gentlemancruiser Posted January 24, 2014 #1 Share Posted January 24, 2014 Has anyone taken this trip recently? Any suggestions or reccomendations? We are ending our Danube river cruise in Prague and our return flights are from Berlin, so we are spending the weekend in Berlin. I've found some information online about the trains, but I was hoping someone had done this trip before and could give some suggestions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YOW Posted January 24, 2014 #2 Share Posted January 24, 2014 Has anyone taken this trip recently? Any suggestions or reccomendations? We are ending our Danube river cruise in Prague and our return flights are from Berlin, so we are spending the weekend in Berlin. I've found some information online about the trains, but I was hoping someone had done this trip before and could give some suggestions. Did Berlin-Prague by train some years back. I'd call it a medium distance, about 4.5 hours (perhaps the same total time as flying). Consider making a stop in Dresden, even for a half day of sightseeing as it's got a lot of buzz these days. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
orchestrapal Posted January 25, 2014 #3 Share Posted January 25, 2014 Has anyone taken this trip recently? Any suggestions or reccomendations? We are ending our Danube river cruise in Prague and our return flights are from Berlin, so we are spending the weekend in Berlin. I've found some information online about the trains, but I was hoping someone had done this trip before and could give some suggestions. Check out flights. Intra-Europe flights can be cheap and you save half a day for Berlin since the flight is under one hour. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CPT Trips Posted January 25, 2014 #4 Share Posted January 25, 2014 (edited) Check out flights. Intra-Europe flights can be cheap and you save half a day for Berlin since the flight is under one hour. Don't forget to add in time, 1/2 hour each end, to travel between airport and city center, check in, clear security and collect luggage. Time savings may not be that much. Also, the really inexpensive intra European airlines come with fees for everything and possibly distant airports. Be aware and shop carefully. Edited January 25, 2014 by CPT Trips Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gentlemancruiser Posted January 26, 2014 Author #5 Share Posted January 26, 2014 Thank you for the suggestion, I had looked into flights however the least expensive flight required flying to Cologne and spending the night which takes over 11 hours. There are no direct flights. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caviargal Posted January 27, 2014 #6 Share Posted January 27, 2014 Our preference when traveling in Europe is to go by train, unless the trip is 6 hours or more. We travel as early as possible so as to maximize our time in the cities we visit. We purchase tickets well in advance on http://www.bahn.de/i/view/USA/en/index.shtml. I do recommend first class for a longer trip and make sure you are there and ready to board at least 15 minutes prior to departure. Storage is limited to pack accordingly. Huge suitcases are not practical. We absolutely LOVE Berlin and it is one of our favorite cities in Europe. We have been there a half dozen times and cannot wait to return. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blue Nose Posted January 27, 2014 #7 Share Posted January 27, 2014 Hi to the CPT Trips - sorry for gate crashing this thread, wasn't sure how to get hold of you. CPT, looks to me like your still giving out the great tips after all this time. You should get a long service award! Going to start a new thread - keep your eye out. Cheers to you and all yours the blue nose Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CPT Trips Posted January 28, 2014 #8 Share Posted January 28, 2014 (edited) Blue Nose! It's been a while. And I'll be watching the Merseyside Derby on the telly tomorrow! "Tim timminy, Tim timminy, Tim Tim Tirooo. We’ve got Tim Howard and he says **** ***!" R983b at aol dot com Edited January 28, 2014 by CPT Trips Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blue Nose Posted January 29, 2014 #9 Share Posted January 29, 2014 My Blue boys lost 4 - 0 gutted with a sore head! Cruised Europe last year. If people get the chance we found Venice, Dubrovnik, Split, Mykonos, and the site of the Olympic Games amazing. Went on the NCL Jade which was not the best ship in the world but great schedule. Would certainly like to try river cruise sounds great. