I'm trying to map out the middle leg of a three region trip, and wanted some feedback. We'll be coming from London by plane and the plan is to leave the area for Paris by train. London-Munich seems to give me more flight options than London-Salzburg would, so call it a start point. Perfesser Mouse wants to drive the autobahn, so pick up a car at either Munich airport or Munich train station downtown.

From there, I'm thinking the Garmish-Partenkitchen/Innsbruck area (castles, Zugspitze) followed by Berchtesgaden Nartional Park near Salzburg. Is it generally okay over there to do a one way rental and drop a car off in another county? Dropping the car off at Salzburg airport and a nice regular 10 minute bus ride to train station at that point seems less of a hassle than looping back to Munich and dropping the car off there, even if we end up having to add a train connection in Munich or Stuttgart in the process.

Provided it's doable like the rental car companies seem to say it is, which is my question.

If you plan to drive by car, Garmisch and Insbruck would be well worth a visit IMO. But it is quite a detour and you would need the austrian toll sticker (you can get it at most gas stations in Bavaria, a week sticker is 8 €).

A more direct route could be Prien at the Chiemsee lake with a short boat trip over to the Herreninsel and to King Ludwigs castle there. Then on to Berchtesgaden and from there the direct scenic local route over to Salzburg. No need for the toll sticker on this route if you return your car in Salzburg.

As an alternative to having a car all your routings could also be done by train. Good and frequent offerings - plan and book with www.bahn.de and print an online ticket. If you only use local trains consider the Bayernticket or Sch�nes Wochenende ticket.

Good to know about the sticker! And that border hopping with a rental between those two countries shouldn't be an issue. As for trains, nothing against them, but for this part of the trip, the perfesser wants a shot at driving a nice German car on the autobahn and we can work the budget ot make that happen for him

He's actually liking that idea so much that he's game to loop back around to Munich instead of ending in Salzburg in the name of better long haul train options.

One way cross-boder rentals are usually (depending on car rental company) not very cheap and I would double check about any hidden fee which are not always clearly highlighted while doing the booking.

You can return your Sixt car at Freilassing which is a quick train or taxi ride to Salzburg....

If you decide to rent a car in Munich, you should also check if you can rent it from a location not at the airport or train station. There is an extra tax at airports and train stations and the big rental care agencies have many pick-up and drop-off locations in Munich.

Any idea of how much of an extra tax one pays to drop the car off at the main train station at the end? The logical train to Paris leaves at 6:27 am, and it would be nice to not to have to fuss with driving all over the place the night before to drop it off and then deal with getting back to the train station area for a hotel for the night before that.

There's an overnight train from Munich to Paris which leaves the Hbf at 2250 and arrives Paris Est 0924. December-April this train starts at Innsbruck (1954) and calls at Jenbach (2028), Worgl (2048) and Kufstein(2059).

I saw that one. Problem is that I have problems sleeping even in hotels when I'm overstimulated on a good vacation. So a night train would be an even worse situation for me if I'm hoping to make Paris vaguely mentally fresh and alert.

I have the same problem but i'm OK on the trains if I have a couple of glasses of wine before bed. I can see why you don't want to take the chance though, when it does go wrong it's awful.

I believe the rental car surcharge is dependent on where you pick your car up, not where you drop it off. Some companies do charge extra, however, if you drop off at a different location than where you picked up.

The easiest way to check is to go to a couple of rental car sites such as Hertz.com (or Budget or Sixt or Europcar) and just enter in details. In 5 minutes you can have an idea if the surcharges are a big deal or no big deal for you.