Vienna-Salzburg-Munich-Bavaria-Venice-Florence-Rome which to kill?

I'd say that pace is pretty typical for first-time travelers and will allow you to see the highlights of each city. Some people would want to stay longer, and I have happily stayed longer in Vienna, Munich, and Venice, for instance, but Rick would go ahead with the plan as-is.

I think you are a day short. Departing on Nov. 30 you arrive in Vienna on Dec. 1. Try counting it out in terms of nights, not days. I think you end up with only two nights for Rome (or Florence), as you will be spending Dec. 15 flying.

It is too much. You should count nights instead of days. Easier to track. You have no provisions for weather problems or delays which can happen at that time of year. Four years we were in Germany for the Christmas markets and hit two days of travel problems because rain/ice were coating the overhead wires which brought the trains to a stop. Remember you will always lose at least a half day and sometimes more when changing locations. With six location changes that is at a min three lost days of travel and maybe four if weather turns. Not a good plan, IMO, but, as mentioned, typical of first timers and can be done if prepared for a drive by trip.

me,

look at it this way. Chances are you're not going to be able to do/see everything in the time you have so dont even try. As long as you understand that then go ahead an plan.

As others have pointed out your first stab at this is fast paced.

Depending on what you want to see, you maybe able to do it in the time allotted. But I'm guessing you won't. you should realize that you still have to get from A to B and that will take time. It will also take time away from what you want to do/see in addition to having to pack/unpack.

Some places you may want to try staying put in one central/convenient place and do day trips. Yes you may have to go/back forth but you can spend more time there without packing/unpacking.

For me and how i travel, 2 full days in one place is the MINIMUM i will stay since i feel that you cant get comfy with less than that. If you want do a 1 day stay as a rest day or flight layover i can see that, but thats about it. This year i gave Vienna and Munich 3 full days and i wasnt able to do/see everything i had planned.

i would look at the travel times/to from each and see if you can find a central spot to plan yourselfs. you may not be able to, but at least you will know.

good luck and happy trails.

Everyone is different, and I have to say I have certainly travelled at this pace. For me - I would want 2 nights in Salzburg, and 2 days in Florence, and 2 days in Rome would be enough. We have done 1 nighters (have one planned on our upcoming trip). Don't forget that if you leave on Nov 30th you will most likely be arriving on Dec 1. I like to plan my itinerary in terms of nights vs. days, but what ever works for you. I think what you have is certainly doable and will give you a good overview so that you know where you'd like to go back to for a 2nd visit.

Unless you just have to see Neuschwanstein, I would skip it and also do Salzburg as a day trip from Munich (actually if I was going, I'd stay the 4 days in Salzburg ). I would also fly from Munich to Venice rather than take an overnight train (I have never understood the appeal of an overnight train. I think it is a leftover from the days when students had a cheap two month Eurailpass).

Your Italian portion was similar to mine and I was happy with that.

Too much of a blur.
You want Christmas ambiance:
4 nights Vienna
5 nights Salzburg/Neuschwanstein/Hohenschwangau/Munich...take days trips
2 nights Venice
4 nights Rome
Still a lot of moving around though.

It's interesting to see the replies—there seems to be a strong preference for Salzburg, which I was actually considering being the first stop to get the ax. I was starting to form the impression that the Christmas ambience was similar in Vienna/Salzburg/Munich, and that we may just leapfrog Salzburg altogether. So as I summarize the replies here, it looks like it's trending to:

• Do 4 days in Munich and do two day trips to Salzburg/Neuschwanstien
• or skip Salzburg altogether and give a day to Munich
• or skip Neuschwanstien altogether and give a day to Salzburg

Another interesting question is the crossing of the alps. Sleeper train vs. normal train vs. quick flight. Is the scenery through the Brenner pass worth it in the winter? Or should we just pony up the ~$150 extra (for two) for the flight and saved time?

Italy would be the portion of the trip I'd like to remain untouched—if anything, I'd like to add another day to either Rome or Florence, as I'm fascinated by the birthplace of the Renaissance and Ancient Rome both.

Also I should mention, we're actually flying on the 29th, arriving in the morning (Vienna time) of the 30th.

Thanks everyone for your infinite travel wisdom :)

...or skip Salzburg and Munich and just do Vienna/Venice/Florence/Rome and go deep!

If you got an early start from Vienna, you could train to Salzburg, leave your bags in lockers, tour the town and continue on to Munich that evening.

I love Germany, but I found Munich to be one of the less interesting major European cities. One full day for Munich itself would be enough for me.

I'm a fan of night trains, would have no problem taking the Munich-Venice sleeper. You should compare costs with flights and see how many daylight hours a flight would take up. For the night train, consider in general how adaptable you two are to sleeping in less than ideal conditions.

I would not take the day train on that route with a tight schedule-- would take basically the whole day, and seven hours on a train can be quite tedious, even with Alpine scenery.

