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Southern Germany, Switzerland, and Austria During Mid-Summer

My family is planning a two week trip to Europe. Our goal is to see some of Switzerland, Austria, and southern Germany. The plan is to end the trip in Germany and fly home from Munich. I'd like to see Gimmelwald, at least one Swiss city, Salzburg, Vienna, the Neuschwannstein area, and Munich. I've previously spent a day in Salzburg, Melk, and two days in Munich. I've started looking at developing my own itineray for traveling with my husband and our teen son, but the information available is overwhelming. We will likely rent a car to do some of the southern Bavarian sights, but we aren't sure if taking a train in Switzerland and Austria might be more fun and scenic. Does anyone have any advice to offer to get the planning underway?

Cheryl in Indiana

Posted by
1358 posts

I'd look at the Rick Steves books to help you get started. If you start looking online, it can get overwhelming.

You have a lot of cities listed. I'd consider dropping Vienna, that's a lot of travel time getting over there. Does your 2 weeks include the days you fly? Then that only gives you 12 days in Europe.

I've found that when traveling with more than 2 people, it can be cheaper staying in apartments than in B&B's or hotels. Once you've narrowed down which cities you'll be in and when, you can start doing some searches. Usually if you get on the city or area tourism website, they'll have a page on there for accomodations, including holiday apartments (called Ferienwohnung or FeWo in German).

Posted by
6 posts

Thank you for your reply. You've made some good points, and I'll be certain to check out the Rick Steves books. Do you recommend the Switzerland, Tirol, Bavaria book or the individual country books? Also, hve you used the trains to get around or would a car be better?

Thanks,