Advice on a September 2016 trip to Central/Eastern Europe

Check out this thread first, it's fairly similar to your question:
https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/hungary/prague-vienna-bratislava-budapest-krakow-warsaw-itinerary-and-logistics-help-please

I don't think it matters where you start or end, but you should probably get an open-jaw ticket where you fly in and out of different cities (the two end-points of your trip) to avoid backtracking. I would recommend doing some distance calculations to link these cities most logically (assuming you want to minimize time spent traveling from one city to another) - once you do that, you'll be ready to tackle your second question re: mode of transport between them. The one city pair you should definitely do sequentially (and using the by Polish train system) is Warsaw and Krakow (it's the quickest, most convenient mode, and quite inexpensive compared to Western European trains).

I would definitely do an open-jaw flight either into Berlin and out of Budapest or vice versa. How you arrange the stops between would be dependent on travel between places which you'll have to research to find the best options. Agree that you should read the link posted above and also do a search for 'Central Europe' and narrow it down by forum posts and within 1 year to get the most timely information.

Last summer I did a similar itinerary (without Warsaw), although a bit longer and I started in Brussels. From Berlin I went to Munich, which you aren't doing, then to Cesky Krumlov, Prague, Krakow, Vienna, Budapest and flew home from there. That direction and order of cities worked well for me. I took trains between all locations except that from Munich to Prague I went by bus.

We have traveled with RS on BOE 21 trip and loved it. Our last trip this fall was to the Eastern European cities that you want to see but with a different travel company. We were very pleased with this company as well. We started in Berlin. A must see here is to preorder tickets to get inside the dome of the German Parliament. So much to see here. We spent five days. We took a six hour train to Warsaw. From then on it was bus to Krakow, Prague, and we ended in Budapest but there was an extension to Vienna but we had already been there. A great must see in Prague to join the Wittman tour of the Jewish Quarter. This information we found in RS book. We also saw the Slav Epic also recommended in RS books. This was a wonderful trip. Even though we had a wonderful guide and city guides we were able to use RS books to do our own thing as most of the others did as well. Another highlight was booking ahead tickets to get inside the Hungarian Parliament. Beautiful. Be sure to do a night cruise along the Danube. Hope this helps. Happy travels!

Six destination in some two weeks means a short stay at each of them and a lot of travelling. For each move you must count on at least half a day. Could you save Berlin for another time? In terms of atmosphere it is little bit an outlier on such a trip.
In my experience doing a trip like this using the train would give the best experience. No hassles with getting to and from airports, check-in, passport checks, luggage belts and all that. And you get the feeling of really travelling. For trips up to six hours there is hardly any difference with using the plane. I've checked on http://www.bahn.de/p_en/view/index.shtml how it would come out on this itineraries. Most connections don't exceed the six hours. Only Kraków to Budapest would be too much. I've done a quick search and found some reasonable flight connections.
It looks logical to start in Berlin (or Warsaw) and to end up in Prague. But you'll have to check it with the connections from your place.
Of these countries I've recently visited Poland and Austria, and Prague some ten years ago. Poland was a revelation and Kraków is a beauty, well worth a full two days. It is of course a base for visiting Auschwitz. I haven't done that for the reason that some things are better thought over than seen.
Vienna is well worth a full two days plus a day trip. I've been to the monastery of Melk, which is a beauty, but there are many other possibilities. And Prague won't disappoint you either and could also do with a full two days.
Your timeframe is limited and the destinations you've chosen are for good reasons classics.

The cities on your list make a complete loop so on the surface the entry/exit points look immaterial.
However, travel between Krakow and Budapest is by far the most time consuming compared to any of the other sectors. For that reason I would make these 2 cities your entry and exit points.

Krakow (2) >> Warsaw (2) >> Berlin (3) >> Prague (3) >> Vienna (3) >> Budapest (3)

I would prefer an extra night in each city, 2 extra perhaps in Berlin.
Perhaps look at an American/Finnair/ British Airways (One World) ticket via JFK and Helsinki/London
Or United/Lufthansa (Star Alliance) via Chicago and Frankfurt/Munich

Hello Pat. Is the 16 days the total number of days you will be at Europe ? Or, will you be away from your home a total of 16 days ? If you will be at Europe a total of 16 days, I think six cities is too many destinations. I recommend that you plan to fly from Berlin to the U.S.A., because if you will fly from any of those other cities to the U.S.A., I think it would be necessary for you to depart from the hotel at a very very early time in the morning for going to an airport.

