My friends and I are planning to travel from Venice to Prague next month. For now, we are considering taking a sleeper train from Venice to Prague and plan to leave Tuesday night, July 9 and arrive mid-day Wednesday, July 10. I've researched some options such as the bus via EuroLines, but I had a quick couple of questions about this option. Do you have to change buses between cities and are the transfers easy to navigate? Also, if anybody has any experience or comments about this option, I'm all ears. Though the EuroLines seems cost-effective, I think my friends would prefer a train instead (i.e. couchette) to sleep on for the long travel. I have researched that there are two primary options either through Munich or through Vienna before reaching Prague. If so, what is the best way to find and book (if possible) the necessary trains for this? As I am fairly new and young to traveling, any and all help is greatly appreciated. Also, for your reference and being young poor college students, we're basically looking for anything around/less than $100 USD total. Thank you very much for your kindness and insight!!
Posted by
near Ringwood, Hampshire, UK
521 posts
There is a City Nightline sleeper service from Venice to Munich, departing 20.57 and arriving 06.15. I just tried a dummy booking on www.bahn.com and it looks like there are spaces available in 4 and 6 berth couchette compartments at the moment. Use the journey planner on that website and it will take you through the booking process. You can also read all about City Nightline on The Man in Seat 61: http://www.seat61.com/citynightline.htm#.UbGsyPnFX6Y For the connection for your onward journey, express buses from Munich to Prague are run by Deutsche Bahn. There was a thread about it with some helpful links a couple of days ago: http://www.ricksteves.com/graffiti/helpline/index.cfm/rurl/topic/105603/travel-from-prague-to-nuremberg.html There is a Euro Night service from Venice to Vienna (actually it's the same train as the Munich service as far as Villach - here's a video of both trains before they are split - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imA26Qiwzjk). Read about that here: http://www.trenitalia.com/cms/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=d6c73cb7b3aca110VgnVCM1000003f16f90aRCRD Use the journey planner and booking process on www.trenitalia.com. If you struggle with that, then take a look at www.italiarail.com (although they will be more expensive).
Posted by
Columbia, SC
389 posts
I'm generally a fan of couchette travel, did it at least a dozen times when I lived in Europe. I'm less a fan though when you have to travel several more hours after your night train arrives. However I might still pick the train for this route. The Deutche Bahn (bahn.com) site is showing a fare of 69 euro w/couchette from Venice to Munich, and 29 euro from Munich to Prague (the Munich-Prague leg is actually on a bus run by Deutsche Bahn, but is quick and efficient like everything DB does). You'd have to book those two tickets separately on the DB website. Eurolines is showing a youth fare of 51 euro, and the bus arrives around 12:30. However trying to sleep on a bus seat would be misery to me. I always said that the fact that a couchette is flat makes it 100 times better than trying to sleep on a plane or bus. I usually managed to get at least 5-6 hours sleep, which was enough to hit the ground running without feeling overly tired. Plenty of people who post on this board say they can't sleep on trains, but I think young college-age dudes could handle it.
Posted by
Columbia, SC
389 posts
Thinking about this again, since budget is a main concern- 47 euro per person is a significant savings, so I might just suck it up and take the bus (to answer your original question, it's a direct bus Venice-Prague). One reason being the train gets to Munich quite early (6:15), and, if your group is used to staying up later than 10 or 11pm, the train option has the potential to be not so restful either. Either way you could plan to nap for a couple hours once you get to your hostel in Prague. Whichever way you go, try to be good and tired by that evening, and bring earplugs.