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CPT Trips Posted January 30, 2014 #10 Share Posted January 30, 2014 My Blue boys lost 4 - 0 gutted with a sore head! Cruised Europe last year. If people get the chance we found Venice, Dubrovnik, Split, Mykonos, and the site of the Olympic Games amazing. Went on the NCL Jade which was not the best ship in the world but great schedule. Would certainly like to try river cruise sounds great. It was an ugly match. We really enjoy the river and small ship experience. The small ships get short shrift on CC . . . Of course, there aren't a lot of people who travel them. In November we did a trip to Athens, Delfi, Corfu, Butrint, Kotar, Korcula, Dubrovnik, Hvar, Split and a couple days inland in Zagreb via a 50 passenger ship that overnighted in Kotar, Dubrovnic and Split. No casino, showroom, pool or multiple bars, but a couple of great tour guides who provided interesting talks, discussions and do it ourselves entertainment. And now back on topic . . . spent three years, early 70s, in Berlin when we, along with the Brits and French occupied West Berlin and travel to and from Berlin was extremely limited. Members of the military didn't even imagine traveling to Prague or many of the places we visited on our small ship cruise! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gentlemancruiser Posted January 31, 2014 Author #11 Share Posted January 31, 2014 Our preference when traveling in Europe is to go by train, unless the trip is 6 hours or more. We travel as early as possible so as to maximize our time in the cities we visit. We purchase tickets well in advance on http://www.bahn.de/i/view/USA/en/index.shtml. I do recommend first class for a longer trip and make sure you are there and ready to board at least 15 minutes prior to departure. Storage is limited to pack accordingly. Huge suitcases are not practical. We absolutely LOVE Berlin and it is one of our favorite cities in Europe. We have been there a half dozen times and cannot wait to return. Thanks! It's been hard to find info on the Czech railways website because it doesn't let you book or reserve if you outside the country and the error message don't make any sense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andromeda93 Posted January 31, 2014 #12 Share Posted January 31, 2014 Our preference when traveling in Europe is to go by train, unless the trip is 6 hours or more. We travel as early as possible so as to maximize our time in the cities we visit. We purchase tickets well in advance on http://www.bahn.de/i/view/USA/en/index.shtml. I do recommend first class for a longer trip and make sure you are there and ready to board at least 15 minutes prior to departure. Storage is limited to pack accordingly. Huge suitcases are not practical. Good advice and worth trying, although I don't know if you will be able to buy these tickets online. For a 2012 river cruise from Budapest to 'Prague' (we ended in Regensburg and got ourselves to Prague via rail), we bought tickets through the Deutsche Bahn or OBB (Austrian Rail) websites for all the legs of a pre-cruise rail trip from Munich to Budapest (Munich to Salzburg, Salzburg to Vienna and Vienna to Budapest), and tried to buy tix for Regensburg to Prague as well. We found that we could not purchase the leg from Regensburg to Prague online; we got an error message whenever we tried. Perhaps for a rail trip originating in Prague and ending inside Germany you will have better luck. In the end, we went to a DB rail ticket office in Munich and purchased the Regensburg to Prague tickets in person at the window in the station. We already knew which train we wanted so it was quite easy to buy the tickets from the station agent despite our atrocious German. The funniest part of that whole trip was that our 'direct' (same train beginning to end) rail journey from Regensburg to Prague left as planned, but once we were inside the Czech Republic the train rambled to a stop at the town of Pilzen and we were all put off the train by workers yelling in Czech. Apparently the operators had decided they just didn't want it to go any further, and someone came out and started washing the train cars while we stood around. There wasn't any info in the station about when the next train to Prague would come along. We just ended up going 'with the herd' and watching the same people who had been put off the train with us, to see what train they reboarded. Eventually a few trains later everyone seemed to 'mobilize' and clambered onto the next arrival...so we did too. At some point we could tell by the GPS on our cell phone map that we were once again headed toward Prague. The trains wholly within Germany and Austria, OTOH, were all quite prompt and operated as planned. The advice about not bringing a lot of baggage is a good one too; it can be unwieldy although on the DB cars there were luggage racks mid-car as well as overhead (at least in first class). I envy your getting to go to Berlin; it's on my bucket list. Enjoy! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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