Facts:
1. Family of four with twin boys age 8.
2. We have been to Europe over Christmas for 13-16 days each of the last two years.
- Trip 1: Rome (5 nights), Venice (3 nights), Florence (4 nights) (flew to Paris), Paris (4 nights).
- Trip 2: Rome (4 nights) (flew to Budapest), Budapest (3 nights), Vienna (2 nights), Prague (4 nights) (Flew to London), London (mistake stop as we missed flight).
3. Trip - December 26 - January 10.
4. We leave and return from LAX.
5. Fly into Venice and Fly out of Vienna (tickets were crazy cheap)
6. Kids are game for anything.
7. We love food and just enjoying the City, but do the major art and tourist stuff.
8. We would like to balance the trip with at least 1 "cheaper" destination - ie. Budapest, Prague, etc.
9. Taking planes in the middle of the trip is a bit of a buzz kill so we have decided not to do that anymore.
Suggested Trip
1. Arrive Venice 4 pm (3 nights.)
2. Leave early and take train to Verona (2 nights)
3. Leave early and take train (Brenner Pass) to Innsbruck (1 night) [Kids want to go up mountain and see the snow.]
4. Leave early afternoon and take train to Salzburg (2 nights) [Wife needs to do Sound of Music Tour]
5. Leave early and take train to Budapest (3 nights) [We loved Budapest and its so cheap] [I have seen tickets for under $90 for all of four of us.]
6. Leave early and take train to Vienna (3 nights) [take day trip to Bratislava].
For those who love to evaluate itineraries, what are your thoughts? I don't know if we need to stay in Innsbruck. Could we do it as a quick stop-over so the kids can take the tram up the mountain? We could buy separate train tickets and give us 4-6 hours in Innsbruck. Also - Cesky Krumluv / Prague seems like an interesting alternative to Budapest. The smart people here will probably say skip Budapest and/or Prague and just do the Italy / Austria route with more days in each place. But - I like the idea of saving some money in the cheaper spots, which I believe offset the extra travel costs. It's a tough call. I hate staying somewhere only 1 or 2 nights because of the hassle of checking in and checking out, packing, etc. But - it's tough to say no.
Thoughts?