I spent a lot of time planning our trip to Prague doing research centering around the best hotels, restaurants, and day trips. Our vacation turned out to be absolutely fantastic, but it took a lot of leg work ahead of time to organize. Below, I am going to outline for you some considerations to aid you in planning your visit. I hope this will help those traveling to Prague with decision making.
We planned for an 8 day/8 night trip. See our schedule below.
Day 1: Arrival in Prague in AM. Sightseeing in Prague.
Day 2: Train to Berlin 10:30am with 2:30pm arrival. Afternoon sightseeing.
Day 3: Sightseeing in Berlin.
Day 4: Travel to Karlovy Vary at 10 am with stop at Moritzburg Castle Germany. Arrival in Karlovy Vary around 3pm.
Day 5: Karlovy Vary with departure at 2pm for Prague. Stops at Krivoklat Castle and Velka Amerika. Arrival in Prague 6pm.
Day 6: Sightseeing Prague
Day 7: Sightseeing Prague
Day 8: Sightseeing Prague
Day 9: Departure Prague in AM
Initially, when I planned our trip to Prague my intention was to include travel to Vienna and Budapest as part of our trip. However, after much research, I decided that this would most likely make the trip feel rushed and a lot of travel time between locations seemed unfavorable. Budapest is a solid 8 hours via train from Prague. I thought a stop in Vienna (roughly halfway) would be a nice way to break up the trip; however, I realized 8 hours back is taking up an entire day on the train. I felt it more prudent on a future trip to plan Budapest, Vienna, and Bratislava as one vacation.
Moritzburg Castle Germany
Also factoring into that decision, there are a number of beautiful places to visit in the Czech Republic. You could easily spend 8 days going between different towns. After seeing how beautiful Prague and Karlovy Vary were, I would definitely recommend at least one day trip within the Czech Republic itself. The places on the top of my list after much research were Karlovy Vary, Cesky Krumlov, and Kutna Hora. One unfortunate point about these three destinations is they are all in different directions from Prague. I decided Karlovy Vary was the destination I was most interested in after some research online. It seemed to be best included with a trip to Germany. This is how I decided to add Berlin in our travel plans. Below are some sample ideas that we considered along the way:
Krivoklat Castle Czech Republic
Option 1: Prague, Cesky Krumlov, Austria (ex. Vienna or Halstatt)
Option 2: Prague, Vienna, Bratislava
Option 3: Prague, Kutna Hora, Cesky Krumlov vs Karlovy Vary
Option 4: Prague, Karlovy Vary, Dresden
Transportation is definitely something to take into consideration. If using more public forms of transport, plans can oftentimes get complicated and travel times increase. We made the decision to take the train from Prague to Berlin on a one way ticket. I purchased a business class ticket online via the rail europe website. I looked for the shortest ticket time which was 4 hours. It did not allow me to choose seats, which is how I ended up on the side of the train with one seat and my travel partner sitting directly behind me. This was not ideal, but it certainly could have been worse. When purchasing the ticket, it appears as if the train is nonstop; however, it makes multiple stops along the way. We left the station in Prague about 15 minutes late, and this turned out to be the only delay along the route.
Velka Amerika Czech Republic
After this train ride, we completed the remainder of our travel plans utilizing mydaytrip. This was my first time utilizing their services and, after our experience, I would definitely use the company again. They have now even started services in the US in select locations! The website is extremely user friendly. You type in the two cities you would like to travel between. It will give you a price with option to add in additional stops along the way. It gives a description of the sites you can add, the additional time commitment, and the price. As you add them, your travel time will increase along with the price. You can adjust the time and date on the right side of the screen to leave at the time most convenient for your travel plans. Our trips both went according to schedule with the departure and arrival times staying more or less right on schedule.
Immediately after booking, you will receive two confirmation emails. Several days prior to the trip, you will receive an email with the driver name/photo, vehicle make, and also the license plate. There are luggage requirements on their website. We did bring along a small additional piece of luggage, which did not seem to cause any problems. You can pay for additional luggage if needed and also an option is available for a luxury car at extra expense. We did tip our driver around 15%.
I hope that this post allows you to make some informed decisions about what to include in a trip to Prague!
