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Vienna TO Melk, see the abbey, take boat to Krems, etc etc

Posted by (alabama) on

My husband and I want to go from Vienna to Melk...see the abbey in Melk and then take a boat to Krems. We will get off the boat in Krems and stay there for two nights. (I know others disagree with this destination, but it is what we are going to do). After the two nights in Krems we need to take a train back to Vienna and then go to Salzburg in the same day. We have a Germany Austria rail pass we will use on the Vienna to Salzburg part.

Rick Steves says Austrian Rail has a Kombe ticket that will take you by train to Melk, give you the abbey tickets, and send you on a boat to Krems and bring you back to Vienna by train ALL IN ONE DAY....it is called the Kombi ticket. This one day thing won't work for us. Any suggestions how to pull this off. I know the train from Krems to Vienna takes us to a small train station Franz Josefs Bahnhof so we would probably have to take a cab to the station the Vienna to Salzburg train leaves from. Again we will us our rail pass for that portion....vienna to salzburg. We are seniors and all this train stuff is very confusing to us.

Posted by
7897 posts

This won't answer your 1-day question directly, as we biked the route between Vienna and Melk (and beyond) a dozen years ago. I don't know if you're bicycling seniors, but bicycles can be rented at one train station and returned to another in Austria. The bike path along the river has some ups and downs, and there are bumpy cobbles in some towns. I just wanted to say that Krems is lovely and you should enjoy your time there. It has a great picnicing park, too. Hope your timing works out with the train ticket.

Posted by
5493 posts

Please look at the response to your same question in the Austria forum. Just to reiterate - going all the way back to Vienna from Krems to get to Salzburg makes absolutely no sense. Take the regional train from Krems to St. Polten (buy tickets at the station) and then get on the Westbahn train in St. Polten to Salzburg (buy your tickets on the train). If you are using a pass, then just use your pass for these trips.

Are you going to drag your suitcases with you through the Abbey and on the boat to get to Krems? Sounds like a drag to me. Again - reconsider Krems (I go to this area all the time); you visit the Wachau for the villages not to see Krems.

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