Prague and Budapest + others?

Macky

Macky

Macky

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Thinking of an Eastern European trip in September for a few days. I've been to Prague and Budapest before and loved both. Has anyone done both in one trip before, with a train in between? Is this a good idea? Is it worth adding any other cities in? Bratislava or Vienna, perhaps?
 
I've been to both but not in the same trip. However, I have experienced Bucharest to Belgrade by train, which is only 50km more and was an overnight journey.

Prague to Budapest by train is around 7hrs. At quick glance, there are a number of departures including an overnighter. Some are direct travelling through Slovakia, whereas others include a change in Vienna. Personally, unless you are wanting to save costs and take the lengthier overnight train, I would definitely look to break the journey in Vienna. Although if I had a few days to kill, for a wider experience, I would probably look at something like: Prague > Ceske Budejovice > Linz > Vienna > Budapest. Each stage is around 2hrs'30 tops too.
 
There's seemingly easy (and cheap!) routes between every major and minor city so definitely look at mixing it up.

Last August we did Berlin - Prague - Vienna (with a 2.5 year old), each leg was about 4 hours.

If you're going for long enough you could easily do 4 big places and really mix it up with Zagreb or Bucharest.

Just use Seat61 to plan - https://www.seat61.com/european-train-tickets-online.htm
 
I went to Budapest and Prague about 10 years ago. The exact route was to Vienna then Salzburg then to Budapest. I don't recall there being a direct train to Budapest and so we went via Vienna which we didn't get on with so took a detour for the night to Salzburg which we loved.
 
What are you trying to achieve? Both countries are super local and dirt cheap to visit. Taking up a day travelling between the two "just because" isn't a good use of time IMHO.

I did Prague to Berlin many years back, the train is pleasant.

I would try and visit somewhere you are highly unlikely to visit if you are doing a "doubler", e.g. when I went to Croatia I went over to Bosnia and Montenegro.
 
dlockers said:
What are you trying to achieve? Both countries are super local and dirt cheap to visit. Taking up a day travelling between the two "just because" isn't a good use of time IMHO.

I did Prague to Berlin many years back, the train is pleasant.

I would try and visit somewhere you are highly unlikely to visit if you are doing a "doubler", e.g. when I went to Croatia I went over to Bosnia and Montenegro.
Click to expand...

Good question. My partner hasn't been to either and is keen to visit both. Looks like if we add Vienna in the middle it will be a good compromise of travel vs being in the cities. Looks a 2.5hr train from Budapest to Vienna and a 4hr train from Vienna to Prague. Perhaps if we spend 2 days in each. Exciting!
 
Generally most of Central and Eastern Europe is fairly well connected - Romania to Serbia is currently an issue as there is no cross border train, and there are issues from Budapest/Vienna to Sofia because of major track work.

Seat 61 is accurate.

I travel all over this region by rail, some of it is extremely straightforward and some of it is harder than you'd hope.
Prague to Vienna to Budapest is straightforward though.
 
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