My husband and I and our 2 young adult daughters are planning a two week trip in June to Switzerland and Austria. We are planning on flying into Zurich and out of Vienna. I'd like to spend a few days in the Berner Oberland area/central Switzerland and then head towards Bavaria/Neuschwanstein castle, then do Salzburg/Hallstatt and then on to Vienna. Does this seem like too much of an undertaking? I haven't booked anything yet and am just in the beginning stages of planning. I'd like to book our flights soon, we'd be flying out of Chicago.
Posted by
Northamptonshire, England
32875 posts
Going to the 19th century palace at Neuschwanstein is a bit slow from central Switzerland by both car and train.
Which transportation option to you expect to use?
How many previous trips do you all have to Europe?
Posted by
Danville, VT
12040 posts
Sounds reasonable for a two week trip, but as Nigel noted, expect the trip from Switzerland to Füssen to be a bit convoluted, unless you rent a car temporarily.
Posted by
1 posts
Sally, this is almost exactly the itinerary I am planning for my husband and me in late Sept/early Oct. Don't have all the answers yet, but happy to share our planning with you as well. I believe we will travel by train as much as possible, but thinking a car from Interlaken through Munich (we're stopping here for one night after Fussen and before Salzburg) may be the way to go for faster/easier travel in Bavaria. We've got 14 nights so it looks like we'll be sacrificing Halstatt so that we can spend one night in Munich and a tour of Dachau. Comments/thoughts appreciated all around.
Posted by
New York, NY, USA
11294 posts
If you rent a car in Innsbruck (Austria) and return it in or near Munich (Germany), you will encounter a fee for dropping a car in a different country. Reports here have ranged from €50 to €600 (not a typo - six hundred euros!)
If you rent in Innsbruck and return in Salzburg, you won't encounter the drop charge. But multiple reports here indicate that driving in or near Munich is miserable; these include reports from people who say driving in other German cities is fine.
So, if you do want to drive from Innsbruck to Salzburg with Munich in the middle, find out if there's a convenient park and ride option near Munich that will work for the length of your Munich stay (it shouldn't be hard if it's only a single day, but I don't know about longer stays).