My husband and I are traveling to Vienna/Eastern Europe for the 1st time, and want to maximize our time to see the sights in 7 days. Our home base is Vienna because we have events to attend in the middle of our stay (2.5 days). We have 3.5 days to venture out on the front of our trip, and 2 days on the back end. We are looking at going to Prague, Budapest, and Salzburg but it seems a little heavy (after reading Rick Steves travel guides). Our plan was to take the train from Vienna to Budapest; site-see there 1.5 days. On the front end - Take an overnight train to Prague; site-see all day, and spend the night. Take a train back to Vienna the next morning. On the back end, we were going to Salzburg (Sound of Music is my favorite musical of all time). Are we fooling ourselves that it can be done? Should we look into securing a private guide in some places to maximize time? or should we cut our itinerary back?
Posted by
US Pacific Northwest
10344 posts
I would like to reply, but don't understand your # of days and your proposed sequencing well enough to give a reply that would be useful to you. Your discussion of days on the front end and back end is clear to you, but for people like us who don't know anything about your trip except what you tell us, it's confusing.
What would help me is if you re-explain how many days, what the front end part is, what the back end part. For example, is it a grand total of 7 days, or is the 3.5 days on the front end in addition to the 7 days.
Also you say home base in Vienna but then you talk about spending overnights, usually on this forum when someone says home base in Vienna for 7 days it means sleep there 7 nights and make only day trips. I don't think that's what you mean, that part was clear from your OP.
Some people seeking itinerary review do it like this:
Day 1 - blah blah
Day 2 - blah blah
If you use that formatting, note that for this forum, the way it's programmed, you must press the enter key TWICE to get one line break, if you press enter only once it will look normal to you as your keyboarding it, but once it appears here it will be impossible for us to read because there will be zero line breaks between the days.
Posted by
OP
Oakland, California, United States
2 posts
Thanks for the advice on posting. This is my first time and I was trying to be succint but I guess that led to confusion. And your comments have made us rethink our plans. So here is a re-write:
Day 1: arrive in Vienna around 2pm. Roam around the area of our hotel/pension to get the lay of the land. Possibly attend Vienna Jazz fest at night. Need a place to stay, days 1-4 (central Vienna).
Day 2: Our daughter is playing in the Youth Friendship Games (World Sports Festival) in Vosendorf, Austria, so we are attending an orientation that morning. Afterwards, take a walking or bike tour around Vienna. Vienna Jazz Festival at 9 pm (Porgy&Bess or Jazzland)
Day 3: day trip to Prague either on our own via train or take guided tour departing from Vienna or stay in Vienna and explore.
Day 4: day trip to Budapest, either on our own via train or take guided tour departing from Vienna?, return to Vienna by night
Day 5: Check out of Vienna hotel, check in Vosendorf hotel (reservations secured), watch daughter's games, will have time to explore in late afternoon, opening ceremony at 8pm.
Day 6&7: watch daughter's games, sightseeing in area, time permitting.
Day 8: travel to Salzburg (rent a car? or take guided tour from Vienna? or take train?); return to Vienna at night (need hotel rec).
Day 9: take River Danube tour (8hrs) from Vienna; (need hotel rec)
Day 10: depart for San Francisco
Many thanks in advance for your insights! Please give us your thoughts on feasibility of this itinerary and places to check out and any modifications you would suggest.
Posted by
US Pacific Northwest
10344 posts
Nice re-formatting!
Ok, day 1, IF you're flying in from CA on day 1--see how you're feeling by night time, you'll probably be more tired from jet lag than you think. As long as you don't buy tickets in advance, you can go if you're still coherent or not if you're falling over by night.
Regarding whether you want to attempt all of your day trips as day trips, returning to Vienna: go to this link
Day Trip Travel Times by Train & Car
that link has further links to websites that enable you to determine the travel times from Vienna, by train or car, to the places to which you want to day-trip.
Remember to add time for getting to the train station, waiting for the train, on both ends, etc.