So me and my friend are planning a Europe trip with a friend, i’m not much of traveler so excuse my lack of knowledge.
Route is Budapest-Vienna-Munich (can be reversed as well)
Expected travel date is 17th June-26th June
should we rent a car or should we stick with rail?
Any recommendation for budget hotels?
Any must see sites?
Cheapest and best rail related reliable website you can recommend?
Any other countries you’d like to recommend
Is travelling by car expensive?
Any toll gates ?
How expensive is petrol/gas?
Please note we have Pakistani passports so are the checkpoints annoying for paki passport holders?
The first question is by far the most important for me.
I think your best bet is a eurail pass. That's what I did when I travelled. That said, we visited a lot of cities and since you're only hitting 3 cities that are fairly close to each other, a car could be a lot of fun. Some who has done that can comment.
Here is some advice from someone who lives in Vienna and has been to both Budapest and Munich a number of times:
If you only want to visit the major cities, ie Budapest, Vienna and Munich, then the train will be your best choice. However if you want to venture into the countryside, which especially in Austria is really beautiful, a car would give you more flexibility. You could even do the side-tracking with trains but it would be slower and more time-consuming.
I’ve never stayed in “budget hotels” in any of these three cities, so I can’t really comment on this. I’ve heard Wombat’s in Vienna is quite good. Also check out Cheap Hotels in Vienna
In Budapest you should definitely visit the following:
The whole Castle Hill area, especially Fisherman’s Bastion
Gellert Hill (I once watched the sun rise from up there. Breathtaking!)
Vaci utca
Danube Cruise
Walk across the Chain Bridge
Margaret Island
Heroe’s Square
Hungarian State Opera House
Hungarian Parlament
In Vienna you have to see this:
Schönbrunn Castle (The Vienna Zoo is also in Schönbrunn. It’s the oldest still existing zoo in the world!)
Kahlenberg (a hill in Northern Vienna. You can see almost the entire city from there)
Prater (This is an amusement park and also houses the famous Riesenrad)
Ringstrasse (It’s a 4 km long ring road around the city centre of Vienna. A lot of historic buildings are along this road, as well as Vienna’s Town Hall, the Austrian Parlament, Vienna University and the Stock Exchange)
Stadtpark
Donauturm (Definitely have a cup of coffee up there) and the Donaupark around it
St. Stephen’s Cathedral
Hofburg (Imperial Palace)
Belvedere
On the way from Vienna to Munich you should definitely stop in Hallstatt (in my books the most beautiful town in Europe) and also try to squeeze in a couple of hours in Salzburg.
I can’t tell you much about Munich because I’ve only been there on business trips. But here’s a few places I know:
Englischer Garten
Olympiapark
Nymphenburg Palace
Olympiaturm
Try to visit Castle Neuschwanstein as well. It is not far from Munich.
There’s lot’s more to do in each of these places but this is all I can think of at the moment.
It would be a quite significant detour on your planned route, but if you can make the time I would recommend doing Budapest-Vienna-Ljubljana (in Slovenia)-Triest (in Italy)-Hallstatt/Salzburg (back in Austria)-Munich
Compared to traveling by train: Yes. But it gives you more flexibility to venture out into smaller places (like Hallstatt).
There are tolls for using the highways in Hungary and Austria. But they are not deducted through Salik-like gates, but rather by purchasing a vignette. That vignette then allows you to use the highways of that country. In Hungary that’s a “virtual vignette” which costs approx. € 11.50 for 10 days. In Austria it is a sticker that you have to put on the wind screen. That will cost you € 8.30 for 10 days. In Germany there is no charge for using the highways.
Compared to Dubai it’s very expensive. In Austria we’re currently paying approx. € 1.40 per litre. In Germany it’s even more than that. I don’t know about the gas prices in Hungary but I am assuming they are similar to Austria.
Because Hungary, Austria and Germany are all part of the Schengen area you should not really run into any regular checkpoints. However there are sometimes random checks at the borders so have your passports ready when you are crossing a border.
So me and my friend are planning a Europe trip with a friend, i'm not much of traveler so excuse my lack of knowledge.
Route is Budapest-Vienna-Munich (can be reversed as well)
Expected travel date is 17th June-26th June
should we rent a car or should we stick with rail?
Any recommendation for budget hotels?
Any must see sites?
Cheapest and best rail related reliable website you can recommend?
Any other countries you'd like to recommend
Is travelling by car expensive?
Any toll gates ?
How expensive is petrol/gas?
Please note we have Pakistani passports so are the checkpoints annoying for paki passport holders?
The first question is by far the most important for me.
Thanks!
1) never rent a car in Europe, public transportation is excellent
2) airbnb.com is the worthy click.
3) apart from over-rated places such as Black Forest of Germany, Nearly all of Southern Italy, All of England & Greece - still plenty of worthy places to see and spend time with.
4) depends what is your itinerary, raileurope is the best and the only one.
5) rest of the world except Malta