June in Europe with 3 kids...Advice, please!

Salzburg would be great! The things you menditoned are nice and , if your son is into WWII "stuff" (not just D Day), Hitler's Eagles' Nest is an easy day trip. The Lakes in the area are lovely, too, with all kinds of activities available. Halstadt might also work as a day trip. I you decide to include Vienna, you might look into doing a day trip by train to Budapest. We did that our last trip there, and would love to be able to go back and spend more time exploring Budapest.

Your timeline is a little confusing. 4.5 free days, or does that include your already scheduled time in Salzburg? Your kids would probably like the castle and falconry show at Hohenwerfen, just outside Salzburg by train: http://www.salzburg-burgen.at/en/ The Bayern ticket will also get you from Munich over to Lake Constance at Lindau, a gorgeous island town. Trains run along the northern edge of the lake between many towns, including Friedrichshafen and Meersburg. This is a nice area if you want to do some independent biking or head to a freshwater beach - Constance is gigantic. The bike path around it is 260 km long. http://www.bodensee-radweg.com/zeppelin-museum-friedrichshafen.html

Thanks for the suggestions. To clarify: We had planned to go to Rome from Tuesday-Saturday, but then my cousin offered the flat in Vienna, so we decided to go there instead. We decided to go to Salzburg at the end of the Munich/Bavaria part, taking the Bayern train to Salzburg and then getting the inter-Austrian train to Vienna. We would be staying in Salzburg Tues. & Wed. and then Vienna Wed.-Saturday. We would fly to Barcelona on Saturday. Found out my cousin wasn't even going to be in Vienna, which is why we were going there. But by this time, we had found this great B&B in Salzburg and were regretting not staying there longer. So, now, we can skip Salzburg and go to Rome as planned. We can go to Salzburg for a couple of days then go to Vienna for a couple of days. Or, we can just stay in Salzburg and see the sights there, slowing down a bit. It reminds me of the first time we went to Disney World and didn't make it to Epcot or MGM. We only saw the Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom. We had a blast. Yes, the other parks are awesome and wonderful, but we didn't know what we were missing, so our experience was great! It's kind of like that. Vienna might be magic. Rome might be awesome. But whatever we see won't be Kentucky. It won't be Gulf Shores or Panama City. It will be amazing wherever we go, right?!

Sharon, I think you are absolutely right, you will have fun and interesting times no matter where you go. I personally wouldn't want to spend alot of time in Salzburg, ( been there once 25 years ago, and it was ok)but Vienna does interest me( I would want to go see the palace Marie Antionette grew up in) , and Rome, well you can't go wrong with Rome, so much to see there, but point is, wherever you go will be different, so have a great time.

Space A can be great for the big jump but it sure does hose up advance reservations once you've landed doesn't it? The Austrian railways (Oebb.at) have a web page which shows overnight discounts, using Sparschiene. Walk up fares will be more expensive, as soon as you land and can project dates get the tickets bought... With 5 in your party you would fit just about perfectly in a 6 bed couchette compartment. You could even buy the 6th berth to ensure privacy...

Is there a reason you want to skip Vienna (i.e. you've been there before?) because the salzburg/vienna trip makes more sense than rome in terms of cost and timing and I think they're both fascinating places. you might be able to find cheap flights from vienna to rome or elsewhere in italy, too, it is serviced by a lot of the discount airlines.

Just FYI, plan on it taking minimum 3-4 days to get a flight, possibly longer. There's a new Patriot Flight program for Germany, you should be clear on that concerning how the flights are scheduled/booked. Keep a watch on FB
Ramstein Passenger Terminal for flight info. I think you should do Salzburg/Munich then fly to Rome, then fly to Barcelona. Skip Vienna.

I don't think Vienna is hugely interesting for kids. I understand why you'd want to skip it. They're already going to be in Paris, Barcelona, and Munich for a good bit of time. Rome is a great place but might be just another big city to kids, and it's likely to be a very hot place to visit in summertime. I think you'd enjoy another day or two and the excursion to Lindau and Lake Constance, where Switzerland, Austria and Germany meet. You might also visit some of the other Romantic Road towns - Landsberg, Donauwörth, Harburg and Nördlingen, west and northwest of Munich. http://www.romanticroadgermany.com/harburg.php Ryanair flies out of Memmingen (also west of Munich) to Barcelona; fares are 40€-80€ depending on your travel day.

