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Itinerary: Have your Cake & Eat it
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ONE MONTH
If you have plenty of time for exploration, why not take in the whole country? This suggested itinerary passes through the major highlights of Austria, plus a few of its minor ones.
What better place to start than the capital, Vienna, with all its cultural delights. From here, head west following the Danube Valley, taking in a few castles and wineries along the way. Linz and its museums is the next up, with a side trip to historical Steyr, before the lakes of the Salzkammergut command your attention as far south as Hallstätter See and Dachstein. Salzburg, with its music, Mozart balls and baroque magnificence will enthral for a few days, but the Alps await further west.
From Salzburg, slowly wind your way west to the capital of the Austrian Alps, Innsbruck, stopping in at the old silver mint towns of Schwaz and Hall in Tirol. To truly appreciate the area’s mountainous extravaganza, follow your nose down the narrow Zillertal and Ötztal valleys, and then skip further west to the green hills, stark mountains and wooden houses of the Bregenzerwald. Bregenz and the graceful Bodensee are only a stone’s throw from here, but the next destination, the glorious Hohe Tauern National Park, is a long back-track east.
Continuing east from the park you reach Carinthia, a province famous for it's thermally-warmed lakes such as the Wörthersee, after which the country’s second-largest hub, Graz requires a minimum of two days’ exploration. Make a quick detour to the sublime abbey of Admont and the opencast mine at Eisenerz before climbing over the Semmering Pass and down onto the wide, open Pannonian plains, finally coming to rest back at Vienna.
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