two of us need to travel from Prague to Salzburg mid April. Money is not a big object, but would like to limit spending if possible. We have one largish suitcase and a carryon. We are healthy seniors.
Which is preferable for view, ease, and time? A shuttle from CK Shuttle or similar or the train with transfer in Linz? THANKS!
Posted by
2694 posts
If I had to choose between 5 hours sitting in a car or sitting in a train, the latter is favorable, at least for me.
This is the fastest train connection:
EC 333 Praha - Linz
IC 644 Linz - Salzburg
To find the best price a little bit of work is needed, i.e., compare the prices between the Austrian railways (OeBB) and the Czech railways (CD) either for the whole trip or the two sections separately.
Posted by
Northwest Arkansas
1020 posts
I prefer the train. WiFi, restroom, club car, stretch my legs.
Posted by
OP
33 posts
No problem with the largish suitcase. the train info says it has to fit above but it won't. I assume there are racks fore and aft for larger luggage?
Posted by
Republic of Texas / U.S.A. / Magyarország / Budapest
25307 posts
The train of course. First Class. What trian info said all luggage had to fit above? Every train I have been on had luggage racks.
Posted by
2694 posts
First class is not necessary, unless you are afraid of other people possibly standing if the train is full. In any case you should buy a seat reservation.
Big suitcases cannot be stored in overhead racks. There are luggage racks in the cars, and you can put your luggage also between the seats at those places where there are seats back to back (next row to the table seats). You can select your seats from the floor plan of the cars.
Posted by
OP
33 posts
The website that said all luggage had to be above seat was rail ninja.
That brings up a good point. I'm in the States, is there a preferable site to buy rail tickets?
Posted by
Green Bay
23068 posts
Please, please, stay as far away from Rail Ninja as you can get. They pay google to bring their ripoff site to the top of search results.
Czech Rail: https://www.cd.cz/en/
Austrian Rail: https://www.oebb.at/en/
They operate the trains. They are not questionable travel agents.
Posted by
2694 posts
I definitively second Sam's advice: Never ever buy train tickets from a reseller, but always from the train companies in the specific countries. For border crossing trains you have always two choices, take the better offer.
Buying international train tickets is no rocket science nowadays (as compared to pre-Internet times). As most Americans are not used to public transport, they become easily victims of shady companies.
Posted by
Republic of Texas / U.S.A. / Magyarország / Budapest
25307 posts
Okay, if the benchmark for locating trains and buying tickets is air travel, then trains are not easy. For starters there is no route consolidator for trains (like Google Flights for flights). Sure you can try and use Trainline but they don’t include all the train companies and don’t tell you which ones they leave out.
So you gotta know the company at each end, and then sometimes DB or someone else will sell you a ticket too. And you gotta check the company at each end because the same train on the same day on the same track can have two wildly different prices.
Take the 10:21 t0 15:49 train Prague to Salzburg on 1 April. Why did I choose 1 April? Well some companies only sell two months in advance on some or maybe all routes (domestic maybe not always) but I don’t know which is which, not like it’s a rule or anything.
Anyway, this one has a 24 minute transfer. You only need 5 minutes according to the locals that do this all the time, speak the language if something happens, know under which conditions the ticket can be used on the next train, can argue with the conductor in German if necessary, and if they arrive a few hours late, well, its their home, no problem.
The nearly 5.5 hour trip sort of wipes out your day, but the earlier trains had two connections.
The Czech company wants about $25 for ticket and seat in 2nd class and about $50 in 1st class.
The Austrian company wants about $55 for ticket and seat in 2nd class and more than $90 in 1st class.
The big consolidator that everyone loves says the cheapest ticket is the Austrian ticket and wants $53 but wont sell you a seat. If you could buy one that would be $4 more. I wont try RailNinja as I don’t want my computer infected. The only good Ninja thing is the Air Fryer. https://ninjahome.hu/collections/air-fryer.
Okay, sort of sarcastic. But once you do it a few times you know what to expect and its not terribly bad. The ride itself is most often uneventful and the trains, other than DB are rarely more than a few minutes late if late at all. Not a bad way to travel.
Posted by
Republic of Texas / U.S.A. / Magyarország / Budapest
25307 posts
Oh, and how big is that big suitcase? Not one of these? https://aerenagalleries.com/assets/public/web_images/WEBIMG-14914/WEBIMG-14914_600_trimmed.jpg?2023-11-09_15-34-48
Posted by
Green Bay
23068 posts
Here is what Seat61 says about the Prague to Salzburg train, with photos of the train interior for 1st and 2nd class. And clear statement that there are luggage racks at the carriage ends for larger luggage, as well as you can see for your self, many of the "A" shaped spaces between back-to-back seats.
https://www.seat61.com/trains-and-routes/salzburg-to-prague-by-train.htm