This summer we packed up the car, hopped on the Chunnel, and spent just over 2 weeks road-tripping Europe, across France, Germany and Austria. We wanted to see the Alps in summer.
That sounds so easy doesn’t it!? But trust me, the hours of planning that went into choosing our route were taxing and more than slightly bewildering. Where are the best alpine towns to make our bases? How long in each place? Which areas have enough to see? How to decide on a hotel? How do we break up the journeys, and, what do we really not want to miss on our trip to Germany & Austria?!
We wanted to share our Austria-Germany itinerary with you – the route that worked out really well for us on our Summer in the Alps trip…
Our Austria-Germany Itinerary – Summer In The Alps
There isn’t anything we would change about our Austria-Germany tour – we had the best time on our Alps road trip. However, this isn’t the first time we’ve done a France, Germany road trip (Austria was a new one for us) so we’ve also included some alternative places you could stay en-route – different ways to break up the longest drives.
We’ve also included the hotels we stayed in, as probably one of the trickiest parts about planning our summer in the Alps was finding lovely places to stay – I’m a bit pine-shy, and there were far too many crocheted blankets in photo’s for my liking, the ski-chalet vibe can be a little bit dated. So, we hope this helps!
Day 1 & 2 – Lille
Lille was a new place for us, and a city we’ve wanted to visit for a while now, so we allowed 2 nights (1 whole day). It’s a beautiful French town with some fascinating Flemish history and culture and we would definitely recommend it to our readers.
The only down-side to spending a few nights in Lille is that it’s only an hour from the Euro-Tunnel and I think most people would like to cover a bit more ground on their first leg. Driving the longest distance at the start of your road-trip is definitely a good decision – it means getting the worst drive out of the way first before you’ve developed an aversion to driving! I understand this and we usually would do the same. That’s why I also want to suggest Luxembourg as an alternative first stop.
Luxembourg is about 5 hours from Calais (The Euro-Tunnel) and it also affords you the opportunity to visit another country on your European road trip. It’s a fabulous city, and we wrote more about it here if you’re interested (including the perfect place to stay in town with a fully-packed car).
One Day In Luxembourg – A Nutshell Guide
(I’m sure we’ll be writing about Lille in time – it was a great town – but if you do want to stay in Lille we loved this hotel – Best Western Urban – on the edge of town. It had secure parking and was a great neighbourhood for food and bars.)
Day 3 – The Black Forest, Germany
We drove 7 hours from Lille to Triberg in The Black Forest of Germany for our second stop. It’s only 7 hours from Calais to Triberg too, so this area would also make a good alternate first night stop-off down to the Alps of Germany and Austria.
We’ve been to the Black Forest before when we visited the Alsace region of France and we always knew we wanted to return and spend more time exploring. Triberg is famous for its cuckoo clocks so that’s why we chose here. It’s such a pretty place to stay and I couldn’t resist the prospect of a large slice of Black Forest Gateaux!
We stopped to see the oldest cuckoo clock just outside of Triberg and spent some time wandering the town, but there are some gorgeous waterfall hikes in this region if you fancied stretching your legs mid road-trip. We stayed in the Ferienwohnungen Rebstock – a great apartment that’s newly renovated, with free parking and a beautiful outlook. We had dinner at a local restaurant over the road at Birgit’s Bistro where the hospitality was uplifting, then went to see the famous St. Urban Church across the village – apparently one of Germany’s most beautiful! (It was, by the way)
TIP: If you’re looking for a lunch stop between Luxembourg and Triberg (or even Calais and Triberg), the town of Nancy is a worthy contender. We parked easily on the street not too far from the centre, and had a peruse of this very elegant town after a slap-up French meal. It’s perfectly proportioned and accessible for an en-route sojourn.
We haven’t written about Triberg yet, but we covered this area on one of our other road trip itineraries…
Our Summer Road Trip To France; Part 3. Strasbourg And The Black Forest
Day 4 – 6 (3 nights) – Garmisch-Partenkirchen
Finally it felt like our Germany & Austria road trip was really getting started! Garmisch-Partenkirchen wasn’t just a stop-off spot like the previous places – we were finally going to get to hang some clothes up.
