We are couple with 2 girls (12 and 15 years old). Already booked
the flight : Toronto - Frankfurt - Toronto from Jun 20th to Jul 3rd.
Originally plan to go this route in Europe without tour :
Frankfurt - Berlin - Praque - Vienna - Salzburg - Frankfurt - Frankfurt.
Any suggestion about route, hotel, transportation or even local tour.
No experience travelling by ourselves in Europe so all comments
and suggestions are welcome. Prefer budgeted travel.
Thanks a lot.
|||
You will need to cut a few things short, but with 3 days each in Berlin, Prague and Vienna and 1-2 nights in Salzburg it should work. It is easy to take a train for each leg.
you can schedule the trips at www.bahn.de but only the prices within, from and to Germany will be shown. For Austrian part see www.oebb.at
Hotel overview for Germany and Austria see www.hotel.de or www.hrs.de
|||
So you%26#39;ll be in Europe for two weeks. You%26#39;d need at least three days for Berlin, one night in Prague, at least two nights in Vienna, two in Salzburg.
How about this:
Day1) Arrive at Frankfurt airport, take train to Berlin (4hrs direct high speed train), check into hotel, have dinner, go to bed.
Day 2-4) Berlin, Potsdam
Day 5) Departure in the AM for Dresden (2 hrs train ride). Do a guided city bus tour of Dresden and a river cruise on one of the old steam boats to the Swiss Saxony canyon. In the evening departure for Prague (another 2 hours train ride). check into hotel in Prague
Day 6) Prague
Day 7) in the AM depart for Vienna (4 1/2 hours train ride), in the PM guided bus city tour of Vienna
Day 8) Vienna
Day 9) around mid-day depart for Salzburg (3 hrs by train)
Day 10) Salzburg
Day 11) in the AM depart for Füssen (4 hrs train ride). Visit Neuschwanstein Castle in the PM (a must-see for teenage girls and everybody else). Either stay over in Füssen or take train to Munich (2 hrs) for stay over.
Day 12) From Füssen 5 hrs to Frankfurt, from Munich to Frankfurt 3 hrs. Spend afternoon and evening in Frankfurt
Day 13) Visit roman the living room of a real princess/empress that looks just like she just left it in Bad Homburg in the Frankfurt area. Then on to a real roman castle and to Hessenpark in the afternoon. Dinner on the 1,000 year old market square outside a beautiful and romantic castle in Frankfurt Höchst.
Day 14) back to Canada
|||
Thanks Altamiro and Andreas for your reply and suggestion.
Andreas%26#39; ittineary looks good to me. Do you suggest me to book the
train now or should I buy the ticket train there ? Any idea about the
price ? I have tried to open the web from Altamiro but they are not
in English. Any suggestion for booking budgeted hotel for four of us in one room ? Do you think it%26#39;s better for us to travel by train
instead of driving ? Appreciate your help.
|||
%26gt;I have tried to open the web from Altamiro but they are not
in English.
Of course the default site is not in english, but all the sites have an english version link. Watch for a british flag, or %26quot;international guests%26quot; link
|||
%26gt;Do you think it%26#39;s better for us to travel by train instead of driving ?
You are only travelling from city to city. I see no advantages in driving at all, and a lot of disadvantages...
Now if you stay somewhere and want to make a trip out into the countryside, a rental car may be useful.
|||
I agree with Altamiro on the car issue. If you feel like you%26#39;d need the flexibility of a rental car just rent one for the day. There are some train passes that you can only buy States-side. Check with a local travel agent. The rack-rates of each train ride is listed on bahn.de for comparison.
E.g. in my opinion it makes a lot of sense to rent a car in Berlin for the Potsdam day. All the castles, chateaux%26#39;s and other sites are a bit apart plus the drive from the Olympic stadium (Hitler%26#39;s olympic games plus also 2006 football worldcup final site) down to Glienecker bridge (cold war spy exchange) and into Potsdam is just spectacular. You get a small car on budget.de for €29 a day incl. insurances. Also that way you can have lunch or dinner at Bornstedt%26#39;s Crown Estate, which is also quite a little experience.
Play a little with hotel.de and hrs.de as Altamiro suggested to find hotels, hostels and other places in the various cities.
I really don%26#39;t like Novotels but all of their rooms come with a queen size bed plus couch that converts into a smaller than queensize but wide enough for 2 kids bed. (www.novotel.com)
|||
DB timetable
http://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/e
From: FRA airport
To: Berlin
It%26#39;s sufficient to buy 3 tickets:
1. Frankfurt Airport - Berlin
2. Berlin - Vienna via Prague
3. Vienna - Frankfurt Airport via Salzburg
a) 2. and 3. are international normal tickets and as such valid 2 months while allowing stopovers en route.
b) for these ticket also the prices will be shown
c) your 12 year old will travel for free on these ticket (but must be listed) also on the Czech and Austrian parts. If would buy just tickets Prague to Vienna or Vienna to Salzburg this won%26#39;t be the case.
|||
%26gt;E.g. in my opinion it makes a lot of sense to rent a car in Berlin for the Potsdam day. All the castles, chateaux%26#39;s and other sites are a bit apart plus the drive from the Olympic stadium (Hitler%26#39;s olympic games plus also 2006 football worldcup final site) down to Glienecker bridge (cold war spy exchange) and into Potsdam is just spectacular.
I agree on the tour, but if the weather is nice I would alternatively suggest to rent bicycles at Potsdam station and enjoy the gardens as well as the city of Potsdam this way. Especially since the palace gardens are quite huge and you will have a lot of walking to see them.
I don´t know about the parking situation at Sanssouci or in Potsdam city itself. Might be a hassle too (or not...)
|||
Altamiro, make sense .. we will take train.
Abalada, thanks for the suggestion. I will search for those 3 tickets
Andreas, may I know why you don%26#39;t really like Novotel ?
Any tips for hotel location since we won%26#39;t drive ?
Do I need the local tours or do you suggest us to go by ourselves ?
I have no one who I know there ..
|||
%26gt;Do I need the local tours or do you suggest us to go by ourselves ?
For most cities, there are walking tours available, contact the tourist offices of the cities. I usually just buy a guidebook with a description of a walking route, and just follow it (more or less).
Don´t bother with bus tours.
In Berlin, there are double-deck buses (line 100 and 200) which run past the main sightseeing areas. These are normal part of city transportatio, not tourist buses, and don´t cost extra if you already have a ticket.
Prague is pretty compact - you will be able to walk it all. ditto Salzburg. Stay in the city center in these two cities. In Berlin (a very widespread city) you will have to use subway/trams/buses a lot wherever you stay. I don´t know Vienna good enough.
No comments:
Post a Comment