Hi everyone,
My wife and I are both in our late 60s and would like to do the 14 day Germany, Switzerland & Austria tour in May, 2026. If you have taken this tour, can you tell us how "active" the tour is beyond the description given as "active", and how much stair climbing is involved. Thank you very much for your input.
Did you click on "itinerary" at the tour page? It goes beyond just "active." For each day the walking is put into one of three categories... light / moderate / strenuous.
https://www.ricksteves.com/tours/germany/germany-austria-switzerland-tour
The descriptions says many of the days are 2-8 miles of walking. Since there are 14 days on the tour, I am simply looking to see how many of the days involve a lot of walking and stair climbing and how many days are maybe less walking and stair climbing, and hopefully how many flat walking days and how may up and down walking days, if that's possible, from someone who has actually been on the tour. Thank you.
P.S. Day 2 and 9 appear to be the most strenuous days but it says 2-8 miles of strenuous...how come there is such a wide range? Is it closer to 2 or 8 is an example of why I am asking. Thanks for listening.
Here is a recent thread with a question similar to yours.
The author supposedly took the trip last month; you might send them a direct message.
I hope you get responses from someone who has been on the tour. Keep in mind that the itineraries are not necessarily the same from year to year when reviewing responses. And of course, one person's strenuous might be another's easy.
We are in our early 70s now, and one of us no longer appreciates being on a schedule that requires unexpected physical demands - much less having to opt out of scheduled activities. So we now play things more by ear than before. We book right near rail stations and take on only activities that we have investigated closely and that lie well within our physical abilities. Tours would mean getting dragged around against our will at times and some level of suffering. Just my 2 cents.
"The descriptions says many of the days are 2-8 miles of walking."
WOW, we have taken many group tours in the past 5 years, but never one that included as much as 8 miles of walking.
I am in my late 70s and can handle 2- 2.5 miles a day of walking, which most of our tours call for.
We looked at doing a tour of Sicily, but the tour called for "strenuous" walking, with up to 5 miles a day. We had to pass on that one.
10 years ago, I did a 100 mile bike ride in 7.5 hours and 25 years ago ran a 10 mile run in 90 minutes, but age catches up with you.
I think some times people underestimate how much walking there is in an average day when you're not sitting at home but walking everywhere. My wife recently took the grandkids to Disney World where her fitness app said she (and therefore. kids) averaged 7 miles a day, just on the Disney property. And that didn't include the hours of standing in line waiting. We were just in Dublin, where, on our own, we did 5.5 miles one day, just walking around the central tourist district. I cant imagine visiting any major European city which didn't involve walking a lot, unless you took taxis everywhere. I don't remember a lot of stairs, except for getting up and down to the U-bahn, or the usual steps in the hotels.
We did GAS in 2014, and the longest sustained walk was to our hotels in Baden-Baden and Mürren which was a few hundred yards. That was because the coach could not get close to hotel in B-B and of course, Mürren doesn't allow vehicles. Why the range? Well they don't always have the same hotels or sight-visit schedule, so actual distances vary. And sometimes you are on your own to get back to hotel. Some people assumed that the coach would be driving us directly to sights every day.
And then, I think they want to discourage people from overestimating their limitations.
Thank you both for your replies.
I guess we could pass on days of strenuous walking, but one of the days is the Neuschwanstein Castle and pone of the other days is Halstadt. I have read that there is a horse drawn carriage up to the Castle. Is that available to book trough this tour?
Thanks again for your contributions.
As I recall, the carriage was an option when we got there, although many people chose to walk it. It is an uphill climb - I forgot about that one.
Be sure to discuss your concerns with the tour leader at your first meeting and they can advise you.
We have visited Neuschwanstein Castle a few times and I do remember there is a vehicle of sorts that can take you up to the castle. My Mom was in her early 80s and had to take that way.
