BlindPilot,

I've travelled to all of those cities as a tourist wihin the past couple of years. Prague is a great choice and any of the other 3 (Vienna,Berlin,Amsterdam) would be a good choice as well. I wouldn't try to do more than one other city in a one-week timespan.

That said, those three cities are very different in terms of feel/atmosphere and things to do. What are your interests? Art, music, beer...? Vienna has lots of musical offerings in addition to the palaces and historical sites. Berlin has plenty of museums and historical sites plus a vibrant nightlife. Amsterdam has the VanGogh museum as well as other must-see things.

If it were me I'd lean toward Berlin or Vienna over Amsterdam as they are in closer proximity to Prague and could be reached by train without a whole day of travel - but that may not be a factor if you are routing through AMS by air. As some have mentioned here, Krakow is also another great option. Very manageable, fairly close to Prague, and still relatively inexpensive compared with the other three places. It's become a very hip destination.

Well, I did Budapest after Prague and wasn't disappointed. They are really two quite different cities and offer quite different experiences (I spent a week in each).

I don't understand this comment. I certainly didn't wear nice clothes in Vienna all the time. What did you do there?

Both the above paragraphs mirror my experiences last summer. I based my order on that is was easier for me to fly into Prague and out of Budapest, with travel between via Vienna by train. I don't feel that I would have enjoyed the trip any more/less if I had reversed the order.

My personal opinion would be Prague and Vienna. Two of my all time favorite cities. I don't think you will be disappointed.

That's interesting, fellow FTers. I don't mean to talk down Budapest, like I said, I haven't really spent much time there. Just going off other peoples' impressions.

It probably also depends on the experience a person has in each, interests, age, etc. Prague has such a great scene for young people, especially in summer. Sitting around beautiful parks drinking delicious, half-liter beer for 1.50 USD and playing frisbee or whatever. Maybe the same happens in Budapest, I just don't know.

It would definitely be hard to imagine that Budapest doesn't have better food, I'll say that.

Depends what you want to do. I like to explore things by region, like many here, so I would do PRG, VIE, BUD, with PRG being last on the itinerary.
If you want to see Germany after VIE, do Dresden. It's only 2 hrs away and trains are frequent. Enough to see there for a day.

Other day trips from PRG:
Pilsen -- if you're a beer officianado. Enough for half a day of sightseeing. Good stop on the way from Plsen.
Karlstein and Krivoklat castle -- a single day trip. I enjoyed the second more than the first.
Brno is good for a half day stopover between PRG and VIE/BTS/BUD.
Bratislava (BTS) -- worth a half-day trip if you're in VIE for comparison purposes and now-euro-priced-beer.
Cesky Krumlov -- worth an overnight stay. A bit difficult to get there from PRG by train (takes awhile). See if buses are faster. Had a really good experience here -- highly recommend this town.
Ceske Budejovice -- good for an hour stop between trains/buses to see the Koh-i-noor factory (inventors of modern pencils) and to see where The Good Soldier Švejk spent some of his time.

The problem I found in BUD, is that most restaurants are oriented at tourists, not locals. The best food stalls I found were at the main market, upstairs. Commies closed down restaurants and all the new ones are oriented at tourists. I also had trouble finding cafeteria-type establishments, which I usually like for quick lunches. These are common in most of eastern europe and have good local food. In PRG, all the pubs stayed open, even though many (all?) were nationalized and everything has been re-privatized.