Please sign in to post.

Night trains

Has anyone done the night trains between any of these cities in any order: prague, krakow, budapest, or vienna? My wife and I were thinking of doing a couple of nights in sleeper cars for travel between cities as we are short on time. Just wanted to see your thoughts on them. Thanks in advance. Dallas Howard

Posted by
6783 posts

You have listed them in a logical order.

Budapest-Vienna and Vienna-Prague are short journeys of respectively 3 and 4.5 hours, so no night trains. The first route is very frequent so you can really optimize sightseeing, by leaving Budapest at dinnertime for instance, or early in the morning.

Prague-Krakow has a modern sleeper that I haven't taken but is fully described on the Seat 61 website, highly recommended resource!

Krakow-Budapest has the same type of sleeper train, check out the same website for more info.

Posted by
4540 posts

I took the night train last fall from Krakow to Prague. For security, I chose a single sleeper compartment with en-suite WC/shower. The cost was about the equivalent of a night in a hotel plus the train ticket.

I loved it! My standard disclaimer is that I also loved sleeping in our motor home as a kid as we bounced down the highway on family vacations. So sleeping on a train, with all its stops and starts and station noises, is "fun" for me. I woke up in Prague refreshed and in time for a mid-morning city tour.

Because my train originated in Poland, I purchased the tickets in advance through PolRail. Their service was perfect in every respect, including delivery of the tickets to my hotel in Krakow a few days ahead of my stay, which I communicated to the hotel staff and confirmed with them.