How many days in Prague vs Budapest?

Three nights in Prague and four in Budapest is a good balance.

That really depends on when you leave Prague and when you arrive Budapest.

But assuming that you arrive about 2pm

• Day one, you get checked in in Prague about 4pm. So you get dinner and a stroll around town. Night 1 in Prague
• Day two, see the city, maybe jet lagged. Night 2 in Prague
• Day three, another day in Prague and you are pretty much at the minimum for Prague. Night 3 in Prague
• Day four, if you get lucky its one of the days when RyanAir has a morning flight to Budapest and you arrive in Budapest about 9am and have the whole day in Budapest. Night 4 in Budapest
• Day five, second full day and night 5 in Budapest
• Day six, thrid full day and night 6 in Budaest
• Day seven, fourth full day (really the perfect minimum amount of time) and night 7 in Budapest
• Day eight, you depart

Now if you dont get luck on the flight or you just have issues saving 3 hours by taking a plane, then the first reasoable train will depart at 07:37 and arrive at 14.28 which means you get to your hotel and are checked in and ready to go back out by maybe 4pm. You lost half the day. So you are about a half day short of a good minimum stay. Well there is no fixing that because you really need the two full days in Prague. Its just life. Eger? No, you have no time for that. Maybe Szentendre (if you flew to Budapest) but thats about it.

I asked AI and it suggested 3.5 nights in each. That half a night is really challenging. Not much of the factual information suggested by AI was correct. And AI is shaping our world. We are doomed.

On our last trip to central Europe we spent 4 full days in each city, and we felt like we could have done more. This did not include our flight day into Prague, which was an extra half day where we just wandered around. And we added a half day + for a train ride to Budapest from Prague (which was fun and part of the adventure because trains are cool). It of course depends on what you like to do and the time of year. Both are great cities. Personally I think those cities are more than enough without adding an extra side trip. By the way, we are heading back to Budapest this spring and will have another 3 days there because we really like the place.

I personally have found Prague to be both more interesting and more enjoyable than Budapest, and so I would do 5 Prague and 2 Budapest. But everyone has different interests.