Budapest Travel Forum

Advice? Pitfalls? Day train or sleeper? How long is the trip? Do the trains have food available or should one take one's own?

We're thinking about a sleeper. Has anyone done this trip in a sleeper and what was it like? Were you continually awoken by demands for passports? Was there food available?

For train times look at:

http://www.bahn.de/international/view/en/index.shtml

or the Hungarian railway website on:

http://elvira.mav-start.hu/elvira.dll/xslms/index?language=2

Journey takes 7+ hours.

For lots of useful information about travelling by train in Europe look at www.seat61.com

Yes, when we took night trains in that area in 2007, we were constantly being awakened to show passports; and it was twice per border (i.e., once going out of a country, and then a bit later, again, for going into the next country; and there are little corners of in-between countries sometimes TOO!) It was not enjoyable.

Hi,

We have done the opposite direction(prague - buda) in Feb 08.The train does have a restaurant car and it is moderately priced.Most of the long distance trains have restaurants in them.There were 2 reasons we dint book the night train - our hotel in prague was pretty cheap,so it dint make economical sense to travel at night and we were not comfortable travelling in the night,so we booked a day train,so cant help you there.It left Prague at 6AM and reached Budapest by 2:30 PM.The ticket cost only 19 euros per head.There were passport checks at the border crossings.

Happy Travels
Harsha

I've done this trip a couple of years ago on a night train. At that time, it was not really possible to get a good night's sleep because of the two border controls (including two persons checking passports and also customs officers).

But now noone would wake you up, since all border controls were abolished in December 2007. So it's a pretty good deal now to travel in a sleeper car - you save the cost of one night in a hotel and you are on the move at the same time!