advice on Munich/Salzburg itinerary Spring 2018

First of all, congrats on making the decision to take your 11- and 15-year-old to Europe. You have this Spartanburg pediatrician's seal of approval.

I would encourage you to consider eliminating one round of unpacking/packing by going straight to Salzburg after you get off the plane in Munich. If you arrive mid-morning (after 9 am), you'll be able to use a Bayern ticket to get your family to Salzburg for 43€, which, I think is about the same price as 4 people riding the Lufthansa shuttle to the Munich city center. There is an easy-to-find train station at the airport. Take the S8 from the airport (München Flughafen) to München Ost, and then transfer to the Meridian train that takes you to Salzburg. The entire trip takes a little over 2 hours, and (once again) you don't waste time checking in/out of hotel in Munich (along with unpacking/packing). You could be in Salzburg by early afternoon, which would allow you to grab lunch, knock out the Salzburg walking tour and perhaps even Mozart's Birth House (Geburtshaus). The Wohnhaus, in my opinion, is much less interesting and very skippable. Eat dinner. Go to bed early. Boom. You have an extra day to squeeze in more stuff.

You will be in Salzuburg during the Salzburg Easter Festival (Osterfestspiele Salzburg). If your kids are in orchestra or like classical music, there are still many reasonably-priced tickets remaining for the Easter Sunday chamber orchestra concert, though that would require moving your trip to Hallstatt to another day.

Thanks, Dave! In pricing it out, going to Salzburg right away would be about $100 more expensive due to the Salzburg hotel being pricier than Munich - but it would give the benefits you listed. Ever been to the outdoor museum there-it's part of the Salzburg card and looks like a fun way to spend a half day.

If your budget has some flexibility, I personally think it's worth $100 to avoid an extra hotel change. I will freely admit, though, that I am biased toward Salzburg -- I love it!

I have not been to the Salzburger Freilichtmuseum, but it has very positive reviews on TripAdvisor. One guy did comment that his teens were bored there, but the museum looks interesting to me.

My favorite off-the-beaten-tourist-track spot in Salzburg is the public library (Stadtbibliothek), which is in the Neustadt (new town). To me, the building is reminiscent of a dinosaur, with the head of the dinosaur housing the Panoramabar, a cafe that is reached via a diagonally-moving elevator and that is staffed primarily by adults with intellectual differences/weaknesses (and a supervisor). Views from the Panoramabar are impressive, with the fortress in the distance. I'm happy to provide more info, but if you feel like you only have time for the highlights of Salzburg, I won't bore you! :)

A couple of observations on your itinerary:

1. For Munich, the Alte Pinakothek is 2 blocks from the Nazi Documentation Center and is open until 8 pm on Tuesdays. So, if you are not museumed out on 4/3, you can sprinkle in a little art at the end of the day.

2. Lots of folks on here hate Neuschwanstein. I enjoyed it. It's touristy and crowded (though probably not so much in April when it first opens for the season), but it's pretty cool to see the building on which Walt Disney based the Sleeping Beauty castle.

My teen is a history buff, so I think he will enjoy it. I'm not anticipating spending an enormous amount of time looking at art, so that is a good suggestion. Also, I feel like we can't go and not visit the castles with kids. I was there as a college student 20+ years ago and it was such a memorable day-even though it was freezing in February! Appreciate the feedback :)

4/4-day trip to Neuschwanstein: The inexpensive Bavaria ticket can get you there and back, but there's an after-9-am restriction on weekdays, so the earliest you can head out on that day pass is usually 9:52. Then you'll spend nearly 5 hours on trains and buses that day to get there and back as well as a lot of time walking to the entrance and back down. Since you've been, you probably know it's not a genuine castle but a residential palace finished in the 1890's and built with a fake castle exterior. But after so many years you may not remember that the tour lasts just 30 minutes. So for me it's not a matter of "hating" N'stein, only a matter of the place not being worth all the trouble and requiring a disproportionate portion of your very short time in Germany.

Have you visited Herrenchiemsee Palace, Ludwig's answer to Versailles? It's on an island in Chiemsee Lake near Prien, which is right on the train route to Salzburg and one hour from both Munich and Salzburg. This means no additional lengthy train + bus trip at all, plus some extra free time for whatever.

http://www.ferienhaus-am-chiemsee.com/files/template/background.jpg
http://www.schloesser.bayern.de/englisch/palace/objects/hch_ns.htm

You get off the train in Prien, stow bags in lockers there, head to the dock and ferry over. When you're done, reverse the steps and move on to Salzburg. Because it's 3/31 and you're traveling on a Saturday, you can depart Munich for Salzburg on the Bavaria ticket at any hour you like.

Thanks for the suggestion! I have a feeling that N'stein will be a must-do for our boys, though. I was planning on making castle reservations around 1-2 PM in order to take advantage of the Bayern ticket and still give us time to hike around a bit after before catching the train back to Munich--does that sound doable?

Hiking at that time of year seems very problematic to me.

It's not worth it or "doable" for me, but you can check the train/bus schedules to see if it's doable for you.

http://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/en

Use this bus stop name for N'stein:

Hohenschwangau Neuschwanstein Castles, Schwangau

Don't pre-purchase your Bayern ticket - it won't be refundable if the weather is nasty or if illness, etc. forces a change of plans.

If it turns out it's not doable, and Herrenchiemsee doesn't interest you, there are other options. Perhaps the family would enjoy an outing from Salzburg to visit to the Hohenwerfen Castle and falconry show (film set for "Where Eagles Dare") or the salt mines or Berchtesgaden and the Königssee.

Dave, I took your suggestion and we are going right to Salzburg from the Munich airport. The more I thought about it, the more sense it made. Trip is booked and we are looking forward to it. I appreciate all of the replies!

