KarynR

Hi - Planning a trip to Budapest, Vienna, Munich & Dubrovnik. 14 touring days total. Love some help in deciding how many days per location. Want to end trip relaxing seaside in Dubrovnik.

JY1024

Welcome to FlyerTalk, KarynR!

Let's move your thread over to the Europe forum, where the experts there can chime in. Thanks. /JY1024, TravelBuzz co-moderator

KarynR

thanks! newbie move... did you move it or do I?

JBord

Dubrovnik creates a bit of a problem in a 14 day schedule, as you'll likely spend the better part of the day getting there. Your best bet is probably to fly from Munich or Vienna to DBV, so keep that in mind when you put this together.

Assuming you have a FULL 14 days (doesn't include travel to and from your trip), I'd suggest this:

Budapest - 4 days
Vienna - 4 days
Munich - 3 days
Dubrovnik - 3 days (including travel day)

If you were planning to take some day trips outside of Munich, perhaps to see some of the castles, I'd consider stealing a day from Budapest to add to Munich. Personally, I'd save DBV for another trip, and make sure I have some side trips to places like Neuschwanstein Castle and Melk. But however you end up splitting the days, my advice is don't leave Budapest and Vienna short...do your research on what you want to see and do in each city before making your final plans.

KarynR

Thanks! Yes - 14 FULL days bookended by travel days....

em32085

Following this thread as I am visiting all these cities except Dubrovnik in April and would love any tips, advice, recommendations!
OP when are you planning your trip for?

JBord

Tip #1 - take the train between the 3 cities. It's quick, regularly scheduled, and inexpensive.

What questions do you have?

em32085

@JBord - sorry for not directly replying with quote, I'm so new they won't let me yet!
I have a much larger itinerary than OP's but these are some of the cities I will be visiting. Can you recommend anything that I won't find in all google searches? I of course will be seeing some sites, but am interested in getting to know places at a more local level. Favorite bar? Restaurant? Random place you found and thought was great? I am still doing my research for this trip so finding this site was invaluable. I may also have more specific questions for you down the road!

jphripjah

Budapest is worth a full four days. Keep in mind that the train between Vienna and Budapest goes through Bratislava, it's worth stopping off and storing your bags and at least having lunch in the old town.

JBord

Well, I think you'll find more than you think with Google , but here are some things I liked:

Budapest - go to a butcher shop for lunch. Very cheap, good lunches. You can find a few in or near the tourist areas, but from what I saw it's more of a locals thing than touristy. A restaurant that I enjoyed is Rosenstein. It's a family-owned Jewish restaurant near the train station. The roasted goose was fantastic. While the ruin bars are both popular and touristy, it's worth visiting at least one while in Budapest. Walk up the hill to the castle rather than taking the funicular. It's a really nice walk with great views, and there will be very few people along the way, as compared to the long line below.

Vienna - Try any of the small sausage stands throughout the city. For dinner, one of my go-to places is Puerstner, for Schnitzel and potato salad. It's a few blocks from the Marriott. There are also a number of small cafes and restaurants in the Spittelberg area. I can't remember any names but it's an area worth visiting and trying for dinner. I wish I could recommend a good bar in Vienna, but for some reason I still need to find one myself! Also, on a side street off Stephenplatz, there's a small lunch place called Trzesniewski. Basically, they have trays of small open face sandwiches and mini-beers, all for 1-2 Euros each. Kind of like getting cicchetti in Venice. Great place for a light lunch or snack.

Munich isn't my area of expertise, so I'll let others add to my thoughts and comment on Munich. If I think of anything else (better!) I'll add to the list.

JBord

There are also direct trains. But I agree that it you have an extra day to spend, a half day stop to wander through Bratislava's old town is worthwhile. I've actually made the stop you suggest, but arriving in the afternoon, staying overnight in Bratislava and leaving in the morning. I wouldn't cut my time in either Vienna or Budapest for it though if time is tight.

