Need help cutting down trip to Berlin/Prague/Vienna/Salzburg/Bavaria

I would cut Vienna unless you want to go to Museums. It is a conservative town dedicated to traditional old fashioned Romantic tourism. Sacher Torte is good tho!

That's an unfair criticism of Vienna - we went last year and loved it. It's true that they are great museums there, but there is plenty more to do. That being said, two days is not enough to see and do everything, especially since you'll be spending three hours the first day getting there from Prague.

3 days in Prague is solid.

Have you already booked your flight? It would be convenient and save you a lot of time to fly in and out of different airports (perhaps Prague on one end and Berlin on the other). I think the train from Berlin to Prague is over 5 hours.

I would scrap one night in Salzburg. One night stops are really not worth it in my opinion. Nothing against Salzburg, but I think you can either do one of Vienna or Salzburg really well. Otherwise you are just going to cross them off your list.

1.5 days isn't really sufficient for Munich either to be honest.

I'd rather have more time in both Berlin and Vienna (not sure how much you have in Berlin at the end). Have you decided some priorities for what you want to visit in those cities and is that part doable? That's what you have to decide.

I would cut the stops you've already seen, Munich and Salzburg. Yes, they're "right there" if you must go to Garmisch anyway, and your buddy has not seen them, but they are taking time from other sightseeing options.

Train travel time would of course be reduced if you didn't got to Garmisch, either, for instance if you took a direct overnight train back from Vienna to Berlin. Or, to fit in another town that's closer to Berlin and Prague, you could stop in Dresden without adding travel time.

We're really leaning towards cutting out Vienna, just to save ourselves the extra train time. Even if we cut out Salzburg/Munich, we'd still need to ride from Prague to Vienna, then Vienna to Garmisch. Thinking we'd instead go from Prague to Salzburg (with a stop in Cesky Krumlov), and hover in that region. We're also getting the impression that Prague and Vienna have a similar classical, romantic feel to them.

It is a shame that we booked tickets into and out of Berlin, instead of doing a couple one-way tickets, but we went for the much, much cheaper option (saved $500 flying into Berlin over other cities).

You really should consider flying into Berlin and home form Munich. Probably be cheaper and more convenient.

Opps, just read you have already booked your tickets. What did you pay for your tickets?

Punt kick Salzburg out of the plan ...
Berlin (3 nights)
Prague (3 nights)
Vienna (2 nights)
Garmisch (2 nights)
Munich (2 nights)
Berlin (1 night)

We paid $900 round-trip, each. Pretty much all other round-trip flights cost at least $1,300.

djp_syd, is that enough time for some of those cities? I feel like leaving out only Salzburg won't give us enough time in some other stops, particularly when you consider train time.

Not ideally for Vienna, but that's your call. Three nights is 2 full day for the sights.
You could reduce Munich to a single night and add one on to Vienna. Travel time Garmisch-Munich is not long.
Otherwise you may have to choose between Vienna and Munich.

I'm with Kathleen, Vienna didn't do it for me. Seemed more of a cold government type city, without the quaint neighborhoods that I love to explore in Europe. Been to Europe over ten times, I had high hopes for Vienna, it just disappointed me. One of my biggest European city disappointments. Thought it would be a bigger Salzburg. Salzburg is very nice, but smaller city. I love history, as well. Loved Berchtesgaden, only a half hour away from Salzburg. I'd add a day to Salzburg and visit Hitler's vacation spot up in the mountains. Many tour operators run day trips to Hitler's Eagles Nest. Takes about 1/2 day.

No help now, but for next time . . . You said round-trip tickets vs. one-ways. Flying "open-jaw" usually is not any more expensive. When you search, don't look for one-way flights, but for the multi-destination option.

Even if your train route goes through a city, stopping there adds time - packing/unpacking, traveling to/from the station, checking in/out. So it does make sense to drop a destination like Salzburg (maybe Munich too) that you've been to before.

I think Vienna is very different from Prague. Vienna is much more French Empire, while Prague is very Eastern Europe.

What time do you land in Berlin? Is it feasible to take the train straight the Prague, and then spend the end of your trip in Berlin? This saves one hotel change and potentially gives you more time to enjoy this fascintating city.

Thanks for all the tips, everyone. Looks like we have some thinking to do!

Yeah, too bad we didn't consider multi-city options. And change fees are too high to fix that now. Still, I'm sure we'll have a great time reagrdless; I know how easy it is to overthink these things when you want to do it all.

We get into Berlin around 5:30 p.m on 8/7. Fly out of Berlin at 10:30 a.m. on 8/21.

Good luck on sifting through the information provided and settling on your itinerary.

For whatever it is worth, I loved Berlin and Salzburg and cannot wait to return to both, and I did not like Vienna enough on my visit to want to return. My visit to Munich, which I liked, was 38 years ago. I have never been to Prague, but want to visit.

Can you consider flying from Munich to Berlin ? I was able to get inexpensive tickets on air berlin and that will gain us a full day in that city (or to add on to Munich(