Whether it's for the slopes or just the après ski, the Alps are the quintessential mountain getaway. Several companies are currently air and hotel packages to spots all along the European chain that won't cost you an arm and a leg.
Continental Journeys (tel. 800/601-4343; www.continentaljourneys.com) is offering a six-night/eight-day vacation to Innsbruck with excursions from your Austrian base intoour countries, starting from $999 per person, based on two people traveling together. You get roundtrip flights on Austrian Airlines out of New York, a choice of a centrally-located tourist class hotel, buffet breakfast daily, a city tour and a Tyrolean folklore evening, as well as hotel taxes, service charges and transfers. Your hotel is the three-star Goldene Krone, but you can upgrade to four- and five-star hotels, too. Weekly departures are scheduled from November 6, 2004 through March 26, 2005.
The package also includes a hop-on, hop-off bus tour of Innsbruck and day trips to Salzburg, the posh resort of St. Moritz in Switzerland, the ice mummy in Bolzano (Italy) and the gorgeous Bavarian Alps in Germany. There are airline and hotel holiday supplements of $89 to $469 per person from December 16, 2004 through January 6, 2005. This is a great chance to see four different countries in a short amount of time, and on a modest budget.
Go Today has seven-day fly and drive package to Austria starting from a low $549 that's good for travel from November 1, 2004 through March 25, 2005 (periods between December 15 and January 6 are unavailable at this price). The combo includes roundtrip airfare from New York or Newark to Vienna on available air carriers, a seven-day Hertz car rental, unlimited mileage and local tax. Rental fees and/or surcharges may be extra. If you want to fly out of other cities, note these sample add-ons:
- $80 from Baltimore, Boston, Philadelphia or Washington, D.C.
- $100 from Atlanta or Chicago
- $150 from Dallas, Houston, Miami, Orlando or Tampa
- $180 from Denver, Las Vegas, Phoenix, San Francisco or Seattle
Contact the sponsors at www.go-today.com or by phoning 425/487-9632 (for an extra $20 booking charge). The booking deadline for this package was recently extended to November 4.
Ski-Europe, which we reported on most recently in this column, has a splendid six-night package to Innsbruck departing on January 10, 2005, from just $629 per person. You get your roundtrip airfare on Lufthansa from New York to Innsbruck, six nights at the three-star Hotel Tautermann, and local taxes and service charges. For more information on this deal, visit the company's product page at www.ski-europe.com/superski/search_detail.php?ssw_id=568 or phone 800/333-5533.
Finally, the appropriately named SwissMade Tours is selling long weekend jaunts to Geneva, Zurich and Lucerne starting from $459 per person. These packages include roundtrip airfare from a variety of gateway cities, three nights' accommodations in centrally located hotels, morning meals and local taxes and service fees. Base prices for Geneva per departure point include:
- $459 from NYC
- $509 from Boston and Philadelphia
- $559 from Atlanta and Washington, D.C.
- $584 from Charlotte, Chicago, Detroit and Miami
- $609 from Dallas, Denver and Houston
- $634 from Los Angeles, Portland (Oregon), San Francisco and Seattle
For Zurich trips, add $20 and for Lucerne, add $65. These deals must be purchased by October 31 with travel valid from November 1 through March 17 (mid-December through early January departures are unavailable). For more information, call 800/995-7997 or visit www.swissmadetours.com.