First question, can you fly back space-A from Paris too? That might be more efficient than going back to Germany. Next, I really like Rothenburg ob der Tauber, probably the best medieval city in Bavaria. Great overnight stay. Touristy but touristy for a reason. The "Night Watchman" tour there I think your sons and daughters would really enjoy. Salzburg is a pretty easy day trip from Munich by car. Never done it by train. If you can work in Rome, it's fabulous. For me, the three greatest big cities in Europe are Rome, London, and Paris. Plus, the kids don't need 'relaxed'...yet! :-) Hire a guide in Rome if it's in the budget, or download the self guided tours from this site to a smart phone or ipod. Oh, and for your son. I can't recommend highly enough Dale Booth's tours of the WWII sites in Normandy. Absolutely fantastic!!! Check out the web site: http://daleboothnormandytours.com/. I was there just after D-Day just this past summer. Hope you guys have an absolutely fantastic trip! Ross in Denver
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Thanks for all the replies and suggestions. We decided to do the following: Get to Germany whenever we get there, hopefully sometime the middle of the first week in June. Head to Munich, stopping in Rothenburg ob der Tauber on the way. Stay in Munich until June 12, visiting Munich's sites, Neuschwanstein, Dachau, Berchtesgaden, and whatever else piques our interest. Go to Salzburg from June 12-16. See the sites. The kids LOVE "The Sound of Music," and there is a "Freulein Maria's Bicycle Tour" that gets excellent reviews everywhere. We get the benefit of seeing Salzburg by bicycle, exercising, and doing something SoM related. We want to see the Mozart sites, go to Untersburg, Hohenwefern Castle, the salt mines and the ice cave. That should take up PLENTY of time and be fun, outdoorsy type things that my family loves to do. We'll then fly to Barcelona and the Costa Brava for a few days, fly to Paris, drive to Normandy, and then take a train back to Germany to await a flight home. We wanted to see Rome, but we felt that it would be too much to try and do logistically. Since there are really cool things to do in and around Salzburg that we just can't do in the US, we decided that it works best for us to just stay in one place for a number of days and not push it. Plus, the son can get in more German practice!

Hi Sharron, This sounds like a great trip! We visited Europe 2 summers ago with our teenage boys. We really enjoyed Salzburg, as did our boys. We stayed at Pension Wallner http://www.pensionwallner.at/content/?lang=en which was recommended by some friends. It was clean and comfortable, and was a nice, easy walk from the Augustiner Brew house and the downtown area. We did the Fraulein Maria bike tour which was really fun. We had watched the Sound of Music just prior to leaving home, so it was really exciting to see all of the places from the movie. We loved having apple strudel at the top of the fortress, and we enjoyed visiting the salt mines at Hallein. We hope to return this summer, and this time we are planning a bike ride out to Hellbrunn Castle (with the trick fountains) as mentioned in Rick's travel guide... and maybe a visit to the Eagle's Nest. We are lucky to have access to a car during our visit. We visited Vienna as well, but unfortunately my oldest son had an accident with a glass shower door that shattered and we ended up spending more time in the hospital than we did seeing sights. We did manage to have some Sacher torte and Eis Schokolade / Eis Kaffee and went to the Haus der Musik. We also visited the Prater one evening. The boys enjoyed all these things, but it isn't on our "must re-visit" list with teenagers. Perhaps we just didn't have enough time to find all the great sights for teens. Munich was fantastic with kids - and Dachau is a must-visit. It was sobering, but extraordinarily educational. In Munich our boys loved going to the BMW factory - the showroom with all the interactive exhibits was a highlight for sure!

Salzburg is an all-time favorite with my kids. We had a rental car, which made getting around very easy. There is so much to see and do in the Salzburg region. If your kids like castles, I would add Mauterndorf to the suggestion of Hohenwerfen. Both castles are awesome, located within 2 hrs drive south of the city. Maut. offers recreated scenes of medieval life, and my guys say Hohenwerfen is the best castle they've ever seen (and they've seen a lot.)
Not sure about your budget, but Schloss Haunsperg is a very cool hotel just outside of town. About 200E for a multi-room family suite that sleeps 6-8 people, in a real family castle (albeit a tiny one.)