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Meeting Your Trip in SALZBURG
This page offers help (concrete or informational) on reaching your trip. Topics include...
- Where you Join Your Trip (see immediately below)
- Our “Access Packages,” designed to help you to do so.
- Suggestions on how to time your trip to the trip, whether you are having us arrange your travel, or doing it yourself.
- Service information regarding train travel to your trip start location.
- Suggested pre-trip visits, especially when these are not geographically obvious, but are rendered economical and convenient by direct rail connections.
- Hopefully helpful hints for those setting up their own travel to the trip.
If you wish to arrange some or all of your travel through us, please tell us what by means of this response questionnaire, designed to collect all the information we need to be able to book your travel.
1. WHERE and WHEN Do You Join Your Trip?
Your trip meets at our Salzburg hotel, Sunday evening.
You need not arrive in time for dinner: this is intentionally made one of the trip’s “independent nights,” as our guests persue a variety of projects, some incompatible with an organized evening meal.
We will send you details of meeting time and place with your final itinerary.
If you wish to make your own way to the trip (in other words, not to set up your travel arrangements through us), a couple of hints on getting there are offered at the bottom of this page.
2. Our ACCESS PACKAGES
as of January 30, 2010
Our “Access Package” includes a train ticket from Munich, the closest serious airport city (Vienna is not much further, and an option exists to take the train from Vienna, instead). Our London Access Package includes a Saturday overnight train from London.
Base (Starting) Access Package Price: 36€.
To see what this means in your currency, look here: http://www.bluemarble.org/CurrencyConv.html
Availability is guaranteed until 10 days prior to trip start (payment received by us). Within 10 days, tickets must be purchased locally. Some extra-cost options have higher prices if ordered w/in 30 days.
Included:
- Train tickets from Munich to Salzburg.
Tickets are valid on the hourly “regional” service between the two cities, taking 2 hours to complete the run. They may be used instead on the hourly express service (taking between 1'30" and 1'45"), upon payment of a 5 - 10€ supplementary fare on board. Details and schedules are supplied with the ticket. If you don’t want the hassle, we can build this additional cost in: just ask us for an “express ticket.” But if you then wind up on the local, you spent 5 - 10€ more than you needed to.
- Ticket shipping charges.
The ticket is issued as an e.ticket, and sent to you by e.mail, so there aren’t any.
Unlike airline e.tickets, you must print it out and carry it on board the train with you. 26€ of the total cost must be paid for by a credit card held by one of the passengers, which is then used as identification aboard the train.
- All taxes, baggage and agency charges (i.e., no surprise additional costs).
- A printed schedule / itinerary, highlighting any connections.
- Our “Route Sheet to the Trip,” helping you through your journey.
Options Offered at an Extra Cost (subject to availability)
Prices are in addition to the “Base” Access Package Price.
For a general discussion of train upgrades, see here. Topics include the relative comfort of first versus second class, and different types of accommodation available on overnight trains.
- Tickets from Vienna, +18€.
- Tickets from Munich Airport instead of Munich downtown: +8€.
A change of train in downtown Munich is required.
- First class train tickets (in lieu of 2nd class): +13€ from Munich, +22€ from Vienna.
- Seat reservation for a specific train (ticket may still be used on an alternate train, but the reservation charge is not refundable): +5€.
Service is frequent from Munich to Salzburg, and trains are rarely crowded: seat reservations do not represent good value. Seat reservations are included for long rides from Paris, Italy, etc., where having a window has a lot more importance.
Alternate Arrangements, in lieu of our usual packages (subject to availability)
Prices are complete (in other words, they are not in addition to the “Base” Access Package Price)
- Through tickets from London: 179€ if you are also purchasing tickets back to London, 219€ if not, or if you prefer a changeable return (in 1st class, add 210€ or 255€).
Tickets are valid on daylight trains, or for a couchette on the overnight service. Sleeping car upgrades are available.
- Trains from other points.
- From Prague: 59€ 2nd class, 89€ 1st class, 79€ 1st class discount rate.
- From Budapest: 59€ 2nd class, 85€ 1st class.
Discount rates, available on direct trains only. Subject to availability, not refundable or exchangeable once ordered.
Modifiable / partially refundable tickets: 83€ 2nd class, 125€ 1st class.
- Zurich, or Zurich Airport: 86€ 2nd class, 129€ 1st class. Discount rates of 69€ / 99€.
Seat reservations are not required (or included) on this route. They are available for 10€ additional, and particularly recommended on the 9:40a train in first class, since this service carries a panoramic glass-domed car that is always fully-booked.
- Frankfurt or Frankfurt Airport: 69€ 2nd class, 99€ 1st class.
All fares include fast train supplement (IC or ICE).
These are discount tickets: subject to availability, not refundable or exchangeable once ordered.
Modifiable / partially refundable tickets: 111€ 2nd class, 174€ 1st class.
