Tour of N. Italy, Switzerland and Austria 15 day itinerary

Posted by kobarrett on 09/01/19 01:40 PM

I am putting together some plans to tour the Lake Como area, Switzerland & Austria. It looks like flying into Milan and Vienna are the cheaper airports. We would like to fly into one and out the other as we do not need to take the full circle as we've been to Venice. We are an active family of four with two boys ages 15 &17. Some highlights would be Lake Como, Salzburg & perhaps a day of summer skiing on a glacier. We don't mind driving and understand some areas or only reachable by train.

Open to ideas, don't need to stay in the big cities and open to itineraries.

Posted by balso

Paris

09/01/19 04:31 PM

6889 posts

15 days doesn't give you much time to deviate from a straight route between Milan and Vienna. I have the following suggestion, which is entirely doable by trains and buses (or you can rent a car in Innsbruck for the leg from there to Vienna). The St Moritz-Mayrhofen/Innsbruck leg is a long one, involving a train-bus-train combo, but it's still feasible in a day.

Lake Como 3n (e.g. Varenna)
Pontresina / St Moritz area 2-3n, which you reach via the Bernina scenic railway.
Mayrhofen (my preference) or Innsbruck 2-3n - summer skiing is available at Hintertux near Mayrhofen and Stubaital near Innsbruck, but best done before the end of July (global warming leads to early closures...), and you can enjoy the mountains too (more so near Mayrhofen).
Salzburg 2-3n (can include day trip somewhere, e.g. Berchtesgaden or Hallstatt)
Vienna 4-5n (3 full days minimum for sightseeing purposes)

Posted by kobarrett OP

09/01/19 06:04 PM

2 posts

Thank you for the great ideas. Any other stops if we shorten Vienna? Can you tell me a little more about the trains and which portions we should take vs drive?

Posted by balso

Paris

09/01/19 07:46 PM

6889 posts

If you're not too interested in Vienna, have you looked at Munich as a departure airport? It's closer to Salzburg.
Otherwise, if you take 3 nights away from Vienna, you could spend time in the Dolomites. 3 nights in Kastelruth or Ortisei for instance.
Getting there from the St Moritz area involves many changes but public transportation is good in that part of the world.

Regarding your question on driving: I was just saying you could drive the Innsbruck to Salzburg part of the trip for extra sightseeing freedom in Mountain areas, but there's no need to.
Personally I would train/bus all the way. The only complicated section is between Switzerland and Austria or the Dolomites: Swiss train line stops in a small town called Scuol, from where you need to hop on buses to get to either Landeck (if headed to Austria) or Malles Venosta (if Dolomites), the nearest railway stations in these countries/regions. It all comes together if you look at a map.