east europe travel

You're trying to visit seven places in 15 days, which gives you only two days for each place. One of those will probably be taken up by travel for each. Also Croatia is a whole country, do you have any more specific ideas?

I would strongly recommend cutting down to at absolute most three locations you want to visit, and give us a bit more idea of what you are interested in.

An issue with cars is that hire companies in Germany and Austria may not want their cars taken into former Warsaw Pact countries due to perceived higher risks of theft.

Thank you for the response but I am more interested in Budapest Vienna and Amsterdam. Also may be either Berlin or Munich.
I want to pick 3 or 4 places only but not able to decide so need help with that

Let's make your itinerary logistically sound and doable. So something on the far edges would have to be skipped. I see two options. You land in Frankfurt. You can do either: Munich -> Prague -> Vienna -> Budapest or you can exchange your starting point and instead of Munich start in Berlin. Munich or Berlin to Prague about 4 to 5 hours, Prague to Vienna 4 hours, Vienna to Budapest less than 3 hours. All by train. That will give you 3 full days for each city.

See train travel time, in hours, at a glance on Rick’s Train Travel Time & cost Map. That's enough info to choose a logical route. For additional schedule detail, use the DB link at How to Look Up Train Schedules and Routes Online.

When is your trip? Do you have flights already or can you book open-jaw? Or are you locked into Frankfurt to fly home?

If you are going to visit cities, driving will take longer than trains and you won't need or want a car in the cities, but you will pay dearly for parking.

A good train route would be Berlin > Prague > Vienna > Budapest. That's also a good itinerary for 12-14 nights in Europe (it's very important to count nights, not days). Some people recommend an overnight stop in Cesky Krumlov after Prague on the way to Vienna. If you skip Budapest (shame to do that), you could train to Salzburg, then Munich. Croatia is a definite outlier.

But if you have to use a lot of time getting to/from Frankfurt, you will have to curtail your itinerary if you don't want to just zip through.

Check out RS Tour of Central Europe. Soooo informative. Doesn't hit all of your target cities, but includes Prague, krackow, Budapest, Pritvies National Park, Croatia, Rab Island, Croatia, Lake Bled, Slovenia. An excellent tour.

Thank you I will check it out

Depends what you enjoy & are looking to experience. I typically enjoy the smaller towns better. However, I loved Prague as far as big cities go. We visited Slovenia & northern Croatia on our same trip as Prague. Slovenia is one of my favorite countries I've traveled to now. You may be able to fly from Frankfurt to Slovenia/Croatia & rent car & then take train from Zagreb to Prague (fly out of Prague maybe?) but definitely need a car in Slovenia/Croatia. Rovijn & Lake Bled were two of my favorite places from our last Europe trip.

A lot of the key tourist spots in Slovenia and Croatia are manageable via public transportation (though not as fast as by car), but a car would be handy to see the inland Istrian towns and the Julian Alps.

You need to determine your departure point before setting your itinerary. I agree with the others that either Munich/Berlin before Prague, Vienna, and Budapest. You may wish to also consider a 1-2 nighter in smaller place just to have a different experience. Research your rental car options but make sure the car company will allow you to take the vehicle into the countries you plan to visit. It might be cheaper for 4 to drive than train it but remember to factor in parking costs and tolls. We're planning to drive a 1500 mile loop through seven countries this summer.