest' - probably activity that you will like