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Thank you Agnes. I have read the thread you suggested and it does make sense. Nancy , we too thought an open jaw flight would be the best way to go and are glad to hear that the train works well. We need to check into this further--overnight between cities? tonfromleidin, thanks for the link to rail travel. We will definitely be needing that information. djp_syd, that schedule of cities looks good and Ron you could be right about the time constraints. We will take a critical look at that.
We really appreciate everyone taking the time to offer advice in planning this adventure. We are so fortunate to have this forum as a go to site for help!

Pat, you got your cities logistically right. Fly open jaw either to Warsaw or Berlin and back from the other city. It does not matter if you start with Warsaw or Berlin. I would make a decision based on schedule and price. Warsaw - Krakow about 3 hours by train, Krakow - Budapest about 7 hours of scenic ride by bus through Slovakia. Budapest to Vienna less than 3 hours by train, Vienna to Prague 4 hours, Prague to Berlin little over 4 hours.

Here's a possible itinerary. I've indicated what I believe are the amounts of time for sightseeing. Krakow makes logistics harder because it is not well-connected to other cities.

1. Land in Warsaw
2. Warsaw full day
3. train to Krakow, 1/2 day (either Warsaw or Krakow)
4. Krakow full day
5. Krakow full day or day trip to Auschwitz
6. fly to Berlin, 1/2 day
7. Berlin full day
8. Berlin full day
9. train to Prague, 1/2 day
10. Prague full day
11. train to Vienna, 1/2 day
12. Vienna full day
13. train to Budapest, 1/2 day
14. Budapest full day
15. Budapest full day
16. fly home

That gives you 9 full days and 5 1/2 days on a 16-day trip. If you drop it to 14 days, you lose 2 full days of sightseeing, giving you one full day per city. You will have multiple currencies to deal with (only Germany and Austria use the euro), in addition to getting oriented in a different language in a different city every other day. If you are whirlwind travelers and plan every day out in detail in advance, you'd probably be able to see the highlights, at least a few of them. Keep in mind that on a tour, you are taken from sight to sight. On your own, you are more likely to have to wait in line at sights and wait for trams or buses (after figuring out how to buy tickets and where the stops are).

You can tweak the above to spend more time in one place and less in another. My only point it that you won't have a lot of time anywhere. If that's your style of travel, go for it. Just be realistic about how much you can see and do.

Hi, Pat. I just wanted to make a few observations about your proposed trip. The first is that you're planning to visit cities in different countries and diverse cultures. Americans tend to lump together places in Eastern Europe and we forget that they have distinct histories, traditions, cultures, etc. Imagine a European traveler to the US saying he wanted to see the western part of our country and picked out Seattle, LA, Salt Lake City, and San Antonio, While all those cities are interesting, they're so diverse that in a fast-paced trip the overall impression would be confusing. I'm just suggesting that maybe limiting your trip to fewer countries would be a good idea.

My other observation is that you're only visiting larger metropolitan areas. I enjoy mixing it up a bit so that I include some smaller towns and more rural destinations to break up the "busyness" of the big city destinations. Each of the cities you mentioned is near some worthwhile small town destinations that are easily accessible by train.

Whatever you decide to do, have a great trip!

Anita

Way too much for my thinking in 16 days. But each to their own. If Budapest remains on the list come visit us in the Hungary forum and we will help you with a Budapest "Essentials" running tour.

Pat,

We just returned from a 17 day trip and went to 4 cities (Amsterdam, Munich, Prague, and Copenhagen). I think your plan is a little ambitious and I don't think you'll enjoy moving around so much. We had a few nights in each city and we are fast paced travellers (typically exploring 10-12 hours a day) and I felt like we were moving a bit too much. You're spending a lot of money to be there, you should get to really enjoy and soak it up.

I think for 14-16 nights I would do:

Berlin - 3 - 4 nights
Prague - 3-4 nights - side trip to Cesky Krumlov or Plzen?
Vienna - 3 nights (with a possible 4th night in Bratislava)
Budapest - 3-4 nights

I agree with the person who said to balance small cities vs large cities. We chose to do all big cities and really didn't enjoy it as much, so maybe pick a smaller city instead of one of the larger ones? Poland always makes our maybe list, but it's a big country and it never seems to work logistically for us.

The OP seems to have moved on to an organized tour . . . new thread