spidycat

My husband and I are going to Europe for roughly 1 month, and will be flying in/out of Frankfurt. We need some recommendations regarding building a "smooth" itinerary.

We plan on begining the trip in Germany as we'll be renewing our vows there and want the rest of the trip to be our "2nd honeymoon".

Points of interest are:
(Germany)
Dresden area
Berlin/Potsdam
The Black Forest area
Oberammergau & Munich
(Italy)
Venice
Rome
(France)
Paris
(Austria)
Vienna
(Czech Rep.)
Prague.

Trains are fine, whether regional/Orient Express/Danube Express(Berlin to Budapest), they all appear to be options however, in what order? We don't mind driving and expect to do so a bit in Germany. Ideas?????

yk

It's gonna be tough to fit everything into one month. You're talking about 9 destinations in 30 days, which means 3 days each. EAch time you travel, you lose half a day, so we're talking about 2.5 days at each destination. I suggest you cut out either: Vienna/Prague; or Italy.

Do you HAVE to fly in AND out of Frankfurt? Can you look into flying open-jaw (ie, into one city and out of another; using the "multi-city" option on airline websites). At least you won't waste yet another half day to whole day getting back to Frankfurt to fly home.

Anyway, please think about which areas you definitely want to go, and which ones you can cut out, before proceeding.

Aramis

I'll answer the question asked instead of suggesting you rethink your entire trip.

Your routing, if you are driving all of it, or taking the train, should probably be Frankfurt - Berlin - Dresden - Prague - Vienna - Munich - Oberammergau - Venice - Rome - Black Forest - Paris - Frankfurt. You have some huge gaps there, like Vienna to Munich (4 hours), Oberammergau to Venice (5 hours), Rome to the Black Forest (9 hours) and from the BF to Paris (6 hours).

It is a lot of distance and extending out to Rome and Paris are the real culprits for adding travel time. Venice even drags you out of bit of a nice circle.

You can consider overnight trains for the Munich - Venice, Venice - Rome, BF - Paris, and Paris - Frankfurt legs, but it is a lot of time on trains.

Would you consider some intra-European flights, like Rome - Paris? That would let you come back from Paris to the BF and then on to Frankfurt, for example.

AisleSeat

Have you been there before or are you doing a once in a lifetime, conquer the continent,trip. You might want to cut the number o places by a couple to leave something for the next trip.

Where are you renewing your vows? Depending on your age and if you liked the movie I thought it would be fun to take the Sound of Music tour in Salburg. They take you to Mondsee to see the SOM wedding church. Make arrangements to have a priest meet you there to bless your vows. Try Mondsee.at to see what is available. You might even find an organist who would play the wedding version of "How Do You Solve a Problem like (Spidycat)?"

spidycat

I know it's a lot. We have a relatively short list of actual sites we'd like to see at the noted locations of interest. We just need to know the best way to move thru Europe, with ease, so that we don't backtrack etc. We're won't be involved in any site-seeing tours or anything like that either. When traveling, we usually stop if we see something interesting and know that at "said date", we have a place to be.

I have 2 large maps on a wall. One of Germany and one of Europe, both with color coordinated tacks for POI's and potential lodging. Germany, however, has top priority.

We can't cut out Italy, Rome is a must for the husband, as for Venice, I just want to stay on the canal-just for the romance of it. Vienna and Prague well, I'd like to fit them in if we can, since we're in Europe.

As for Munich and Oberammergau, I don't mind staying somewhere in between & would consider it 1 lodging, as I would Berlin & Potsdam.

The flight. There is a non-stop flight to/fro SFO to Frankfurt which is ideal for us. Multi-city is fine, however not in the States, Europe however is OK.

spidycat

Never been to any of the mentioned places. We both hold German surnames, my side of the family however lived there and grandparents were born there etc. and that's where & why we plan on renewing our vows in Germany. The specific location however, is TBD and I've got files upon files of info.

Austria is on the list because it is Austria and beautiful and we'll be in Europe, so if we can fit it in, then we can, same goes for Prague, and to think that it's only 3 hrs from Dresden.

Trains are great, high speed even better, we don't even mind driving.

We're not out to conquer the continent, nor is it a once in a lifetime experience. We'll be back again, but for now, we need a break!