Vienna day trip to Brno rather than overnight to Prague

If you dont want to go all the way to Prague, try the little town of Cesky Krumlov - beautiful! It's a world heritage site. We drove so I dont know about train connections.

Thanks I just looked this place up as I've never heard of it and it looks to only be 1/2 hour from BRNO, we maybe can cover both of these as a trip. Does that seem reasonable.

Hi Donna, Cesky Krumlov is actually a 3 hour drive from Brno. And getting to CK from Vienna is a little convoluted using public transportation. For more information regarding that, use the following website (it's the official national rail site of Czech Republic and will offer both trains and buses as transit options): www.idos.cz Regarding Brno, as it is between a 2 and 2 1/2 hour train ride from Vienna (depending on which train you get), I think it would make for a great day trip. I spent 3 days there last year and loved it. It is Czech Republic's second largest town (behind Prague) and is known as "Little Prague" in some circles. There is a castle (complete with casemates) and a walkable Old Town area near where the train lets you off. If you go, make sure to check out the slightly creepy Capuchin Crypt. Take a look at the following websites to get an idea of what Brno has to offer: http://www.brno.me/ http://www2.brno.cz/index.php?lan=en http://www.ticbrno.cz/uvod.aspx?lang=en-US If you stop in the TI by the train station, they will have a brochure available with 2 recommended self-guided walking tours, one longer and one shorter (you may even find a copy on one of the websites I gave, but I can't remember exactly which one has it). Brno doesn't get much tourist traffic (for reasons I don't understand), and most people beeline to Prague when in the Czech Republic. In my opinion, Brno is much more understated when compared to the stunning architecture of Prague, but I found it to be well worth a visit. I actually much preferred it to Prague. Let me know if you have any questions, and I'll try my best to answer!

Thanks for the response. I've been looking around at these sites and a bit torn between the 3 places now. I found a website czech-transport.com where as a family of 4 we could hire a private car/driver for a return day trip at 489Euros which sounds reasonable as the train trip to CeskyKrumlov didn't sound feasible with our time. We could get going by 5:00 am rather than the train schedule in this way. We could make 1 very long day and do CeskyKrumlov and either Prague/Brno very quickly. Or we could stay overnight in 1 of those 2 cities and see things a bit better, maybe a bit of all 3 locations as they would be along a single trip - of course paying more to this organization. They also appear to offer their driver as a guide but I'm not sure how good they'd be. We don't speak chezk and with our limited time we think a guide would be useful. Does anyone have a better guide suggestion or opinion if one is warranted? Thanks Diana

Brno is a nice city and you could find something to do there (lots if you love architecture). But it makes for a better base to see other things than worth its own multi-day trip. It doesn't begin to compare to Prague. But if Prague is out of the question and you want to get a flavor of Czech (arguably more authentic than very touristy Old Town Prague), then it can be worth a night or two with a daytrip or two. English speakers in Brno are harder to come by but everyone I encountered was super friendly and not used to seeing many tourists. The edges are very rough (fascinating and scary to see on the train ride in) but the center has been nicely restored. Brno is a good base to the town (forget the name) to see Mucha's Slavic Epic paintings.