Introduction to Denmark, Germany and Austria

Hello faithful blog readers! In the summer of 2013, I traveled with my husband and in-laws across three countries in western Europe, Germany, Austria and Denmark. We didn't initially plan on traveling to all three of these countries, and it's all very bizarre how it came about. If you've ever looked at a map of Europe before, you'll notice that many major European cities are only a few hours apart from each other. When planning a trip, it's hard not to look at two cities and think to yourself, "they're only 3 hours apart. Why not see both?" The problem with that, is that before too long, you'll end up driving all over the place. And yes, driving. This is a very important part of this blog segment. Driving! I know that there is the Euro-Rail, and if you're aiming to travel on the cheap, that might be a better option for you, but if you can afford to drive, it's absolutely the way to go in these countries. If you're new to my travel blog, check out one of my earliest posts called To Drive or Not to Drive. That blog contains my best advice for when you should drive and when to rely on public transportation.

We started with Germany for two reasons: I wanted to see castles, and my mother in-law wanted to look up her family heritage. From Germany, I started poking around the surrounding countries drafting up a rough itinerary of countries and cities to see that were nearby. Originally, our trip started in Germany (flying into either Berlin or Frankfurt) and included Prague, Austria, and Budapest. All of the major cities we wanted to see (Frankfurt, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Salzburg, and Budapest) were within easy driving distance of each other, and the trip itinerary started to take shape. 

Early in my research, we started getting quotes from different sources before we booked anything. We kept our eye on airfare and looked at the various options of flying into different cities, nonstop vs. connecting, multi city flights (i.e. flying into Berlin but flying home from Budapest), and rental car pricing. Only my father in-law knew how to drive a manual car (most prevalent and inexpensive option in Europe) but since we didn't want him to be stuck driving the whole time, it was imperative for us to get an automatic car. Several European based car companies didn't even offer automatic cars, so we called major companies like Hertz and Avis to get quotes. What they said, shocked us!

Apparently, even though the Iron Curtain of communism in Europe was lifted back in 1989, there still exists a notable distinction between western Europe and eastern Europe. When I spoke to the Hertz representative about renting a car, he asked about which countries we planned on visiting. I gave him the rough outline of our trip, and he very clearly said that they did not permit cars rented in Germany to be driven into the Czech Republic. Since we insisted on an automatic large enough for 4 adults and luggage, our only option was a luxury brand (Mercedes, BMW, Volvo, etc.) and due to the high volume of vehicle crime in the Czech Republic, they didn't allow their cars to cross the border into eastern Europe. Avis said the same thing. What? Are they serious? Yes, actually, they were very serious. Suddenly, our whole itinerary started to unravel. 

Before giving up on Prague, we looked into flying there directly and starting in Prague, but flight costs were crazy, and car rental companies wouldn't guarantee an automatic car...go figure. We also looked into trains. We priced out the cost of traveling by rail roundtrip from Berlin to Prague but were still left with the problem of getting to Austria once we were back in Berlin. (If you look at a map, it's a nice line from Berlin to Prague to Vienna. Cutting Prague out of the middle wouldn't make sense, and Vienna was one of my "must see" cities.) Sadly, we decided that Prague and Budapest (also in eastern Europe) would have to go. Instead of driving through the Czech Republic to get to Austria, we would drive around it through central Germany (which ended up being lovely). 

So how does Denmark fit into this picture? Well, once we worked out our new itinerary, cutting out Prague and Budapest, we found ourselves with several extra days. Rather than spend more time in any one area or cutting the trip short, we thought we would see where else we could go. We also weren't overly thrilled with the Germany flight options. Berlin and Frankfurt flights either had connections or were a few hundred dollars more. We found decently priced flights on Iceland Air that had a layover in Reykjavik, and Iceland Air claimed that we could stop in Iceland for a few days instead of continuing our layover immediately without any extra cost. Unfortunately, they didn't mean exactly what they said, and we couldn't actually stay for 2-3 days without the flight costing several hundred dollars more. 

At that point, we started looking at flights to other cities that were within a reasonable driving distance to any of the cities we were already visiting. We noticed that driving from Copenhagen to Berlin would only take us about 6 hours (and a ferry ride). Scandinavian Airlines offered nonstop, roundtrip flights to Copenhagen for under $1,000/pp, so we said, "SOLD!" 

And there you have it. We started and ended in Copenhagen, Denmark and from there drove all over Germany and Austria. 17 days and over 3,000 miles, it was an amazing but completely exhausting trip. We never spent more than 2 nights in any one hotel, but we saw and did so much. In my next blog, I'll begin at the beginning with Copenhagen. 

Until then, here is a picture of the map that shows the route we took. Pretty crazy, right? 

Thanks for reading!

- Foxy the Traveler