Salzburg Travel Forum

We are heading to Germany, Austria, and Prague for our honeymoon in December.

Most of the trip will be by rental car. That is until we get to Salzburg where we will drop it off and take another form of transport into Prague.

We are having a hard time figuring out Rail schedules, where they go, prices, etc.

Does anyone have any info on getting from Salzburg to Prague by rail or other alternatives? We are hoping to leave in the morning around 8 or 9 am, so we can get to our hotel in Prague at a reasonable time.

The easiest site to use for all European train timetables is:


http://www.bahn.de/p/view/international/englisch/international_guests.shtml

It won't give you fares unless the journey starts in Germany, but it will give you times and route details in English.

Journey time is 6.5+ hours. There are no direct trains, seemingly, but at least one has only one change (otherwise it is 2, 3 or even 4). However, this does not arrive in Prague until 21:55, so you will have to be prepared to change trains more than once.

The Austrian railway site on:

http://www.oebb.at/en/

will give you times & fares etc in English.

It would be a good idea to buy your tickets a day or so beforehand.

An interesting detail: it does not matter, do you start in Salzburg, Munich, Nuremberg or anywhere in Bavaria. I know, Salzburg is Austria (geographically), but legally due an obscure agreement of 19th Century, it also belongs (from railway logistics point of view) to Bavaria.

That means.... you can use the (in)famous Bayern-Böhmen ticket between Salzburg and Plzen (Pilzen)!
It also means, you actually WON'T have any reservations because the Salzburg-Munich and Munich-Praha trains where this ticket is valid (i.e. ALL Munich-Praha trains!) do not have reservation.

The logistics:

- you go to Salzburg station and ask for Bayern-Böhmen ticket for two.

http://www.bahn.de/regio_ostbayern/view/guenstig_nach_tschechien.shtml

It will cost you a proud 32 Euro total (i.e. 16 Euro/person) from the automat or if you are confused with the automat, the human teller will sell it to you for 34 Euro (i.e. 17 Euro/person).

With that ticket you have ONE DAY to reach Plzen (Pilzen) in Czech Republic. Note, that all Munich-Praha trains go through Plzen. You won't need to de-train, just to upgrade your ticket to extra Plzen-Praha on board - will tell you how.

So, again, you go first to Munich. Note, that the earliest time you can use the Bayern-Böhmen Ticket is 9 AM in the morning and you cannot use IC, EC, ICE, D trains, only RB at best. (NOT a big loss in that case!!!)

In Munich notice, that all Munich-Praha trains begin their life in Germany as RB trains, so you can use any. As previous poster said, make yourself familiar with the schedules - there are many variations.

Important: don't forget to buy some Czech Crowns in Salzburg. You can buy them at any major bank, you will need ca. 300 (or ca. 10 Euro). The regular Plzen-Praha ticket is 109 Crown. On-board the upgrade is slightly more, i.e. 139 Crown (ca. 5 Euro/person). But for two, the second person will have 25% discount, so your total will be for the upgrade from the Czech conductor: 0.75*109+109+30+30 = ca. 251 Crown or ca. 9 Euro for two people.

That means, the Salzburg-Praha total price is barely over 20 Euro/person if traveling as a couple.

A simple schedule:

- depart Salzburg at 10:11, arrive Munich at 12:17, train number RB 30020
- depart Munich at 12:44, arrive Schwandorf at 14:46, train number ALX86008
- depart Schwandorf at 14:56, arrive Praha at 18:37, train number RE 453

Notice, that:
- RE 453 will wait for ALX86008
- this schedule is valid till begin of December, after that the 2009 schedule will go in force (I think, Dec. 11?) and the time could slightly change - but basically expect similar things.

Prices of course could go somewhat up as usual.

I am so glad you're back, Gyuri! :-)

Yes, I am back and closer to you than ever!
But the madness of the move is apparently not over, we have every day an other surprise from the moving companies. At this moment I am in BG, in the office.

I'm also going from Salzburg to Prague in Sept. On www.bahn.de I found a train leaving Salzburg at 11:10 with transfers in Landshut (9 min) and Schwandorf (10 min), arriving in Prague at 18:45 (7:35 duration). There are earlier trains but you should check the route, transfers, time between transfers, and total trip time. I found this one to be the best. You can get the Bayern Ticket for 29 euros (one ticket for 2) at the CD Travel at the Salzburg station that pays for the trip to the boarder crossing at Furth im Wald Gr. At the same time buy a ticket for the portion of the trip from Furth im Wald Gr. to Prague which is 20 euro each. You don't change trains at Furth im Wald, its just for fare purposes. The total price for 2 is 70 euro vs. the normal fare of 58.60 euros EACH. I learned this on the Prague VT forum.

I've read its easy to do this at the train station, so no need to buy tix in advance or over the internet, although I did use this site to buy tix from Vienna to Salzburg with reserved seats since we are going on a Friday early evening.

Have fun.

Buying Bayern-Böhmen ticket is a better deal because:

- it forces the Czech conductor to issue the DOMESTIC Plzen-Praha ticket versus he can argue, the Furth im Wald (Gr)-Praha is international ticket (more expensive)
- it covers the Furth im Wald- Plzen portion for the Czech domestic price

Important is NOT to buy any Czech ticket in advance in Germany. Buy it from the Czech conductor (but you will need Crowns).