I think if you like Renaissance art and ancient roman sites, just add more days to Rome and Florence. I would skip Munich and Salzburg then. Vienna has lots of great museums, will have Christmas markets and atmosphere. Munich and Salzburg are nice but I think it's a bit much for this trip; you can see Salzburg in 1 day but have to travel 3 hours from Vienna on a train to get there.
Do 4 nights in Vienna (3 days), fly from there to Venice, spend 2 nights ( 1.5 day), train to Florence for 4 nights (3 days), train to Rome for 5 nights (4 days).
Something like this.

I also think that weather will be much nicer in Rome.

All these points are creating some interesting discussions between my wife and I :)

She's actually really looking forward to some things outside cities and museums, getting a feel for the countryside, some more 'quaint' European culture. So I'm discovering that Salzburg and some of these alpine locations are quite appealing to her.

My question is, how accessible/enjoyable are some of these non-city sights? Neuschwanstein, country palaces, etc.

One thing we're definitely taking away though is to limit how many times you have to change sleeping locations—I think if we did Salzburg now we'd take the advice above and do it as a stopover on the way to Munich or somewhere else.

Late fall/almost winter is not a great time to tour the countryside, especially in northern Europe. It's cold, skies are usually overcast. The days are short, and the sun is low in the sky (can be a bit bleak). Experiencing the countryside and smaller towns and villages is best done with a car in the warmer months. As far as quaint places, Salzburg is a small city with a lot of attractive historic buildings. Neuschwanstein/Hohenschwangau are easily done as a day trip from Munich and would be worthwhile regardless of the weather.

I'm not a fan of night trains. Your trip is too short to spend a day cranky and sleep-deprived.

If you love ancient and Renaissance history/art, spend more time in Italy.

Have a great time and I would bet that you will be plannimg the next one on your flight back.

It's easy to drop Neuschwanstein, it's not that great and a little out of the way.

I'd probably drop Vienna and fly into Munich (with a 24 hour side trip to Salzburg) but I doubt that's an option.

If you are into music, art, Christmas Markets, and food, then don't skip Vienna - in fact, you should stay there for at least 3 days. You could then travel to Salzburg in the morning, explore the city, and stay one night there. The Salzburg Old Town is quite compact, so you can cover it in a day (even the next morning before catching a train or plane to Venice). Then go on to Venice, Florence, and Rome. So, I would suggest skipping Germany altogether on this trip. You could use any of the time 'saved' by skipping Germany to spend exploring Tuscany beyond Florence. I know this is not a popular opinion on this forum, but I feel that 2 days in Venice is more than enough. At least it should be less overrun by tourists in December.

"...or skip Salzburg and Munich and just do Vienna/Venice/Florence/Rome and go deep!"

To keep it simple, I like this plan! Fly from Vienna to Venice (check germanwings airline) and train from Venice to Rome.

In between, you could add in other smaller Italian cities like Verona, Bologna, and/or Orvieto. Keep your night stays to 3. Plan four to five nights for Vienna and Rome. You'll get traditional Christmas markets in Vienna--other festive activities in Italian cities including the Vatican.

Just another possibilty to add to the mix.

Just wanted to give an update since everyone has been so helpful. We opted to shorten but keep a trip to Munich, mostly as a base for a couple of day trips that we didn't want to miss, and then skip the sleeper train in favor of a 1hr flight over the alps :)

• 3 nights Vienna: Decompress / Vienna city walk, Hofburg, Haus der Musik / Schonnbrunn, Kunsthistorisches, Opera
• 0 nights Salzburg (stopover): Old town walk, lunch, Monchsberg to Hohensalzburg walk
• 2 nights Munich: Rent car, Dachau, BMW Welt / Day trip to Fussen castles, Marienplatz Christmas market at night, flight to venice
• 3 nights Venice: Grand Canal cruise, St Mark's square, basilica, Doge's palace / Rialto to Friari church walk, Correr, Accademia / Tour lagoon Murano, Burano, Torcello
• 3 nights Florence: Renaissance walk, Medici chapels, Duomo and surrounding / Bargello, Uffizi, Galileo museum, Palazzo Vecchio / Accademia, cooking class, trip out of center for Florence views, other sights?
• 4 nights Rome: haven't gotten this far yet :)

See anything glaring that we're missing?

Good work! That looks like a fun itinerary!

You realize you'll only have one full day in Munich, right? You likely won't have enough time to do all the things you listed under Munich.

Two full days (well, 1 3/4) in Munich. Flight out isn't until 9:30pm. We'll leave early for castles and cut Marienplatz if we have to.

