Planning Your Own Tours Along the Danube

While your cruise along the Danube River is surely a great experience many people want to explore further by doing some regional touring before or after the cruise.

With a Danube River Cruise there are many nearby destinations you may wish to explore further including Prague, Salzburg, Munich, Austrian Lakes district, the Alps among others.

Most of the river cruise lines offer pre and post cruise packages and certainly that is one option.  However, if you are a little more adventurous you may wish to plan your own tour.

Advantages of planning your own Danube tour include:

• Staying in quaint accommodation with a lot of character instead of the big chain hotels used on the tours
• Can explore at your own pace and times convenient for you
• Can visit some of the smaller destinations that cannot handle bus tours or stay longer than a bus tour might visit

For example many tours visit Hallstatt and St. Wolfgang in the Austrian Lakes district for a few hours. In my experience these places are even more wonderful after the day visitors have departed. We stayed in St. Wolfgang for three nights using it as a base.

Same thing with towns along the Danube River that may have not been visited during your cruise or you wish to return.

Planning your Danube touring:

• Local transportation – in Austria, Germany and Switzerland your best bet is the local train system which goes just about everywhere with frequent service. For example I used a Swiss rail pass while in that country and besides the rail travel it included discounts on the cable cars, lake ferries and entrance fees to many castles and museums. I visit the famous Castle Chillon in Montreux using the pass others.
• Accommodation – I like to stay in small independently owned hotels or breakfast and breakfasts and I use a local company called Tiscover to help me with this. Their web site has an English version and they offer accommodation in Austria, Italy, Switzerland and Germany. I have found unique accommodation on their web site I would not have found anyway else and they claim to have the lowest prices for the properties they represent. Click here to check out Tiscover
• Meals – breakfast is usually included at the accommdation and you can explore the towns to find dinner locations which is part of the fun.
• Sightseeing – walking tours with maps from tourist office and local bus tours or lake cruises work fine.

While this is not for everyone, planning your own tours along the Danube can enhance your cruise experience in Europe.