En-route to Garmisch Partenkirchen we took a lunch-time break from driving at Lake Constance on the Swiss border (Bodensee to the Germans). We stopped at Meersburg and observed it in all its glory. Medieval timbered houses, flower-decked balconies, its very own castle, and possibly the rudest waiter we’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting – still, it’s as worthy a town as ever for a mid-day munch.
3 days in Garmisch-Partenkirchen was an absolute treat and is the perfect place to stay if you’re wanting to explore that part of Bavaria. Hot spots such as Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangu castles, Lake Eibsee, Germany’s tallest mountain – The Zugspitz, the Partnach Gorge, and Mittenwald are all so close to this one town.
We can highly recommend the apartment where we stayed – such a cosy set-up with the most incredible views of The Zugspitz – for the best deals at Ferienhaus Heimhof, click here.
If you want to read more about this part of our trip to Germany we have two posts for you to read…
Why Garmisch-Partenkirchen Should Be Your Next Alpine Escape
The Cheapest & Quickest Way To See Lake Eibsee
Day 7 – 9 (3 nights) – The Tyrolean Alps
We were now broaching new territory – we’ve never done an Austrian road trip before! Our intention for this leg of our Alps road trip was to see the scenery, do some hikes and have a few towns, such as Innsbruck, in our back pocket. Again, we struck gold with this location!
The Wipptal Valley gave us everything we needed for stunning scenery, and we bagged a lovely little apartment right in the valley (Feiserhof Navis Appartements). We spent the days hiking from alms haus to alms haus, trying out the owners homemade cakes and schnapps and eating as many dumplings as we could. Then, because of an unexpected bonus – The Wipptal Card – we took free train-rides in the evenings into Innsbruck. There’s only so many days in leggings, anoraks and boots I can take, so the chance to don a dress in the evening and hang with trendier people drinking cocktails was a welcomed break from the cows and mud.
We also took a day-trip to the Italian Alps on the train too, a lovely little town called Vipiteno. A proper cappuccino in Italy was just marvelous, and the train journey was pretty sweet as well.
Feiserhof Navis – Our lovely apartment within a lodge in the Wipptal Valley.
For more tips and information on the Tyrolean Alps have a read of our other post…
4 Days In The Tyrolean Alps – Innsbruck, Wipptal & Beyond
Day 10 – 12 (3 nights) – Berchtesgaden
Kinda the reason for this Austria-Germany road trip, I was talked into a summer in the alps because of one little town that piqued my curiosity…Berchtesgaden. Home to The Eagles Nest, Hitlers summer retreat, I was so fascinated by all of the history in this part of Bavaria, Germany. Booking our tickets to the Eagles Nest was the first thing we did in our planning, and the rest of our Alps trip had to form around that. However, there is so much to see in Berchtesgaden National Park and you definitely need at least 3 full days, if not 4, for your Austria-Germany itinerary.
The second point worth mentioning about this area are the connections with the movie The Sound Of Music – this is indeed the location that a lot of the filming took place, including the wonderful city of Salzburg, which was another highlight of our Alps trip.
We stayed at a lovely little apartment in one of the traditional ski chalet-style homes that are everywhere in the Alps towns – it was difficult to find anything that was remotely modern in the area so we really lucked-out with this one. Plus the hospitality of the owners was wonderful! (Check out Wassererlehen, Bischofswiesen here) There was the added advantage of a little train station in the same village (Bischofswiesen) on the main line to Salzburg, so we were able to ditch the car for the day and avoid some city-driving.
For more information on the area, including the stunning Lake Konigsee and some other highlights, check out our blog post…
3 Days In Berchtesgaden – The Eagles Nest, Salzburg, Konigsee Lake & More
By the way, on our way to Berchtesgaden from Wipptal, we took some little breaks at Achensee and Kitzbuhel. Kitzbuhel was right up my street – a fashionable little Alpine town that attracts the wealthy skier in winter. The day we visited there was a festival happening and everyone was in lederhosen and dirndl dresses, but by this point in our Germany/Austria trip this was a perfectly normal sight to us!
