Vienna Travel Forum

Hello all, I will be traveling in some countries of Central and I want your help to know if you can write me some options to travel between Strasbourg - Vienna - Budapest - Prague - Berlin. Is it possible to do everything by train? Or by bus? Is there any kind of "pass" that I can buy for all the trips? Does it have buses between these cities everyday?
My plan is:

Strasbourg 4 days
Viene 5 days
Budapeste 4 days
Prague 3 days

in the 5th day travel between Strasbourg - Vienna
in the 10th day travel between Vienna - Budapeste
in the 14th day travel between Budapeste and Prague
in the 17th day travel between Prague and Berlin

I do not like to travel during the night or arrive late night in the cities, but if necessary it would be ok.
Thanks a lot!

You are covering a wide area with your itinerary but it certainly can be done comfortably by train. Whether a Pass or point to point would be best for you would depend on your doing a price check for yourself. I don't really feel you would benefit from a Rail Pass as you are not really doing many trips, but the ones you are doing are quite substantial in terms of duration and so if you were hoping to travel on "fast trains", you would then have to pay some pretty hefty (in some cases) supplements on top of the original price of your pass. I would think that point to point would be the way to go, but just do the exercise pricewise and see for yourself.
Now down to the business of times etc:
Strasbourg - Vienna: this is a trip of about 9 and a half hours duration with 2-3 changes to be made. For example you can leave Strasbourg at 7.50am and arrive in Vienna at 5.26pm. It's a long day and a bus would take even longer. Might I suggest you break your journey overnight in Munich. You could get a train from Strasbourg at 9.45 am (TGV) to Stuttgart where you would change to the ICE and arrive in Munich at 3.16pm. This would take four hours off your journey and give you time to have a wander around Munich which is a fantastic city and easily seen by foot. Also, there are many hotels clustered around the Munich Hbf Train Station and so the stopover could be done very conveniently. To do this of course, would mean cutting a day off one of your other destinations and I would suggest that you could really see Vienna very well in four days rather than the five you have already planned and you get a wonderful bonus of visiting Muncih as well. Next morning, you can get a EuroCity to Vienna departing at 9.27am and arriving in Vienna at 1.38pm. Just a suggestion.
Vienna to Budapest is pretty hassle free on the train, it's takes a little over three hours and there are no changes.
Budapest to Prague can be done in 7 hours with no changes and Prague to Berlin is about four and a half hours with no changes. Trains leave Prague for Berlin at two hourly intervals.
To get all the fares, you will need to get onto the websites for each particular country's rail system. This is not an area that I negotiate very well, so I will leave it up to our many experts to fill you in there if you can't find the sites yourself.
You are going to have a wonderful trip. Bon voyage!

Thanks a lot... really appreciate your help.
I want to ask one more question: where can I book the trains? Do I have to check only in one site? Or is there any specific site for each country? Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, etc.?
If I do not buy a europass ticket I am also considering a bus from Strasbourg to Vienna, like a night bus... that leaves on 9pm arriving 7:30 of the following day. Are the buses confortable in Europe? Just as a reference, actually I am from Brazil... and I've traveling around South and North America... if the buses are the same it's ok.

There is no need to book the trains before you leave Brazil. When you arrive in Strasbourg is plenty of time to book the trains and you can do it all in Strasbourg in one hit. Remember that, not only do you have to buy a ticket but you must reserve a seat as well or you could end up standing for parts of your journeys. TGV and ICE and other such "fast trains" insist on seat reservations when you buy your tickets but some of the other less expensive trains don't, so please be careful to ask if you need to reserve a seat. I always think that it is best to pay the little extra to reserve as there is nothing worse than finding a seat on a train only to be told two or three stations down the track that you are sitting in someone's seat. I have never travelled by bus in Europe though I have seen plenty of them and they seem to be very modern in most cases. I don't know where to book for those however, but I'm sure that if you put "European Bus timetables and fares" into your search engine, you will soon find out all you need to know.

Normally is it not common to take long distance bus in Europe. For your journey train is better. On all your trips there are direct trains.

Between Strasbourg and Wien there is a night train.

Between Wien and Budapest there are everal trains a day, it takes about three hours.

Between Budapest and Praha there are three trains at day and one night train.

Between Praha and Berlin there are trains every two hours.

You can check timetables on www.bahn.de

I think if you only travel the indicated routes it is better to buy normal tickets prior to departure, no pass.

No reservation is required for the trains you will take. Normally you should find a place easily. For the night train I recommand a sleeper or couchette place. But this should also be available spontaneously.

Bom viagem!