Will be traveling in early December & would like to visit Austria, Switzerland & Italy in 10 days

Your itinerary might be a little optimistic--with just 10 days to stay. And the weather in Switzerland and Austria can be a little "iffy" that time of the year--in transition to a hard Winter. Mountains often get precipitation in the Fall and late Fall.

In different months, I would suggest you fly into Milan and take in the Lake Como area of Northern Italy and Switzerland. If you were going into the Austrian Alps, I would suggest you visit Venice. Last time I was in Venice in Winter, it wasn't enjoyable.

You can easily fly from Gatwick into Pisa on EasyJet.com and take a 1 hr. train over to Florence for a few days. Then take one of the fast trains down to Rome for the remainder of time. Rome is worthy of the full 10 days travel by itself.

Delta has flights out of Rome FCO non-stop into Atlanta.

Hi Mary,

I'd keep it to 1 or 2 countries, meaning Austria and maybe Italy.

We did 2 recent trips (12/10 and 12/13) to Austria, Bavaria and northern Italy. The Christmas/Advent Markets were the main reason, as we'd been to most of the places we visited many times before.

I'd recommend Salzburg and Innsbruck during the first week of December. With a stay in Salzburg, include a visit to nearby Berchtesgaden and area plus the Salzkammergut. 3 nights would be my minimum here.

Innsbruck is beautiful during the markets. Hall in Tirol, Rattenberg and northern Italy (Sterzing/Vipiteno, Brixen/Bressanone, etc.) are less than an hour away.

Just a few ideas.

We have photo's of our Dec. trips and other trips at:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/pjbassplyr/sets/

Paul

Paul, those photos are fantastic. I was not planning a winter trip, but the Salzkammergut beckons! Thanks.

Debbie

Oh, sorry for not responding to you, Mary. The photos distracted me. You could easily fly from London to Venice and work your way north via train to the Dolomites. I have been to the Bolzano area in December. Then you could explore the Innsbruck / Hall in Tirol area, upwards towards Mittenwald or Garmisch and finally on to Munich. Or you could reverse the trip order and start in Munich working your way south. I have traveled via this train route many times. It is very straight-forward. You might need to switch trains in Verona for connections to Venice, but that is fairly easy, too.

Thank you Debbie!