Rail tours, for slow walkers

Rail lines will get you from town to town in the same way a RS bus will. Actually the RS bus is more convenient as it goes to the hotel, the train doesnt. Once at the city then maybe RS walks you too much. The alternative is to plan your own trips with trains or busses or private transfers between cities, then go at your own self directed pace within the city.

Rick has never offered “rail tours”.

Road Scholar does offer some rail journeys but I did a search on their site and the International ones are perhaps more active than your ankle will allow with some having an activity level of needing to be able to walk 4 miles or so over a day. If you want to check go to www.roadscholar.com

Would one of the My Way tours work for you? That would get you easily from place to place and then you could go at your own pace rather than needing to needing to keep up with a group.

You brought up wanting to see Vienna about 9 months ago, but were concerned about accessibility.

Here are two articles on the subject:

https://spintheglobe.net/dir/2017/04/01/wheelchair-accessible-things-to-do-vienna/
https://spintheglobe.net/dir/2017/04/01/tips-for-getting-around-vienna-in-a-wheelchair/
They both discuss getting around in a wheelchair and while that may not be your situation they do address some of the same issues (vertical movement).

The problem is that the legislation in Europe is centered more on public services than full cultural accessibility. You can ride the metro, sure, but to what? A restaurant where you can’t enter the door and has the bathroom down a narrow winding stairway to the basement?
As I suggested last time you are going to be best served by finding guides in the locations you want to visit and then working with those guides to develop tours that meet your abilities. You might have to do a little cultural education at the same time. How much physical assistance is “okay” for you?

Those guides will in all reality have to walk your tour in advance to make sure it works; I’ve done this a few times for folks and it’s important to do it correctly. But you know what, they will have something they can sell to others if they do it well. Vienna has great people, I presume you can find someone there.

Let’s say your ankle makes stairs something not on the menu for the trip. Can you do three steps up or down alone or with a little help, if the answer is no, then we replace the historic trams with the bus (the new trams are okay) and we eliminate the M1 metro and most of the stops on the M2 Metro so we plan routes around new trams, the buses and the M3 and M4 metros. Really not that hard and most of the time not really out of the way. You just gotta no. Dinner tonight, well, checked 7 restaurants on your list and 3 of them had restrooms on the ground floor. All three had 2 or fewer steps at the entry; we will get you some help. The Opera has an elevator, but you have to inform them in advance to use it, consider it done.

Seems silly and over doing things, but the idea is to have the time of your life and not worry about dead ends.

"Plan your own trips with trains or buses" as suggested above.

Choose mostly smallish destinations that you can cover on foot at your own pace. Ideally, the main station rail station will be close to the main sightseeing area, and accommodations are available near both. Small towns don't always have tours available in English - but the TI office will often have an audio guide with a map or an app that you can load onto your phone, often in English, which you can use to guide yourelf around. If not, small towns will usually have a brochure with highlights descriptions and a sightseeing map with marked points of interests... like this one with the green triangles for the tiny town of Bacharach, Germany:

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/b7/bc/d6/b7bcd6f24bbd5c822a894779071fdc30.jpg

In larger cities, take advantage of bus tours that cover the city. Some cities offer walking tours of the old-town centers, which are usually slow-paced and punctuated with pauses at specific points of interest. Check with the local TI office for schedules.

Thank you, everyone! Your generosity of your knowledge is heart warming! It seems there are a lot of us who are not in wheelchairs but cannot walk long or fast. Your suggestions are excellent! I am also going to look at the “My Way” tours. Many thanks again!