Budapest, Salzburg, or Prague?

We're flying post-cruise from Barcelona to Vienna. We'd like to do a day trip to one of these three above. We've never been to this part of Europe and the cruise we're coming off of is mostly Italy. We're hoping to do a day cruise down the Danube one of the days and visit either Budapest, Salzburg or Prague another day.

Also, would we be safe booking a flight from BCN to VIE at either 10:30am or 11:30am or no chance of making either after disembarking in Barcelona?

Thanks! We're looking at flights and need to have an idea.

Can't help with flights.

We've visited all three cities - choice is subjective, but I'd pick Prague. It has more to offer than either Budapest or Salzburg.

We found Budapest to be comparatively dour & austere, still reminiscent of the Soviet era.

Salzburg is all about Mozart. And The Sound of Music - yep, they're still using it to attract visitors :rolleyes:.

But you may find one of the others more suited to your logistics, and all are worth a visit.

It's worth repeating your question on the River Cruises forum, or on TripAdvisor.

JB :)

Can't help with flights.

 

We've visited all three cities - choice is subjective, but I'd pick Prague. It has more to offer than either Budapest or Salzburg.

 

We found Budapest to be comparatively dour & austere, still reminiscent of the Soviet era.

Salzburg is all about Mozart. And The Sound of Music - yep, they're still using it to attract visitors :rolleyes:.

 

But you may find one of the others more suited to your logistics, and all are worth a visit.

 

It's worth repeating your question on the River Cruises forum, or on TripAdvisor.

 

JB :)

As usual, JB, great advice! I was thinking that there'd be a better place to ask this question since the big ships don't go there. I think I'll eliminate Salzburg, since I have no need to hear more about The Sound Of Music. I will post over on the River Cruises. Thank you!:)

Salzburg is cute but quite small and in my opinion not worth the 3-hour train ride. Prague and Budapest are both great cities, but for a day trip, Budapest is more practical (less than 3 hours hours away by train, whereas Prague is over 4 hours away).

Budapest is similar to Vienna in some ways, maybe a bit less monumental (and cheaper!). The geography of Budapest is more spectacular than Vienna, and the co-existence of different periods of influence (Turkish, Jewish, Austro-Hungarian, Soviet, capitalist) is pretty fascinating…

Been to Salzburg several times. More than JB mentioned are the salt mine tours which are fun. One has you dressing up in old fashioned miners outfits the other has a cute little train. They both have the cool wooden slide!

Also the Archbishop's Palace waterworks is a great tour! So much fun and very interesting.

Having said that, I'd choose Prague, I loved that city! Did Buda and Pest just afterwards and really didn't care for it. Still carried the downtrodden, pity us we were surpressed under the communists, blah blah attitude...... Not nearly as vibrant as Prague (and this was before the Eurofication).

Thanks everyone for telling me about these beautiful places. It seems like it'll be a hard decision to make. Our trip will be in mid April next year. We picked post cruise because I read that boat trips on the Danube don't start until April 15th.

Disclosure: I am originally Czech, and we've always considered Prague one of the most beautiful cities. Assumed I must be biased and was not going to comment because of that. Much to my satisfaction, in reading the other replies I can also concur with the other opinions of Budapest. While a beautiful city, the people are just ....ugh! Very frustrating (this is in 2012) that their communist attitudes to customer service can continue to survive.

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I don't know, the customer service can also be quite terrible in Rome or Paris… or even in Prague, but these are all (along with Budapest) great cities that should be on anyone's European bucket list.

I have nothing at all against Prague (on the contrary), it's just that 9 hours of train travel from Vienna and back in one day does not leave a lot of time to actually visit the city.

Maybe the OP could change directions and consider some other kinds of day trips. After their cruise they may have done enough big city touring. One possibility would be to do the Semmering railway, either as a destination in its own right or as part of a day trip to Graz.

My husband and I vote for Prague, although we haven't been to Salzburg. We loved Prague.

That being said, we've found that some of the lesser-known locations turn out to be our favorite places. I don't know what's around Vienna as we didn't do anything outside of the city, but I imagine there are some nice places to use as a daytrip destination

I vote No 1: Prague, a most beautiful and romantic city, if you possible I would pick going to No 2: Budapestl, I would leave out salzburg, good luck making up your mind !

I am headed to Prague in July. Have been to Salzburg and I did think the old city part was charming but small. New city is a bit blah. I liked Salzburg and its fortress and churches. No parking in the old city if you are driving. You can take a bus to old city from the train station

10:30 am flight is fine as most ships dock at 5-6 am and realistic to leave at 7 which you don't need to. Takes 30 min to cab to the airport and 2 hr before Schengen flights is more than enough. Its not a good idea for a day trip. Prague is 4.5 hrs by rail. Budapest is faster, 3 hrs by train or bus. Closest major city for day trip outside of Austria is Bratislava, Slovakia (1 hr) or Brno, Czech Rep (2 hr) by bus

I did a river cruise AMA, saw all 3, Salzburg nice, but not worth going out of your way for. I loved Budapest. That city at night is so alive, the lights from the parliament and the other side of river, were so incredible, I have never seen so many lights in my life. Great ruin bars. Visiting the parliament was special. It is a postcard. Prague was great too, but besides the bridge, I did not have many have must see moments. It is all personal choice. So do what feels right for you.