We have been working hard in our planning efforts to put the final touches on the itinerary for the trip. In looking at a couple of the cities, and where they fall in the schedule, we had several choices to try to make the logistics of travel the smoothest. Somewhat anchoring our plan was trying to find and reserve a decent hotel in Munich, knowing we would be there for two days near the end of Oktoberfest. We felt that we should try and be in and out of Munich before the last weekend of Oktoberfest, trying to beat some of the crowds, so we set our schedule so that we arrive in Munich on Tuesday, September 28, and depart on Thursday, September 30. That will give us two nights in Munich, and based on the “special” hotel rates for Oktoberfest, it was all we could afford. We have reservations in the Hotel Der Tannenbaum Stadtmitte , which is located fairly close to the Oktoberfest site. We will either be able to walk about 15 minutes, and/or take the metro.
Based on anchoring the trip in Munich for those dates, the other complexity in the planning was determining if there was a cost and/or time advantage to either flying into Pisa or Genoa, instead of Milan. After checking into airfares, connections and total flight durations, availability of Star Alliance member flights (frequent flyer miles) and putting together a timeline of total travel durations for the various arrival cities, we finally opted for continuing with the original plan and fly into Milan. However, we have decided that instead of staying overnight in Milan, as previously planned, we will immediately depart on a train from Milan and travel to the city of Levanto, near Cinque Terre, and skip sightseeing in Milan altogether. We have both been there before, and after weighing the alternatives, felt we would rather spend the time and hotel costs somewhere else.
The initial travel day will be quite a long day of travel, we have about a 2.5 hour train ride to Levanto after arrival in Milan, but that is somewhat offset by avoiding the 45-60 minute travel time into the city center of Milan from the Malpensa Airport. It appears from the train schedules on Trenitalia that we can take a train directly from the Malpensa Airport, and connect on to Levanto.
We now have a reservation for 4 nights in Levanto, at the Oasi Hotel. We may still shorten that stay and opt for spending a night in Pisa, to hopefully be able to see the Tower with no, or at least less scaffolding than when we were there on our Honeymoon Trip. At least we would be able to take pictures of the Tower and other buildings at night, and have a chance to visit the Cathedral and Baptistry, which we opted not to do last time on our short cruise visit so that we could also venture to Lucca that same day. This would also give us the opportunity to see some of the other sights in Pisa, and make the train trip to Venice a little more direct (via Florence). If we opt to stay the full four nights in Levanto, we will skip Pisa, and opt to get to Venice so that we can be leaving Venice before the weekend. Hotel rates in Venice get even higher (they are already ridiculous) if you are there for a Friday or Saturday night.
In the process of evaluating the possibility of spending a night in Milan, we both agreed that we would rather forfeit Milan for the possibility of spending one night in Pisa. Since hotels are easier to reserve in Pisa as compared to either Levanto, or Venice, we are not worried about getting a hotel there at the last minute. Now we can go forth with our planning knowing we can either stay the additional day in Levanto, and then train directly to Venice, or, reduce the time in Levanto by one night, spend a night in Pisa, and then train to Venice. Either plan will set our arrival date in Venice to be Tuesday, September 21, with our departure on Friday, September 24.
We are still planning on taking the night train from Venice to Vienna, Austria, arriving in Vienna on Saturday, September 25. We are thinking about staying two nights in Vienna, then taking the train to Salzburg, and staying there for two nights. This would put us arriving in Munich by our confirmed hotel reservation date of September 28.
The remainder of the trip itinerary was not changed, and remains as previously discussed in the last post. Continuing on through Germany, the Black Forrest, and on to Switzerland. Our schedule should become a little more flexible after we leave Munich, and hopefully, since we will not be staying in as popular of locations, finding hotels should be both a little easier, and a little less expensive.
Of course, we will continue to check hotels in cities where we have reservations to see if any better rates come up as potential cancellations by other guests occur close to the date of our arrival. However, knowing we have a reservation in place frees us up to do more planning in other cities. Next will be picking out a hotel for Venice, always a challenging proposition, trying to weigh cost against location and comfort, solely based on the opinions of others expressed in their reviews of those hotels.