Day 13 – Hallstatt – Austria’s Prettiest Lake
Whether you drive as far east as we did on your road trip to Austria is entirely up to you. And, there was a point after being on the road for so long where we wondered if we’d made a mistake adding Hallstatt onto our Alps road trip – we were kind of sick of driving! However, Hallstatt was NOT a mistake. In fact, it turned out to be quite a highlight of our summer.
In the alps there are many beautiful lakes. We’d seen Bodensee, Eibsee, Achensee, Konigsee, Obersee and Wolfgangsee – all which made your jaw drop. (Wolfgangsee was were we stopped for lunch en-route to Hallstatt) But none of them prepared us for Hallstatt! As we discovered though, it was definitely the kind of place you should book an overnight stay at – the crowds of tourists during the day are a little overwhelming. And the car-parking situation is an absolute nightmare. So, spending the evening in the calm of Hallstatt once the day-trippers have left returns a sense of appreciation for how stunningly beautiful this little corner of Austria actually is. You have to see it to believe it. We booked an apartment with amazing views over the lake – check out the best prices for Pension Hallberg here.
And if you do want to add it to your Austria itinerary, PLEASE read our other article first – there are definitely some things you need to know before visiting or booking…
The Nightmares AND The Fairytales Of Hallstatt – A Travel Guide You Need To Read First
Day 14 – Tubingen
It was time to start heading in the direction of home now, so turning west from Hallstatt we made the 5.5 hour drive to a unique little city in Germany – Tubingen. Munich and Stuttgart had also been worthy contenders for an overnight stop, but since we are more likely to visit these for a weekend city break, we chose the smaller more quaint Tubingen.
Germany’s equivalent to Cambridge, this cute little university city is bursting with life despite its venerable age of over 500 years. The contrast of medieval streets with a vibrant cafe and bar scene is completely enchanting and actually, we wished we could have spent longer! Bicycles and boats, battlements and bookshops – Tubingen is a German-gem of a place, and yet we seemed to be the only visitors appreciating its seriously underrated magical charm.
We stayed at the Tuebingen Ibis Styles simply because it was cheap and we were only there for one night, but actually it was perfectly pleasant with a large room, free coffee and coissants, and well-positioned to some overnight parking AND good access to the Aldstadt (old town).
Day 15 & 16 – Versailles, France
You could easily make the trip from Tubingen all the way to Calais in one fell swoop, but the Palace of Versailles has been on our bucket list for far too long and it seemed like the perfect opportunity to see it. Friends had told us that we would need a whole day set aside to visit the castle, and that the old town of Versailles was worth seeing also. So, we booked 2 nights at the Mercure Versailles Chateau because it’s a hotel chain we know and there was free parking outside (seemingly free only in August, although the hotel does have some limited free parking on site).
If you have never seen the Palace of Versailles we implore you to fix that. The building that almost bankrupted France, as you would imagine, is quite the spectacle! And when we say we walked 8 miles that day you can get some idea of the sheer scale of the place. Then there’s Marie Antoinette’s “play village”. Tucked into the palace grounds, a faux-rustic hamlet she had built so she could pretend to live the simple life, complete with farm animals and dairy maids. Oh, how the rich dare to dream.
Add in the legendary Hall of Mirrors, the manicured gardens, the golden gates, the dancing fountains (still choreographed to music in summer), and… well, you do need a whole day to see it all. And probably a foot massage afterwards.
Reims, Rouen and Amiens are also some places to consider for your last day’s lay-over en-route to the UK.
The Mercure – our hotel in Versailles. Great location, free parking and designer style.
And there you have it – our Germany/Austria itinerary for a summer in the Alps. We’ve shared our road-trip itineraries before and they’ve come in very useful to others, so we hope this helps you in the planning stages. Touring Austria and Germany was an amazing holiday – one that has left us with some fantastic memories and landscapes that we will be dreaming about for a long time. And all to the soundtrack of German radio – an 80’s soundtrack of Def Leppard and Queen!
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