Hi Folks,
My family is planning to travel to Austria and nearby places. I am bit confused that wether July, August or September 2017, out of these months which would be good for Holiday. We are travelling far from The eastern part of the world.
We have planned for 12 day vacation. Please also suggest which are the major places which we should visit .
Cheers
For 12 days and 5 cities, you only have 2.5 days for each city and that does not include time traveling between each place. I would suggest cutting your places down to probably 3 of those locations. Salzburg is a little smaller so you could spend two nights there and do 3 other places with 3 nights each but it will still be a fast paced trip. If your 12 days is really 10 days due to flights getting to Europe you will need to cut it down further.
September will be the most comfortable month for weather and will maybe have slightly less crowds than in the summer months. Depending on when in September you travel you might hit Munich during Oktoberfest, which starts September 16. Depending on your interests this may be a great time to visit, but Oktoberfest will increase prices for lodging and you would need to book soon to get the best availability.
Thanks JenC for your advise.
Our 12 days travel is excluding the flight travel. So do you suggest the last week of August and early week of sep would be good time to visit.
As we will reach Vienna first , Can you also guide which other places we can visit during this 12 day plan.
Cheers
Please buy a guidebook or do some of your own research on the internet. We have no idea what you like, who you are, etc.
It's better to visit four cities within the twelve days. You have to drop one from your list. I suggest dropping Prague.
My husband and I have a trip booked to Budapest, Vienna, Salzburg, and Munich at the end of August/ beginning of September. We chose that time period because of the hopefully good weather and after researching that there are no big festivals going on during that time, therefore maybe not the most crowded, comparatively speaking. We also really wanted to fit in Prague but decided that was way too much after lots of research on the time involved with traveling from city to city by train and the amount of time we have which is 12 days including travel days. We are flying into Budapest and staying there 2 nights, train to Vienna for 3 nights, train to Salzburg for 3 nights, train to Munich for 2 nights then flying home from Munich. I have spent hours reading forums, books, listening to Rick Steve's audio tours to familiarize, exploring various tours we want to take and using Google maps to look at routes for what we plan to do. I still feel like I have just scratched the surface and will continue to explore up until the day we leave. This is first time doing a trip to Europe on our own, we went to Italy in 2006 but we were hosted by a family there that my husband's company did business with so all was taken care of for us! Anyway, spending all the time researching and getting familiar with all of the possibilities of things to do in each city as well as the logistics was a necessary prequel for us to feel comfortable booking the trip!
We booked our flights and hotels back in March although I have changed some of the hotel reservations since then. We have yet to book the 3 tours and a concert in Salzburg we have decided to do and any train tickets since you can't book train tickets until 90 days in advance. So as Emily suggested, figure out what you really want to see and the amount of time you feel you can or want to dedicate to that, then go from there. I think another factor is the travel time between cities. Many forum members have mentioned that because you spend about have a day each time you move. If you rent a car, maybe it could be less time since you are on your own schedule but then again, you might be stopping along the way to see things that you would not if you were taking the train!
So those are some thoughts that have come up in my planning and research so far, hope it helps!
Thanks a lot for your suggestion, Dpalmier53
Your reply clears One things That Aug end and Early September would be good time to travel. Thanks.
This is our first euro trip with family. I am definitely reading through various website to shortlist the places and definitely we would like to visit Vienna, Salzburg, Budapest and Prague. These places are final. I was little doubtful of Munich because of the timelines. However we have complete 12 days which excludes are to and fro to Vienna.
since you can't book train tickets until 90 days in advance
As far as I know you can book train tickets 180 days in advance in Austria (and most other countries in Europe). Some special offers or special trains may be excluded.
I was in exactly those places last summer (plus a night in the Lakes district outside Salzburg and a night in Cesky Krumlov) and spent a little over three weeks doing it. That gave me four nights in each location except Salzburg (three nights). I thought the pace was perfect - leisurely enough to relax, but with plenty of variety.
I was there in July. It was a bit chilly part of the time in Prague, rather hot part of the time in Budapest, and very pleasant the rest of the time.