I'm excited about your trip! I think you are making a good decision on going straight to Salzburg. If you have any last-minute questions as your trip nears, feel free to PM me.

I really disagree with your concern about Dachau. My family went to a camp, probably Dachau, when I was 8, and my 4 siblings were 7, 5, 3, and 1. It became important for me to understand the Holocaust, and I have read many pieces of information about that terrible event ever since (I am 65), and have an interest in history - of course, not just for the reason of visiting an extermination camp. 11 YO kids are becoming adults. They can, in most cases, go to such places without being traumatized for life. In fact, I think that it is, with proper preparation, a positive event, since it will open to your child the important idea that evil exists in the world. It will also demonstrate to your child that you treat him as a growing-up person, not a baby anymore, and that is important at that age. I am of the firm opinion that everyone who visits Germany should visit a concentration camp. We have been to 3 or 4. The visit reminds you that things happen which are important to understand.

One thing omitted is a visit to the Chinesichum Turm Beer Garden in the Englisher Garden in Munich. I'd go there. You can have a beer, and the kids can watch the other tourists. Plus listen to good German band music. There is also a beer garden in Salzburg that we enjoyed. In Germany, beer gardens are more restaurants which serve a lot of beer, and also food. The food is not cheap or expensive, and is usually tasty but sometimes a bit salty (keep that beer coming!!).

You don't need to stay in expensive places in Salzburg. My wife and I stayed in JUFA hostel, and it was very inexpensive. Although it is called a hostel, it is really a hotel on the level of Motel 6 or Days Inn, with a superior breakfast. Maybe $40. It was very nice, we had a private room, the breakfast was quite good, it was 4 blocks from the main square. In most hostels, you can get a private room, and these are quite inexpensive. We never stay in big hotels.

We took Bob's Tour to Hallstadt. It was very nice, as it was a small minivan with 7 people including the driver.

Thanks for the info, Paul. I confirmed on the Dachau website that no one under 14 is allowed to view their film, and knowing that my teen and I would want to see it, that means my DH would have to keep him "entertained" for 45 extra minutes. Having been to Auschwitz/Birkenau, I totally agree that the camps are memorable sites worth visiting and bring about a great deal of reflection, but I think we will save this for another trip. We have our reservations in Salzburg for a B & B but will look into the beer gardens you mentioned.

Yeah, I guess I didn't realize that it was a restriction at the camp. Oh well, you'll be back. Or child will. Salzburg is a nice city. Not big, easy to walk around in. We enjoyed the beer garden, also the castle and the famous cemetery. There is also in Salzburg a restaurant that advertises itself as the "oldest restaurant in Europe". We didn't go, but might on the next trip.

Weather at that time of the year is pretty variable so if you get lucky with a nice warm spell with clear skies I highly recommend spending it outside rather than in a museum or palace. One good way to do this is to rent bikes for everyone and make your own cycling tour of the city. Mike's Bikes has good and easy rentals and you can head north from there into the English Gardens and stop by a beer garden or two on the way. If you are feeling up for it you can cycle all the way over to Nymphenburg for a quick visit as well.

Another good weather option is to visit one of the lakes south of the city (Tegernsee, Stanbergersee and Ammersee have all been recommended on this forum).

Just a thought.

DJ

I will have to agree with the previous opinion (Lubitsch) who disagrees that everyone who visits Germany must visit a concentration camp. I think that there are so many means and sources that anyone who want to know, can find out everything about Holocaust and death camps. Whoever does not have a CLEAR picture about what happened even without visiting the camp won't have it after visiting it. There are thousands of books, films, documentary films etc. I personally read tons of stuff, watched many films (almost every execution of guardians and officers is on Youtube). After visiting a camp (Dachau) not only that I didn' discover anything that I did not know previously, but was a bit dissappointed by a "touristy" atmosphere "OK that was Dachau-check, now Neuschwanstein-check, Oktoberfest-check...." Munich and Bavaria are much much more than that. Bringing children under 12 to former camps is not wise. They simply can not understand the complexity of the whole thing. If they could, they could be traumatized, if they can't understand, than what's the point.

What nonsense - "searching the evil abroad in other nations". Visiting a camp is not about German evil. It's about human nature and what can go bad.

My own family, who are Donauschwaben on my mom's side, were ethnically cleansed from Yugoslavia/Hungary after WWII. German persons spent time in camps much like other Germans had put people in camps. I have visited N Serbia where my family members lived for 150 years - the graves are today hidden as the old German cemetary now has a huge forest growing up in it, and the town has now the official cemetery elsewhere. In FRY, Romania, Hungary, Czechia, Slovakia, Poland, Ukraine, the German history has been eliminated. The Germans suffered there. Probably some were guilty of things. Many were not. War is a difficult time.

If you don't know about this ethnic cleansing, read "Orderly and humane: The Expulsion of the Germans After the Second World War" by RM Douglas.

In 1958, we lived in Germany and met my mom's uncle who lived in a DP camp - he had been removed from Serbia (Batchka region) after WWII, and lived even 13 years later in a camp. So, this is not a German issue, it's a human issue. The Germans have done a very good job in their own history. They do not hide the truth.

Camps should be visited not due to German culpability but human failings of any country.

And as to age, my parents took us to visit Dachau in 1960 or so, when I was 8, and siblings were 7, 5, 3, and 1. We are all normal, or approximately so. We were certainly not traumatized. I did gain a lot of respect for the millions who were killed, and have studied this by a lot of reading, and so forth. Children, especially those of older childhood and adolescence, are far more complex and resiliant than Disney views of childhood leads us to understand. Plenty of accounts of resilient children lead me to believe that children gain by carefully prepared experiences which help them understand the wider world.