My wife and I will be flying into Budapest and out of Prague September 25 - October 8. We have 12 nights and will spend the first 5 in Budapest. My wife wants to go to Ljubljana and Lake Bled then Prague. I’m leaning towards Vienna instead for 2 nights on the way to Prague. She is enamored with Lake Bled - who can blame her?!?! My concern is killing 2 days with travel getting there and back to Prague. We want to go to Croatia at some point and maybe back to Germany. Should we save Lake Bled for another trip? If we go to Vienna, that would be 3 big cities on this trip. Any good scenery outside of the big 3 cities? We do plan to go to Czesky Krumlov.
Posted by
Portland, Oregon
5687 posts
Slovenia and Croatia are wonderful. Plan an additional trip just to see them. Plan three weeks to get the gist of both countries - or two weeks for Slovenia plus northern Croatia. Lake Bled is great, but it wasn't the highlight of Slovenia for me. (It's a popular, built-up tourist spot, surely the biggest tourist attraction in Slovenia.)
Sure, Vienna is the obvious place to stop on your way to Prague. On my first trip to this region, I did those three cities in reverse order by train - works very well. Later, on another trip, I came back to Prague again (loved, it, very touristy but still great) but also saw more of the country. I took a train from Poland, bus to the city of Brno, and there rented a car and drove through Moravia and Southern Bohemia for a few nights, ending up in Prague. (I stopped in Cesky Krumlov among other places.)
You could do something similar, but you'd probably want more than two nights to make it worth it. You have 12 nights; maybe 3 for driving in Czech Republic (very easy), five in Budapest and four in Prague (or vice versa). Because you'd presumably stop in Cesky Krumlov, you wouldn't need to do that day trip.
You really would need a car to make what I did practical. There is bus service in this region but not great rail connections; a car just makes it easier.
Posted by
OP
Charleston, SC, USA
926 posts
Good suggestion Andrew! I’ll look into that. Thanks!
Posted by
Magyarország / Rep of Texas
20500 posts
Prague - Vienna - Budapest is a classic tour. If you want to see some smaller towns, skip Vienna as you can do some sort of German trip in the future, and fly from Prague to Budapest. Rent an apartment in each, stow the heavy stuff and do an overnight side trip or a couple of day trips out of each city. All sorts of options out of Prague and Budapest. The flight on Czech Air is about $125 nonstop. As for your dates, my absolute favorite time to be in Budapest.
Posted by
Indiana
931 posts
We spent 5 full days in Prague and could have stayed longer. One of those days included a day trip to Terezin with Pavel Batel. I may be in the minority, but IMO Cesky Krumlov is totally overrated and not worth the time. We did spend the night there, but even without all the day trippers it was a disappointment and vacation time that I can never get back. With only 12 nights, I too would save Slovenia for another trip and would just focus on Prague and Budapest.
Posted by
WA State
3961 posts
As Sir James E. mentioned the "classic" is Prague, Vienna and Budapest. Last fall we spent 5N in Budapest, 5N in Vienna, 2N in Cesky Krumlov, 6N in Prague, then Amsterdam 5N. We felt CK was our downtime from the big city. We timed our stay in CK to avoid the weekend crowds. It was fine. We took an early morning private walking tour and had CK all to ourselves. Our tour guide took us off the beaten path. We concluded with a tour of the Barogue Theater. With limited nights you may want to consider eliminating Vienna and devote your time to Budapest (our favorite) and Prague? From Prague we also took a day tour to Terezin with Pavel Batel. It was the highlight of our trip.
We were in Slovenia and Croatia in 2018. I would recommend saving this area for a separate trip if you can. I can understand your wife's desire to visit Ljubljana! We spent 4 nights there and didn't want to leave. Lake Bled makes a great day trip.
Whatever you choose you can't go wrong!
Posted by
Boise, ID, USA
2310 posts
We spent 7 nights each in Budapest and Prague and didn't run out of things to do - far from it! There are wonderful green spaces within and just outside of each city that we enjoyed very much. Vienna, for me, doesn't compare to either Prague or Budapest and I would second James's advice to skip it (and Slovenia) this trip.
Posted by
Australia
1072 posts
We did Budapest - Olomouc - Prague last year. Olomouc is a smaller Czech city with a Soviet era astronomical clock, walk along the city past old city walls, a really nice diocesan museum and a really good modern art museum. We stayed at Miss Sophies in Olomouc and Hotel Anna in Vinohrady area of Prague.
Posted by
Seattle
4637 posts
Lake Bled is beautiful but in this case does not make logistically sense. Look at the map. You would lose a lot of time and money. Pair it together when you go to Slovenia and Croatia.