Austria Bound (Hopefully)

Well we decided on going to Austria this year, staying Vienna for about a week then travel down to the south to Klagenfurt or Velden am Wörthersee.

Can you believe that Air travel is looking better priced? Crazy!

Initially we were looking at travelling from London to Paris by Eurostar. Then catching a train over to München or Frankfurt then on to Vienna. The return to Paris for the four of us was almost £200.00 return. Then from Paris to Vienna including the couchettes it would have cost over £250.00! A grand total of over £450.00. Flying with EasyJet, it's looking like the four of us will be about the same price. And with Austrian Airlines a little more. Reavelling by rail is more romantic I agree, and you get to see so much of the European landscape. But can you offset that against the time and the cost?

Using the the Austrian Railways website http://www.oebb.at/en/index.jsp a typical journey is like this;
16:02 leave London St. Pancras.
19:17 Arrive in Paris Nord.
20:20 Leave Paris Est.
07:16 Arrive at München Hbf
07:27 Depart München Hbf
11:40 Arrive Vienna Westbahnhof.

That's a long old trip with two children. Or from London Gatwick/Heathrow it is only 2 ½ hours by plane. So looks like the Airlines have it! In Vienna we hope to be able to stay in our favourite place the Kraml (http://www.pensionkraml.at/). It's perfect for our needs. It's not far from the Westbhanhof station. Within walking distance of the 'Ring".A short walk to the main shopping area - Mariahilfre Straße.And there is a U-Bahn station close by. With Wien Südbahnhof completely closed down, all the trains to the Graz and Kärnten go from Wien Meidling which is on the U6 U-Bahn line at Philadelphiabrücke.

When we travel down to the South to my Dad's home town of Klagenfurt, we hope to stay in our favourite hotel the Kärtnerhof (http://www.kaerntnerhof.co.at/). We have stayed there many times. It's a beautiful family run hotel and the onwer, Wolfgang, is the same age as me. As children we polayed in the garden now Junior and his lad are the same ages ... How things come around. :)

EDIT: We are now going to be staying here :http://www.hotel-zlami.at/EN/index.htm