Saturday, April 21, 2012

22 days trip to central Europe

Hi



We have 22 days to spend in Central %26amp; Eastern Europe. We start from Amsterdam and end in Zurich. We want to cover Amsterdam, Prague, Budapest and Vienna. This wouldn%26#39;t take more than 12 days. Which other destinations would you recommend? Berlin, Salzburg, Melk, Lucerne, Bern, Basel, Warsaw, or any other suggestions? How long for each city? We will travel by rail.



We are husband and wife plus 2 kids (5 %26amp; 7). Not too crazy about museums %26amp; natural wonders.






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Hi bob22,





You will have a wonderful time in Western %26amp; Central Europe travelling for 22 days! There are just so many different cultures, food and people in these countries that you won%26#39;t be able to find elsewhere in the world within such proximity. The trip will however involve a lot of planning as you intend to cover many cities in the region.





To help answer your question precisely, you need to state: 1.) when are you travelling, 2.) have you booked your flight ticket (different open jaw options can change the travel route)? This is because during colder months, many train services and places of interest are closed early or run irregularly (e.g Melk).





If you go to Euro Rail web sites (eurail.com or raileurope.com), choose the US sites (different countries are charged different rates!) and you will have a selection of rail passes to reduce the cost of travelling on trains and help you plan your travel routes.





…raileurope.com/map_europe/austria.html





Although central and western europe countries you plan to cover look small on the map, the distance from one city to another may require either a night train (eg, Prague to Budapest, 9 hours+ or Berlin to Prague 5 hours+) or sitting more than half a day on the train with your kids screaming boredom after first 2 hours!





Please do advance seat reservation for long distance trains once you start your first train travel %26amp; pass validation at the main train station (travel agent and online charge extra fee) or at least one day before travelling to next destination. I found many Amercians having problem with sitting in too many smoking sections in some routes.





While many people%26#39;s idea of travelling on the train is romance and scenery, most routes become tiresome and monotonous after few hours except scenic train lines in Alps region.





Therefore, you can try to use Ryanair.com or easyjet.com to fly when some cities are too far to reach by train. For example, you can fly Easyjet from Dortmund (near Cologne) to Krakow (Poland, recommended city but 5 hours to Prague) or Prague. Or you can fly from Berlin to Krakow. With Ryanair, you can fly from Frankfurt to Krakow or Wraclaw (West Polland), Brastilava (1 hour to Vienna).





I would recommend, Amsterdam (2 days) - Cologne (1 days) - Berlin (4 days) - Prague (4 days) - Vienna (to Melk) (4 days) - Budapest (2 days) - Salzburg (2 days) - Innsbruck (1 day) - Zurich (to Lucerne). This is more than 22 days and total train travel time may take up extra day or two. If you skip Berlin %26amp; Cologne by flying to Prague from Dortmund, you can cover Budpaest (Vienna Budapest, , otherwise leave the latter out as it is out of the way.





Bern is interesting and you can cover in 1 day but it%26#39;s out of the way from Zurich, Warsaw is lovely, but again out of the way for your route (unless you want to cover Berlin) and it%26#39;s a big city with places of interest spread out all over the city. Basel is a small town famous for its art. You probably should leave it out.





The key thing to consider is that since you are travelling with kids, you may want to cut down the cities or towns to less than 7 within 22 days. But if you don%26#39;t mind on- the- go since you don%26#39;t intend to do many museums, it%26#39;s possible to cover those routes above.




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