I have forgotten to say it would be a one week trip,and I haven’t got a lot of money for the moment.
I had a similar trip last summer, wanting to visit smaller cities, easy to get around on foot. And not too overwhelming.
I went to Bratislava, Brno, Leipzig, Utrecht and loved my time in all of them. I don’t think there is anything to worry about in terms of safety, as long as you take the usual precautions.
Where will you be starting from?
I think in Germany or Austria but I don’t know where to begin. It depends if I go in Eastern Europa or if I go to the Netherlands. But I want to see the countryside and some lakes...
When do you want to travel?
If you want to visit lakes, I’lld suggest keeping the Netherlands and Belgium for another trip.
One week is not much, so slim it a bit down. A lot of lakes south of München, or East and West of Salzburg.
This summer I had a nice time at the Lake of Bohinj, in Slovenia. I can reccomend that, probably a better destination than lake Bled ;)
Yeah, Salzbourg could be a great idea (also tosee Mozart’s house), and I plan to visit again Germany. Maybe I would plan it for june/ july or sooner if I have the time for that. The thing is that I can’t go to far from France because I would be obliged to have a long train trip, or to go by plane, but Germany and Austria would be great.
Without knowing where you are in France, I would consider heading for Lille or Strasbourg, then across into Belgium or Southern Germany or Basle on your first day with a Global pass (One of your 2 days allowed for travel in France.) Then you could either target a circular route between the 2 and return back from the other, or a circular route back to the start.
This opens a couple of general routings - From Lille you can head towards Brussels to connect with the regular Brussels - Cologne - Frankfurt ICE for a circuit along the Rhine, down to Freiburg/Heidelburg and the Black Forest, or even to Munich and Vienna. From Strasbourg yo can easily do it in revese, or create a run across Southern Germany to Vienna and Budapest.
Given you only have a week and limited funds I would suggest the first plan and keep Switzerland and Vienna options for when you have more time and funds.