Looking for flights from West Coast, San Francisco or Portland. What thoughts/past travel experiences are recommended?
Anyone taken the train (scenic?) say from Munich or Venice to Salzburg where the tour begins?
What about the return trip Chamonix to the West Coast USA?
Thanks all for your input.
February 2014. We flew Lufthansa SFO to Frankfurt, connecting to code share operated by Tyrolean Air to Salzburg. Salzburg is a nice compact airport relatively easy to get to Salzburg hotels. (Actually started from Medford with checked baggage checked through to Salzburg from Medford).
Getting from Munich airport to Salzburg is easy. If there is more than 1 of you, buy a Bayern Ticket for 25 EUR for the first passenger and 6 EUR for each additional passenger. Take the S2 train to Munich Ost, then change to a Meridian train to Salzburg. Not much scenery here.
Venice there is a daily EC train that goes over the Alps to Munich taking about 6 1/2 hours. You can transfer at Rosenheim to get a connecting train to Salzburg. There are other trains with train changes in Verona and Innsbruck. Or you can take one of the OEBB buses from Venice to Villach, then switch to a train to Salzburg. There is also the option of a night train, minus the scenery. It has the downside of dropping you in Salzburg at 4 in the morning. Another night train goes from Padua station and gets there at 6:15.
Easiest from Chamonix is to take a shuttle van to Geneva airport and fly home from there.
If you go to the tour's web page, scroll down, and click "Planning Tips" https://www.ricksteves.com/tours/europe/my-way-alpine.
In that, there's this paragraph about flights:
There is more than one way to get to and from your tour. Most tour members will arrange to fly into Salzburg (Munich and Vienna are alternatives with easy train connections) and out of Geneva, using airport shuttle bus service from Chamonix ("multicity" on flight booking websites). Booking round-trip to one city will require a connecting flight, train trip, or additional overnight stay in Europe.
Note that while Vienna (ariport code VIE) is not too far from Salzburg, Venice (airport VCE) is not close. Unless you're spending time in Italy before the tour, you wouldn't want to fly to Venice.
I'd follow the recommendation and look on Kayak or Google Flights for a multi city flight. You have to check for all options, so look for:
1) Portland to Salzburg and Geneva to Portland
2) Portland to Munich and Geneva to Portland
3) Portland to Vienna and Geneva to Portland
4) San Francisco to Salzburg and Geneva to San Francisco
5) San Francisco to Munich and Geneva to San Francisco
6) San Francisco to Vienna and Geneva to San Francisco
Flying from the US west coast, most prefer to connect in Europe rather than in North America. It saves several hours, and you have more options if your first flight is delayed. For instance, if you fly San Francisco to New York to Vienna and your first segment is late, you have to wait a whole day to get to Vienna. If you fly San Francisco to Frankfurt to Vienna and your first segment is late, there will be more than one flight from Frankfurt to Vienna later that day.
From Portland (code PDX), the only nonstop to Europe is to Amsterdam, but from there you can connect easily to Vienna or Munich. From San Francisco (code SFO), there are multiple airlines with nonstops to various European cities, and Oakland (code OAK) now has flights to Europe on Norwegian. So, when looking for San Francisco, be sure to check the "look for nearby airports" box, or if OAK doesn't show up, search for it separately.
Munich has nonstops from SFO, on Lufthansa. Neither Vienna, Salzburg, nor Geneva have nonstops from SFO, OAK, or PDX, so you'll have to change; personally I'd avoid making more than one change.
There is no longer any rhyme or reason to airfares, so you just have to check all options and then figure out which one has the best combination of convenience and price for you. Do be sure to take EVERYTHING into consideration. For instance, if it costs $100 more to fly to Salzburg compared to Munich or Vienna, remember you're saving money as well as hassle, by not having to take a train on arrival.
We did this tour last September. We flew from SFO to Munich (connecting in Frankfurt). After 1.5 days in Munich, the 4 of us took the train to Salzburg -- very relaxing, cost effective, and a fun way to see the countryside. We took a shuttle from Chamonix to Geneva where we caught the train to Innsbruck. We stayed there 2 nights before taking the train back to Munich for the flight back to SFO. We enjoyed extending our trip (and doing the roundtrip ticket), if you have the time to do that. Others on our tour flew into Vienna and spent a few days there before taking the train to Salzburg, and some flew out of Geneva.