- Paris: 89€ 2nd class, 129€ 1st class.
Discount tickets: subject to availability, not refundable or exchangeable once ordered. Overnight train includes a couchette on board, sleeping car upgrades available.
Modifiable / partially refundable tickets: 159€ 2nd class, 239€ 1st class.
Paris airport train tickets are also available, from Charles de Gaulle or Orly to Paris center. Follow this link for details.
- Venice: 89€ 2nd class, 119€ 1st class.
Discount tickets: subject to availability, not refundable or exchangeable once ordered. Overnight train includes a couchette on board, sleeping car upgrades available.
Modifiable / partially refundable tickets: 113€ 2nd class, 165€ 1st class.
- Florence, Milan overnight: 99€.
Discount tickets: subject to availability, not refundable or exchangeable once ordered. Overnight train includes a couchette on board, sleeping car upgrades available.
- Overnight trains also available from Rome, Berlin, Amsterdam, Copenhagen... 119€ Rome or Berlin, 159€ from all other points.
Discount tickets: subject to availability, not refundable or exchangeable once ordered. Overnight train includes a couchette on board, sleeping car upgrades available.
3. TIMING Your Trip
Many people profit from their arrival in Salzburg... to visit Munich. If your train brings you in via that route, you may wish to go for a morning walk there, before continuing to Salzburg in the afternoon. That said, Salzburg is also one of Europe’s most beautiful cities. While you will have a bit of time to explore on the first full day of your trip, it is never enough....
4. Service Information
Schedules are approximate – exact timetables can be consulted at
http://www.raileurope.com/us/rail/point_to_point/triprequest.htm.
Best trains are mentioned. Others are slower or have multiple connections.
- From Munich. Two trains per hour, 2-hour trip on local services, 1'30 - 1'45" via express.
Since expresses do not overtake locals (all trains operate on the same track), you should always catch the first departing train.
Munich Airport is linked to the main line train stations (Munich has two) via a frequent shuttle train.
- From Vienna. Trip time is 2.5 - 3 hours, trains run hourly.
- From Prague. Trains take circa 7 hours. Direct services run at 7a and 5p.
Additional trains operate at 9a (one connection), 11a or 1p (3 connections), and 3p (2 connections).
Daylight services operate via 3 different routes, and different tickets are required for each. Please tell us on which train you wish to travel, so that we may issue the appropriate ticket.
- From Budapest. 6-hour trip, trains every 2 hours. Direct services at 1p and 6p. At other times, a connection in Vienna is required.
Additional direct trains at 7p and 9p, but with awkward, middle-of-the-night arrivals in Salzburg.
- From Zurich. Trip time is 6 hours, trains run spaced throughout the day, from 7:40a to 5:40p. Direct services at 9:40a, 1:40p and 5:40p.
- From Frankfurt or Frankfurt Airport. 6-hour trip, hourly trains with a connection in Munich (occasional direct trains run from downtown).
- From Paris. In daylight: 8.5-hour trip, trains at 7a,11a and 3p, one connection.
Overnight train at 9p (arrive 9a). Connection in Munich at 7:30a, stopover allowed.
- From London. 10a daylight train, 3p overnight, change in Paris and Munich. 12 hours in daylight, 16 hours overnight.
5. Suggested PRE-TRIP VISITS
Munich is interesting, and we offer a “Blue Marble” hotel there if desired.
6. Hints on TRAVELLING INDEPENDENTLY to the Trip
Guests subscribing to an “Access Package” need not read this section.
See also “Timing Your Trip” and “Service Information,” above, as either of these may additionally help.
We gladly provide travel consulting (schedule or routing information) concerning pre-trip individual travel. In particular, we have invested a great deal to become railway experts. Our service fees are reasonable: a 20€ charge for all but the most complex projects – or the most simple (for instance, only a 10€ charge applies if the service is limited to the preparation of a routine rail ticket). You will generally find them well-justified by the time they will save you in research, standing on line, overpaying for your tickets, or all three.
But, for some, this type of research is fun. So, here are some hints, intended to start off hardened “do-it-yourselfers.”
Trains. Schedules for all routes can be consulted on this web site:
http://www.raileurope.com/us/rail/point_to_point/triprequest.htm
Salzburg is on an east-west main line (Budapest - Vienna - Munich - Strasbourg - Paris), and within easy reach of a north-south line that crosses the Alps at Innsbruck. Trains to everywhere.
Planes. Salzburg has a small airport, with limited intra-European service. Big regional airports are Munich (with rail connections directly from the airport to the main rail station) and Vienna, both with hourly trains to Salzburg. Ryanair serves Salzburg from London Stansted. Ryanair also serves Linz, 90 minutes away by hourly train.
If you wish to arrange some or all of your travel through us, please tell us what by means of this response questionnaire, designed to collect all the information we need to be able to book your travel.
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