Last month my father and I took a holiday to Prague and then Bamberg in Germany, all by train. Initially we went from London to Frankfurt-am-Main via Brussels. My father has an artificial hip and can't walk very fast, or stand for a long time, so I booked free assistance from Eurostar. I strongly recommend it, he got taken through St Pancras in a wheelchair, with us being led past the queues for security and passport checks, and then the staff member at Brussels Midi literally whisked him through the station to the platform for our train to Frankfurt at ridiculous speed, I had trouble keeping up. After we reached Frankfurt we spent the night at the Premier Inn there, which was fully up to British standards, and had a pleasant meal at the Kanonensteppel where I had some very nice Frankfurt cider (the main reason why I wanted to have our overnight stay there).
The following day we travelled from Frankfurt to Prague, which didn't work as well. On arrival in Leipzig our ICE train broke down, so everyone got transferred to the next RE to Dresden which took a bit longer and ended up being rather crowded. As we changed, a German man joked to us "Welcome to Deutsche Bahn", alluding to the fact that British people tend to have a bit of a rose-tinted view of DB's quality and reliability. When we got to Dresden there were no trains running to Prague due reportedly to overhead line damage, so I hastily booked Flixbus tickets on my mobile. Although we got on the bus in time, I had a bit of trouble finding the stop outside the station. The bus was fast and comfortable, although there was a brief flare-up of aggro on the approach to Prague after a foul-tempered old man was upbraided by the co-driver after the detector caught him smoking in the toilet.
We stayed in Prague at the Hotel Adler which my father had found online and had very good reviews. We found it in general excellent, although the cheapest rooms that we got had some issues due to being in the former attic of the building. My father's bed was directly underneath the slope of the gable, so there wasn't much headroom, and there was a step down from the doorway of my room into the room itself, which I was constantly afraid of tripping over in the night, although as it was I didn't. Most of our meals were at a restaurant close to the hotel, the Pizzeria Kmotra Kavarna. A wide range of pizzas but also pasta and a few Czech dishes, all very good. The restaurant is unusual as there's a relatively small ground-floor dining room but an enormous cellar underneath, which must extend other neighbouring buildings in the street. I also enjoyed the Cafe Louvre, although my father was unhappy about having dumplings as accompaniment.
In Prague we saw all the usual sights. I'm more fond of museums than my father so went to the Science Museum, the Prague City Transport Museum, and the Trade Fair Palace Museum (19th and 20th century art). Warning about the transport museum - when we arrived I was scared for a few minutes that it was closed, as the entrance to the museum is an unmarked metal door which I finally decided to try and turned out to be unlocked.
Prague public transport is excellent, we used trams all the time and my father could travel entirely free due to his age, regardless of being a tourist. Unfortunately he tripped over and fell while trying to get into one of the old Tatra trams with high floors, although the only injury was to his sense of dignity.
We travelled from Prague to Bamberg by train although again this went wrong. Our train from Dresden to Erfurt was delayed, and we missed our connection in Erfurt, having as a result to go by two regional trains with a lengthy gap in between at Coburg (yes, as in Prince Albert). Next time I will definitely try to remember to add more time to short connections when booking at bahn.com