Have some friends coming for a Euro-visit in late June. Just talked them out of 6 days sitting on a beach on the Dalmatian Coast & into a trip day hiking in Austria.

Can anyone recommend a few towns that are a good place to base ourselves? First place for 2 days, another town preferably in another region for another 2 days, then another spot for last 2 days?

Not sure yet if we'll be traveling solely by trains, renting a car in Zurich then driving, (or training it to Austria, then renting a car?)...

Recommendations greatly appreciated. Many thnx!

Dalmatia would have been very nice this time of year

6 days on rocky shores watching Italians in speedos... vs. 6 days in mountain air. They've seen beaches. They've never seen the Alps...

The Dalmatian coast is amazing, especially the islands, croatia has great culture.

I am not saying Austria is not beautiful, it is, and can appreciate why you would be going there.

Nevermind the background info re: Croatia. It was an unneeded sidenote. A way of saying we are willingingly giving up a 4 course meal of well-arranged food & bordeaux at a top restaurant because this time around we are actually really in the mood for the best grilled sausage with rosti & a good big masse of beer we can find. This is an analogy.

We are in fact going to the Dalmatian coast another time. Myself plus another of the trippers who wants to go. The third friend has already been. So really ... any ideas on Austria would be loved. We get it.
Thnx

Salzburg and the castle are brilliant (I think Where Eagles Dare was filmed there)
You can even do a Sound of Music tour whilst you are there, I recommend being drunk before undertaking this though as it certainly helps.
You can pop across the border into Bechtesgarten and go up to the Eagles nest (Hitlers hide out) and then take a trip across the Koenigsee, also in Germany although only just is Neuschwannstein, the fairy tale castle place built by a mad, gay, Wagnerian Bavarian King.
You've seen it in Chitty-Chitty Bang Bang and its definitely a highlight of Europe.


Innsbruck is lovely, and a good place to base yourselves if you want to go into the Mountains hiking, or even ski up on a glacier.
Been to Vienna a few times. and although it's kinda pretty, I've hated it everytime.

Ooo, these are good - Thanks!

From where ? If they are flying from UK, meet them in Friedrichshafen (cheap) on the north coast of Bodensee and drive into Austria via Bregenz, its quicker, and you can take in some of the lake sights too.

dave

I thought I'd put this here - I drove 10 Km through Austria Saturday from Bregenz through the tunnel into Germany. I "forgot" that you need a Vignet for the Austrian highways. They don't sell them at the borders (unlike the nice Swiss guys) so it's easy to forget. There was a traffic police road block just before the German border, about half of all cars were pulled over for not having the sticker and fined €120! Half of those pulled over were Austrian plated cars which was pretty surprising so I guess these road blocks are pretty infrequent. But you have been warned, it was the most expensive 10 km I've driven

Cost BTW is €70 odd for a year but you can also buy an 8 day one for about €10 I think

This happened to us too. Expensive lesson to learn.

I drove back from the UK this week through Germany and Austria and the Austrians now issue a one day "Korridor" ticket to take you from the border at Lindau down to junction 23 of the A14 (which is by the main crossing into CH).

At €2 its much better than than having to buy a 10 day pass for the whole country.

Hi
you mention hiring car in Vienna- I can really recommend instead using the car train (autoreisezug) from the Austrian railways, you just drive over border to feldkirch and then you can drive yr car onto train (obviously you get out of itand then sit and enjoy train ride/restaurant car etc and then drive your car off in Vienna 6 or so hrs later, when we went was really reasonable to put car on train. You can check it out on oebb.at