Austria & Germany | next year's big trip

Old Town Salzburg across the Salzach River, by Jiuguang Wang (Wikimedia Commons)

It's never too early to start planning your next big trip, especially with the scarcity of frequent flyer award seats. My advice is to grab your award seats 330 days in advance, when they first become available, then fine tune your itinerary around the flights you're able to get. That's what I'm doing! Here's what's in the planning stages for my trip.

Vienna, Austria is a city on the banks of the Danube River with over 27 castles, 150 palaces, and 100 museums. The Schönbrunn Palace, former summer palace to the Habsburg rulers, is Vienna's most visited tourist attraction. There are five Virtuoso hotels in Vienna.

Salzburg, Austria is the birthplace and home of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, arguably the greatest of the Classical composers, and there is even a chocolate treat named after him, the Mozartkugel (a core of pistachio, marzipan, and nougat coated in milk chocolate). There are two Virtuoso hotels in Salzburg and a third Virtuoso hotel 10 miles to the east in a beautiful country setting on Lake Fuschl.

Munich, Germany, just an hour from Salzburg by train, is the capital of Bavaria. Munich was founded by a Benedictine order of monks (from which the city derives its name). We should be arriving at the very beginning of October and Oktoberfest. Also nearby Munich is the concentration camp of Dachau. There are three Virtuoso hotels in Munich.  UPDATE: because of Oktoberfest and scant availability of hotels during our dates, we'll probably have to substitute something for Munich.

Berlin, Germany, a short flight to the north, will be the culmination of our trip. My son previously spent 7 days in Berlin and reported that it's not enough time to see and do everything. The Berlin Wall, once the icon of the Iron Curtain, was demolished in 1990. I'm looking forward to a day trip to visit Potsdam. There are four Virtuoso hotels in Berlin.

What is a Virtuoso hotel? Virtuoso is a luxury travel consortium with nearly 1,000 five-star luxury hotels around the world. As a Virtuoso travel consultant specializing in luxury hotels, I can provide free amenities at each of these hotels, including free breakfast for two every day and other valuable perks. I will visit each of the 14 Virtuoso hotels in these four cities during the course of the trip and will be able to offer first-hand advice when you plan to visit Vienna, Salzburg, Munich, or Berlin. Click here for my google maps of the Virtuoso hotels in 45 different destinations around the world (also listing the Virtuoso amenities you can receive).

Virtuoso hotels (search here on Google)

copyright (c) 2012 by David Ourisman LLC. All rights reserved. If you have comments on this column, or questions about booking travel, email me or visit my website.