Planning Update – June, 2010

The overall planning effort for the trip has progressed well, but has been modified slightly from the last posting.  The itinerary for the trip was changed to accommodate more efficient travel plans, and to provide the opportunity to spend a few more consecutive nights in some of the cities along the way.  In order to visit the main sights we had identified, and to also keep from making hotel room changes every night, we focused our travel time on the main attraction cities.  The hotels we currently have reserved will be in bold, indicating a link to the hotel’s web site.

Our plan is still to fly in to Milan, Italy and return from Zurich, Switzerland.  We will be taking the shuttle bus from the Milan Airport to the Milan Central Train Station, then taking a train directly from the there to Levanto, Italy.  We have decided to shorten the stay in Levanto to three nights at the Oasi Hotel, then train to Pisa, Italy, where we will stay one night at the Hotel Bologna so that we can revisit the Leaning Tower.  We are hoping the scaffolding we saw in our visit two years ago will be gone, plus, we are wanting to see and photograph the Tower at night.

From Pisa, we will train to Venice, where we will be staying three nights in the Ca’ Arco Antico Hotel.  It is located in the Rialto neighborhood of the San Polo Area, far enough away from the touristy areas to keep us away from the crowds, but close enough to all of the main attractions of Venice.

From Venice, our plan is to still take the overnight train to Vienna, Austria, reserving a double sleeper for the trip. The sleeper reservations are not available before about 90 days from the date of travel, so we will have to wait to make these reservations until sometime later in June. We will be staying two nights in Vienna, in a pension, the Pension Dan In’n Out, which is similar to a hostel. These are different from a “youth hostel”, which are typically very low priced dormitory type of accommodations, designed for the young backpackers. A typical Pension or Hostel is just a no frills place to stay, usually very basic accommodations. This one is located in the Inner Stadt, or inner part of the city, which is the older historic area of Vienna. It received very good ratings, and has very good rates, so we decided to help defray some of the overall costs of hotels in other cities (like Munich $$$$), and stay there. It will probably be very similar to the Hostel we stayed at on our recent trip to Madrid, very basic, but quite comfortable.

From Vienna, we train to Salzburg, Austria, where we will stay for one night at the Alstad Hotel Zur Goldenen Ente.  This will be the date of our second wedding anniversary, so we may have to find something special to do for our one night in Salzburg.

We depart Salzburg via train to Munich, Germany, where we will be staying for two nights to experience Oktoberfest, and other sights in Munich.  Our hotel, the Hotel Der Tannenbaum Stadtmitte, is fairly close to the fairgrounds where the Oktoberfest is held, only a few block walk away.  Unfortunately, they do not have a direct web site, and therefore, no link to this hotel is include in this post. The hotel is as close to the Oktoberfest location as our wallets could afford, hotels in Munich are about three times the normal cost during Oktoberfest.  We were somewhat worried about having to get “reservations” to be able to sit at a table in one of the larger festival tents.  However, most of the information we were able to find indicated that the reservations were only available for parties of 10 or more, and that individuals can usually get in easily, especially earlier in the day.  There are some tricks involved, you have to sort of be a little pushy with the others in the crowd to protect your spot in line to get in.  We will have to do some more research on this to make sure we understand the “system”.  If time allows, and we are not too tired or suffering from excessive Oktoberfest celebrating, we might try and schedule a visit to the concentration camp in Dachau.  If not, we will try and stop there as we make our way south in our rental car on the portion of the trip encompassing the “Romantic Road” route.

From Munich, we travel to Wurzburg, Germany, once again by train.  We will be renting a car in Wurzburg for about a week.  The current plan is to spend one night in Wurzburg.  However, we may opt to just visit the city for the day, and then head south to Rothenberg, Germany.  Rothenberg is the best preserved medieval town in Germany, and we had planned to spend at least one night there.  If we do not stay in Wurzburg for a night, we will stay two nights in Rothenberg.  We currently have a reservation in Wurzburg at the Hotel Alter Kranen.

We also have two nights reserved in Rothenburg at the Hotel Gasthof Goldener Greifen.  We have been giving considerable thought to minimizing the number of “single night hotel stays” to avoid all of the hassles of packing and unpacking our suitcases.  If we opt to cut out the single night stay in Wurzburg, we will cancel that reservation, and keep the two night reservation for Rothenburg.  If that does become the plan, we will store our bags in the train station lockers after we arrive in Wurzburg and then try and figure out a couple of sights to see in Wurzburg before we pick up the rental car and head to Rothenburg.

Once we leave Rothernburg, we plan on staying  one night in Augsburg, Germany.  It is close to Dachau and will allow us the opportunity to visit there if we do not have time to go there while we are in Munich.  We will either elect to reserve a hotel there, or possibly just opt to find a place along the way for one night.

From Augsburg we will continue south to the area around the city of Fussen, Germany, and plan on staying in that area for two nights in the town of Hohenschwangau.  We have two nights reservations at the Hotel Alpenstuben. It is located at the base of the Neuschwanstein Castle, built by Ludwig.

From the Fussen area, we will drive to the Black Forest area of Bavaria, and currently have reservations to stay two nights in the town of Simonswald, Germany, at the  Hotel Landgasthaus.  Unfortunately, they do not have a web site in English, only German. From this location, we can drive short distances to some of the other smaller, more scenic Black Forest towns famous for items such as the cuckoo clock.

Next, we will be heading to Freiburg, Germany, where we will turn in our rental car, visit the city for a few hours, and then take the train to Lucerne, Switzerland.

We will be staying two nights in Lucerne, at the Hotel Des Alpes . The hotel is located on the river, and is also in the pedestrian only historic area of Lucerne.

From Lucerne, we will train to Zurich, where we will spend our last night at the Welcome Inn Hotel, close to the Zurich airport. We opted for lesser accommodations in Zurich so that we could splurge a little and stay in the nicer hotel in Lucerne. The Welcome Inn is just a couple of miles form the Zurich Airport, and offers a free shuttle to the airport. It is a fair distance from the historic area in Zurich, but only about a 30 minute train commute from our hotel near the airport, so we should have a little time to tour the city of Zurich on the day we arrive from Lucerne. We will probably just check our bags in the train station baggage storage area, and tour the town of Zurich before heading to the hotel. We wanted the comfort of knowing we were close to the airport for the flight home the next morning.

The Route Map

 

A – Milan, Italy – Via Flight From Florida
B – Levanto, Italy – Via Train From Milan
C – Pisa, Italy – Via Train From Levanto
D – Venice, Italy – Via Train From Pisa
E – Vienna, Austria – Via Overnight Train From Venice
F – Salzburg, Austria – Via Train From Vienna
G – Munich, Germany – Via Train From Salzburg
H – Wurzburg, Germany – Via Train From Munich
I – Rothenburg, Germany – Via Rental Car From Wurzburg
J – Augsburg, Germany – Via Rental Car From Rothenburg
K – Hohenschwangau, Germany – Via Rental Car From Augsburg
L – Simonswald, Germany – Via Rental Car From Hohenschwangau
M – Freiburg, Germany – Via Rental Car From Simonswald
N – Lucerne, Switzerland – Via Train From Freiburg
O – Zurich, Switzerland – Via Train From Lucerne – Flight Back to Florida