Hello,
Our family of 4 will be travelling this august and will have 7 days on the ground. I am thinking of dividing 3 days in Budapest(we will fly into Budapest) and 4 days in Prague(Flying out of Prague) . We like a mixture of museums/castles and shopping. I am thinking this is good time, appreciate thoughts
Please let me know safe neigbourhoods for families for Airbnbs in both the places. Also is a day trip to Dresden too ambitious from Prague?
thanks as always.
7 full days? Or you arrive and count that as Day 1? Then which city are you subtracting your travel day from? Counting nights seems to give a better feel for how much time you have. You don’t say where you are coming from (probably helps determine if you have jet lag or not.
I might suggest
Arrive in Budapest, overnight Budapest. Not counting this as a day in the city.
Full day 1-3 Budapest, sleep Budapest
(4 nights Budapest)
Day 4 travel to Prague in the morning, sleep Prague
Full day 5-7 Prague, sleep Prague.
(4 nights Prague)
Day 8 travel home/onward.
If you take the train, it’s pretty much a full day’s journey between the two, by the time you check out, get to the train station, train ride, then get to your new place. So you can count Day 4 as a night in Prague, but it’s not actually a sightseeing day in either.
You could do a long day trip to Dresden from Prague. It’s a 2 or 2 1/2 hr train ride each way, with about 7ish hours in the city. Only you know if it’s worth it or not. I assume you would like to go to the Green Vaults. Maybe check ticket availability before you decide.
The trains from Budapest to Prague take a minimum of 6:45, which essentially is a day. The train from Prague to Dresden is about 5 hours roundtrip. I don’t see flying from Budapest to Prague saving enough time once you factor in going to/from the airports and being there two hours before the 75-minute flight to be worth returning to the airport just a few days after flying in. It’s just too much airport time for one week.
One thing you might consider to pick up a day is taking a Nightjet train or other equivalent train with sleeper cars from Budapest Keleti station to Praha hl.n—Prague’s main train station. If you go to www.TheTrainline.com you can see what trains are scheduled. You can buy train tickets from the Czech national rail company at www.cd.cz/en. Tickets start at about $30 with supplemental charges for sleeper cars.
If you fly into Budapest, I would plan on 4 nights there because Budapest is more spread out than Prague and there will be some adjusting to signage being in Hungarian and the currency. ( Hungary uses its own “florint” currency valued at 355 per US$1) along with learning about the metro and tram system. In Prague, it’s my experience that far more Czechs speak English than Hungarians do in Budapest which makes the language barrier less challenging in Prague. The Czechs use the “Czech Crown” as their currency but at about 22 crowns per US$1, figuring out costs is easy.
I found during several visits to Prague that its attractions are condensed into a much smaller area than Budapest and that you can walk to all of them.
The Prague metro/trams help getting up to Prague Castle.
Try to stay in the “Stare Mesto” or Old Town in the district called “Prague 1.” This is near the Old Town Square and the Astronomical Clock. A fantastic location here is right next to the Tyn Church at the “ Apartments Tynska 7” which are listed on Hotels.com.
In Budapest I’ve stayed near the Parliament building but found staying at Liszt Ferenc Square near the Oktogon Metro station off Andrassy Avenue (“Andrassy Ut”) more central and convenient.
Both neighborhoods are very safe.
With 3 nights in Prague— and I think that’s the minimum you’ll need—there really isn’t time on this trip for Dresden.
