Bratislava Travel Forum

Hi there,

We're looking to put together a 10 day trip (two days of travel to/from US/Europe), so we'll actually have 8 full days for these three cities. We're looking at early September or late November, depending on personal schedules.

I'm wondering if this is a positive itinerary below:

Day 1: US to Prague
Day 2: Arrive Prague, check-in, sightsee
Day 3: Sightsee Prague
Day 4: Sightsee Prague
Day 5: AM Train from Prague to Bratislava (2 hrs), check-in, sightsee
Day 6: Sightsee Bratislava
Day 7: AM Train Bratislava to Budapest (3 hrs), check-in, sightsee
Day 8: Sightsee Budapest
Day 9: Sightsee Budapest
Day 10: Budapest to US

Any and all suggestions are totally welcome as we just started looking at these cities...

DJ

1) For flights I suggest to do round-trip because you barely save anything, sometimes lose on the train tickets going one-way in that part of Europe. For instance, Budapest-Bratislava-Budapest round-trip by train is 16 Euro, one-way is over 22 Euro.

2) Keep in mind, some JAT ticket consolidators like mishatours, http://www.mishatours.com/ offer much better prices to thatpart of Europe than anything you can find on-line. Their phone number is 1-(800) 272-5811

3) mishatours is best to Budapest, not sure about Praha. We use them for Budapest and (don't be scared!) Beograd. The later airport is actually a very nice one. Both cities are very close from point of view of airplane ticket price, the train is 15 Euro one way and 26 Euro r/t between them. Use any of these which is cheaper.

4) Unless really necessary, skip Bratislava entirely. If you want to see Slovakia, go to smaller cities like Levoca, Banska Bystrica, Poprad, see the Tatry mountains. Bratislava is neat, but it's the best for buying even more train tickets. For instance, Bratislava-Vienna-Bratislava round-trip is 9.2 Euro, that includes 4 day free local transport in Vienna. Going the "other" way (Vienna-Bratislava-Vienna) is much worse deal.

5) Early September is a much better (weather!) idea.

... continuing. As said, Bratislava is neat - but Praha, Vienna, Budapest (and since I already mentioned it - Beograd) is more. Since you will cross Slovakia, one possibility is to go to Vienna. Or stay in Slovakia and look around.
Here is a good railway map of Slovakia, take a look and see, how it may fit into your plans:

http://www.bueker.net/trainspotting/map.php?file=maps/slovakia/slovakia.gif

Hint: if you see a railway having a lot of loops and tunnels, that is for a good reason and most likely it means very good scenery.

Locals can suggest maybe better things, but first what I see would be somewhat following the fat blue line north like Bratislava-Trencin-Zilina-Poprad-Spisska Nova Ves (Levoca) - Kosice - (maybe Humenne?), than go from Kosice to Budapest.

If you are less into scenery but want to see some prime medieval stuff, skip Vienna, skip Bratislava and go Budapest-Krakow-Praha-Budapest. That will cost (train tickets) a bit more but not that much more.

How and where to buy train tickets was already discussed. From July we will move to Europe (Hungary permanently + Beograd part-time) and can help if there are ticket questions. The local train tickets are a huge saving compared with how much they cost in the U.S., don't even consider to buy any "railpass".

A scary story here, a VT-er almost lost $1000 by almost buying a railpass:

http://forum.virtualtourist.com/discussion-404935-1-1-Travel-0-0-Prague-discussion.html