CarlTheWebmaster

Major +1 for Trzniewski in Vienna. Bratislava has a few brew pubs worth checking out. I like Zamocky Pivovar aka Castle Brewery.

dulciusexasperis

I never understand who anyone expects someone else to answer the question of, 'how long should I spend in X?'

The answer to that question depends on your interests, what you want to see and do in a given location. One person may say, 'a day was enough for me' and another says, 'I visited for 2 weeks and still didn't get to see and do all I wanted to.' It is a 'how long is a piece of string' question. What's more, it assumes you know beforehand all that you will find of interest to see and do in a given place.

Most people planning some kind of multi-destination vacation tend to approach it from a specific perspective. 'I have 14 days and 4 places I want to visit, how do I divide my time up?' It isn't the only way to approach it however. What about, 'I have 14 days, how many of these 4 places of interest to me can I visit and see and do all I want to do in each of them? That might well get you a different answer. It also however, assumes you can know beforehand everything that will be of interest to you in each.

I take a third approach. I may have 4 places I would like to visit and 14 days to work with. I go to the first place and stay until I am ready to leave. That may be 1 day or all 14 days. I don't know beforehand and don't believe anyone else can know beforehand either. When I have seen and done all that I find there of interest to me I move on. No sooner and no later. If I only get to 1, 2 or 3 of the 4 places, that's fine. It just leaves somewhere for the next time.

The common phrase used by people who start out with the first approach of dividing the time by the number of places they would like to visit, is 'I want to do as much as possible'. But they confuse the word 'much' with the word 'many'. They are not synonymous. The way to do as 'much as possible' is to spend your time in places doing what interests you, not spending time in between places. Every time you move, you lose time that could have been spent in a place doing things. So as in many things, less is more. The less you move, the more time you spend seeing and doing things. Do not get confused by quantity being equal to quality.

In any given day, you can only get so much out of that day. A good day is one in which you feel you got maximum enjoyment, experience, etc. out of that day. Whether you spend that day in A or B is irrelevant, it is what you got out of the day that matters. Travel can be as simple or as complex as you choose to make it. I prefer simple. Go to A, move on when you are ready. Rinse and repeat until either your money or your time runs out. Go home.

JBord

I always assume people are really asking "how long and why?". It's likely they're looking for some context around the number of days, because reading the opinions of people who have similar interests is helpful when planning travel. But I think people should actually list they're interests when they ask. If someone says, I like touring old churches and cathedrals and eating at nice restaurants, it's easy to answer with "In x, you should see these three churches, and here are a couple great restaurants to try...you should be able to do all this in 2 days".

I've typically found when I list my specific interests, I get some very useful responses in the Destinations forum.

dulciusexasperis

That's fine JBord but you still make an assumption when you say, "people who have similar interests'. You might for example say you like hiking and want to do some in the Davos-Klosters area of Switzerland. As someone familiar with that area, I could give you suggestions as to where to find information on hiking in the area (although you could just as easily find that yourself with Google) but I could not and would not attempt to tell you how many days to spend in the area. An interest in hiking simply isn't enough for me to know how interested you are. I could spend 2 weeks there every year for decades and not be bored or feel I have 'done' it all to my satisfaction. Someone else might consider having done 3 one hour hikes in the area enough for them to then want to move on to somewhere else. That's why I say you go, you stay till you are ready to leave and then you move on. I don't try to guess or assume how long it will take you to reach that point.

I do not look at other people's opinions as to how long to spend in a place, ever. It tells me nothing about how long a place will hold my interest. A travel forum is great to get answer to objective questions for which you have not been able to find the answer through your own research. i.e. 'Does the Davos train station have a left luggage facility?' But as soon as you enter the realm of subjective answers (opinions), you are asking for a crystal ball answer and I don't know anyone who owns a working one.

The OP has asked a seemingly 'simple' question. I have X time, want to visit 4 places, how long should I spend in each? But it is a question for which there is no simple answer and no way of anyone being able to give an answer that is relevant to the OP personally.