Hello!
We are taking a 3 week vacation which will include the following: Berlin (3 days), Prague (2 days), Budapest?? (2 days), Vienna?? (2 days), Salzburg (2 days), Munich (4 days), Trier (5 days as a base for seeing the surrounding area).
Would you advise us to choose Budapest or Vienna? Or would we even have time to fit ONE of those in?
Personally I would skip both Vienna and Budapest this trip and add a couple of days to Berlin and Prague. Too much travelling around for a couple days in each of these large cities with lots to see and do. If that's not appealing to you, then skip Budapest and spend 1 more day in Prague and 3 in Vienna.
You really need to look at some maps to see how spread out your planned cities are. You're going pretty far east with Prague, Vienna and Budapest--but Trier is a long way to the west. You're just not allotting proper time in those very important cities. I'd drop Trier and add the time you were going to spend there to Berlin, Prague and Vienna. Save Budapest (one of my favorites) when you have more time to spend there.
As long as you did not discover how to beam yourself from A to B I suggest to honestly check and consider travel times in your planning.
When you speak of "2 days" you often have factually less than 10 hours.
I would choose to do both Budapest and Vienna (3 days each) and take time away from Munich. Maybe spend 4 days in Salzburg with a day trip to Munich.
I would definitely try to include both Vienna and Budapest. We've visited Vienna twice, but were in Budapest last year and ended up canceling several days in Paris (we have visited Paris many times, but were flying home from there) and adding them to Budapest because the change fee of the Easyjet flight amounted to one day of savings on the hotel (vs Paris hotels) and we were staying in a very nice hotel! We loved Budapest and think it is underrated. It is very inexpensive compared to other European cities of its size. Munich---well, I might consider taking a day off there, unless you plan to do day trips from that as your base (such as Neuschwanstein Castle).
Our personal opinions really shouldn't matter to you. Personally, I'd add at least 1 day to Vienna, 2 to Budapest and skip Munich entirely. I always choose strawberry ice cream over chocolate, hate mocha. So what?
Others have made important points about how many cities are in your plan and the time it takes to get from one to another. Look at train schedules on bahn.com. Add up the time it takes to pack/unpack, check in/out, get to/from the station to/from the hotel with your luggage, and lead time at the station to find your platform and board the train. Don't discount the time it takes to get oriented to a new city (signage, language, local transportation, currency). Don't count days, count nights. For however many days you want in a place, you need to add one night.
Also consider how much "maintenance" time you need on a trip - time to replenish supplies, do laundry, relax. Lastly, are you going to be jetlagged when you arrive? Don't count your first day on the ground as a "day". Even if you land early in the morning, chances are it will take you several hours to get through the airport and to your hotel. Then you may not be in any condition to take in sights and you may be just fighting to stay awake long enough so you have a chance for a decent night's sleep.
With only 2 days, go to Vienna as there is a lot less to see compared to Budapest.
If y'all are big into classical music, then I would do Vienna. There are some great museums there, too. Here are some other thoughts......
You are going to take a good part of one day to transfer from one city to the next.....soooo....you're actual time in each city is actually one day less as you listed. Those are all great cities with many GREAT things to do and see. Maybe less cities.....more time in each place? Less time on the road or in a train/more time enjoying the location.
Trier is really away from the other cities. Maybe skip Trier this trip and invest those 5 days into the other cities?
Dresden is a good way to break up the journey between Berlin and Prague. Cesky-Krumlov is a good destination near Prague, too. Bratislava is an easy day trip from Vienna by hydrofoil....and another European capital.
4 days in Munich is a lot unless you are taking day trips to ........maybe Zugspitze, Nuremberg, Neuschwanstein, Regensburg, ?????
Hope this helps. Good luck, you have lots of great options.......just think some more about your time management.
I am not sure how flexible your travel arrangements are; however, all the the places you've suggested are great areas and deserve a decent amount of time to really enjoy them. Budapest and Vienna are two of my favorite cities, but distance and sight seeing wise I think you should skip those two for this trip.
I would add at least a day to Prague and another to Salzburg. Make sure to take into consideration travel times to the destinations as well because that will take time away from exploring the areas. Prague can be a very busy city and there is a lot to do, so adding one more day would definitely help to make your days less busy and packed with sites. Salzburg is also a great city to take a day trip away from to go into the mountains, etc.
Additionally, I don't think you need to have 4 days in Munich. If you consider taking a day out from Munich, consider still adding the day to prague and add even more time to Salzburg. Berchtesgaden and Konigssee are very close and great places to visit and relax. They might be a welcomed break from the cities you've got planned. There's also a few alpine slides in the area, which are always a hit.
You list 7 cities in 21 days - as noted by others that is a lot of packing and unpacking, even if the train trips were shorter. You lose half a day on arrival, another getting ready for departure, and 1/2 day per travel effort. You have thus lost at least 4.5 days already to travel of your 20 days on the ground.
Others have commented on the joys of each of your proposed cities and they are all correct so choosing will be your challenge... All of the locations you list are great, but maybe not all together on one trip.
As RS did in one of his travel skills shows, make your list and then prune it down to leave your top objectives with reasonable travel time losses. Also, although some people like night trains for long distance, I do not because my sleep is just not as good, and leaves me fuzzy the next day (fuzzier?).
Thus, We try very hard to stay at least 3 nights per location giving us 2 full days of "being there." We have also adopted the "what do we want to see in each place approach" (AM, PM, Eve) in picking cities and hotel locations within cities. We prefer 4 days per location so we can sit in cafes and have a leisurely coffee or Aperol Spritz occasionally. Of course, that means we miss some things, but mostly now we miss sitting in cafes in Europe while we are home.
