Prague vs Milan/Venice

If you are heading directly to Venice from Milan, why not fly into Venice and not Milan? If that is not a good choice, I would consider the following: 1) it's a 15.5hr night train journey to Venice from Prague. I see a 59Euro Smart fare before couchette reservations. 2) it's a 2.5hr. journey from Milan to Venice. Plus, you would add about 90 minutes to bus in from Milan's main airport to the train station. Note also that you would pass Verona on the way to Venice and on the way back from Venice on the way to Switzerland. It really depends on how much you want to see Prague.

Lastly, there is the option of flying from Prague to Venice-Marco Polo. Click4sky airlines is the only cheap airline that makes this connection.

Prague public transportation is fantastic so you don't have to worry about being able to get around. We took a day trip out of Prague to Kutna Hora via train with absolutely no problem whatsoever. Prague us a wonderful city with lots and lots to see. 4 days/3 nights should make an extremely enjoyable visit. The castle alone can take a whole day. Yes, there is plenty to do, and it's very worth your time there.

In my opinion, Prague is a wonderful city. Very easy to get around. Venice is fantastic! Milan over rated.

If it matters to you, Prague is vastly cheaper than either Milan or Venice. We just spent 5 days in Prague (with two day trips)last summer and wish we'd had more time there. We spent 3 days in Venice three years ago and felt we'd had a complete Venice experience. Even given inflation, we probably spent twice as much on those three days as we did in Prague two years later for five days.

Thanks for all the feedback. We looked at hotel prices around Venice and are leaning now back towards Prague simply based on funds. Because of the Euro I won't even get an overrated Gondola ride. I'd rather go to Italy when I can afford to have the appropriate experience and not worry about money so much.

The deciding factor will be how much extra we have to pay for a sleeper car from Prague to Basel (so far I've discovered it's probably the same as the extra we spend for a 4 country Eurail pass instead of a 3 country Eurail - not to mention how much cheaper hotels will be in Prague).

I think we will find Prague more interesting than Venice/Verona. We are also spending several days in the Bernese Oberland region of Switzerland after this segment which is laid back (which is how I'm viewing Italy) and I think we'd appreciate the contrast in the experiences more (I think).

When looking for a Prague hotel please checkout this website: http://www.nifos.cz/ They had some great deals when we went to Prague.

Another possibility--fly from Prague to Zurich if that $300 on the train is per person. On www.germanwings.com the cost to fly is about $210 per person with all of the fees included. I haven't looked at any of the other cheap airlines in Europe.

Thanks Nancy. I didn't know about that website so thanks for that.

The $300 USD extra is total actually so it's not so bad if we already have a Eurail Pass. We would have paid at least $100 USD each to stay in a hotel one night.

That $300 would be considerably less if you have a railpass.

Decided to go with Prague mostly because of our budget. I started to look at hotels in Venice and it was sickening with the Euro the way it is.

That's even including the little extra we pay with the nighttrain which if we take out the estimated $100 USD each (estimating high) per night for lodging it's actually only $60 USD extra to take the train (and we won't spend as much cash in general since we won't be paying for loding in Italy).