Here's what I do when planning our trips to insure we have time to enjoy vs. too much time traveling/moving. I figure that a minimum of 10 hours a day are in the hotel room, which leaves 14 waking hours. For each day, I figure out how much time it will take to get door to door. For example, if your hotel is 15 minute walk from the train station, and you'd probably arrive 15-30 minutes ahead of your train to buy/pickup tickets, find right track + 4 hour train ride + 30 minutes to walk to your hotel, check in and/or drop bags. This totals 5+ hours of "travel time", which leaves <9 hours of "vacation time". We will either decide to spend 4-5 hours exploring the morning before we head out of town, or check out and catch an early train so we still have a good part of the day for our new destination. I tend to over plan much like your schedule, but if one night stands give us a good 8-10 hours of exploration, we are OK with that. Unless we had something specific scheduled, we'd decide the night before when we wanted to leave the town we were in.

Try this exercise by looking up travel times. You will realize whether or not you spending way too much time moving, or at least you won't be surprised with travel time. Keep in mind that during the winter, your daylight hours are much shorter than the other three seasons. While we rent cars in Europe for at least part of our vacations, we try to not drive much at night.

One other thing that balances the one night stands and short stays is we end our trip with an extended stay 5-7 nights where we can stay local and relax a bit more, or take day trips that are within a reasonable distance by train, boat, or car.

I've mapped out basically every minute of the two week trip based on time recommendations from RS guidebooks, responses in this thread, travel time buffers, and generous "recharge" periods in between major sights.

If I'm completely off in any specific location, do tell.

Brad,

A few thoughts based on your latest Itinerary.....

• Travel from Munich to Venice - you likely won't save much time by using a flight vs going by train. The trip from Munich to the airport is about 50 minutes via S1 / S8, then check-in, security, waiting times, the flight time and then getting from VCE into Venice. The whole process will probably be at least five hours and possibly more. There is at least one direct train between Munich and Venice, departing Munich Hbf at 11:38 and arriving in Venezia Santa Lucia at 18:10 (travel time 6H:32M). That trip goes through the scenic Brenner Pass, although I'm not sure how scenic it will be in December.
• Munich sights - With only two nights in Munich, I'm not sure you'll have time to see everything on your list. Keep in mind that you also have to account for travel times, so two nights will only provide about a day for sightseeing. Marienplatz is the easiest of all the sights, since it's right in the city and won't require travel time like Dachau or Füssen. You may want to take a few minutes to stop by the famous Hofbrauhaus and watch the "zoo" there.
• Trip out of centre for Florence views - one of the easiest places to go for views is Fiesole, which is just up the hill from Florence. Getting there via Bus is very easy, and there are some nice restaurants there.
• Salzburg - Will you be storing your luggage while touring the town? I don't remember if there are luggage lockers at the station?

Hopefully there won't be any rail strikes in Germany during your trip!

Good luck with the final part of your planning.

Travel from Munich to Venice - Yes, we had a lively discussion about this very thing. In the end, we'll save some time, if not a lot. It really came down to sleeping preferences. While I could sleep on a bed of spikes, my wife will feel the pea in the mattress every time (also she'll be 4 months pregnant). Any kind of 'real bed' berth in the sleeper train was prohibitively expensive and ended up costing close to the same as a night in a hotel + flights. Not wanting a grumpy traveling companion in Venice, decision was easy from there. :)

Munich sights - Very flexible with the Munich schedule. Day 1 will be Fussen only, and we'll either get back in time to spend some time @ Marienplatz / Haufbrauhaus or we won't. We're okay staying up late as well. Day 2 will be Dachau in the morning but anything after that (BMW Welt) is just icing, as the evening will likely be spent at the airport as you pointed out. Also we won't be returning to city center after we leave the hotel that morning.

Trip out of centre for Florence views - Thanks for the suggestion, I think this is exactly what we'll do on Day 3.

Salzburg - They do have lockers at the station. http://bit.ly/10YrkUq

And yes, really hoping there won't be any rail strikes in Germany (or Italy) during the trip :/ Thanks for all the great thoughts. Everything is taking shape and starting to purchase travel and lodging.

• 3 days Vienna: Flight in, Decompress / Vienna city walk, Hofburg, Haus der Musik / Schonnbrunn, Kunsthistorisches, Opera
• 1 day Salzburg (stopover): Old town walk, lunch, Monchsberg to Hohensalzburg walk
• 2 days Munich: Rent car, Day trip to Fussen castles, Marienplatz-Haufbrauhaus / Dachau, BMW Welt, late flight to venice
• 2 days Venice: Grand Canal cruise, St Mark's square, basilica, Doge's palace / Rialto to Friari church walk, Correr, Accademia
• 3 days Florence: Renaissance walk, Medici chapels, Duomo and surrounding / Bargello, Uffizi, Galileo museum, Palazzo Vecchio / Accademia, Cooking class, Fiesole
• 4.5 days Rome: Colosseum, Forum, Capitoline museums / National Museum of Rome, Baths, Dolce Vita stroll / Vatican / Borghese Gallery, Heart of Rome walk / Flight home