Flying from Prague to Budapest?
 

Has anyone ever flown (cheaply) from PRG to BUD? The train ride is 7+ hrs long and I dont know if this is the cheapest or fastest way. Are there any low fare airlines that fly between these cities? Lowest price I have seen is $375 RT...which is insane for an hour long flight.

I took the train roundtrip from Prague to Budapest last summer. It wasn't bad. I also looked around for a reasonable airfare but there were none.

If you do take the train, buy a roundtrip ticket at the train station.

I would have thought that low-cost airline SkyEurope http://www.skyeurope.com/start.php?lang=en (based in Bratislava) would have worked, but their route map is pretty screwy WRT to the two cities you're looking at.

If you have any desire to check it out, a stop in Vienna would break up tthe trip nicely.

Just checked Travelocity and I see Malev at 210, which comes to $266 including tax

A few years back I was in the same predicament plus I had my wife with me. So I found it cheaper to rent a car from Hertz and pay the dropoff charge rather than fly. Plus we got to see the Czech, Slovak, and Hungarian countryside and stop in several interesting villages along the way. Way more fun than flying.

Hmm. Seems very tough to pull renting a car off. We don;t speak the language, dont have a foreign drivers liscence and stand out as americans big time.. http://www.flyertalk.com/travel/fttr...orum/smile.gif

How long did the drive take? is it a straight shot? The main issue is that we land in PRG at 2:30 and have hotel reservations in BUD that night. I had thought that being 375 miles away and with the supposed "fast trains" that we have a 4 hr train ride max. I pricelined the hotel in budapest and obviously can't cancel it, so we have to get to BUD sometime that night.

The train links (eurorail) has very bad times as we would have to wait until 11:45 pm on saturday to take an almost 9 hour train to BUD. No thanks. Flights are $280 or so for the dates and times we need, which is a lot, but tempting given our predicament.

Oiy!

I don't speak the language or have a foreign drivers license and I have red hair. Talk about standing out! Apparently red hair is associated with vampires in Hungary. You should have seen the stares when we stopped in Gyor.

I looked up a few basic words before the trip, but never had to use them. English is fairly widely spoken and German is understood everywhere. I've driven all over the world with my California drivers license. You don't need anything special. And tourism is quite high in that area so plenty of Americans abound.

It's a fairly straight drive. If you are in a hurry, you can drive to Vienna from Prague, then take the big interstate-type road to Budapest. We left Prague around 11am and got to Pest before sunset and we made plenty of stops.

Alternatively have you looked at taking a train first to Vienna, then a train to Budapest? I've heard the train from Vienna is good. You might have to take a bus from Prague to Vienna. That should just be 2 hours or so.




[This message has been edited by stimpy (edited 07-29-2003).]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by kdinino:


The train links (eurorail) has very bad times as we would have to wait until 11:45 pm on saturday to take an almost 9 hour train to BUD. No thanks.

I don't know where you get your train information, but there is a train every day (including Saturdays) from Prague to Budapest every two hours from 8:58 a.m. on, arriving in Budapest in just under 7 hours. The last train leaves just before 4:00 p.m., and all have dining cars. There is also a night train, with sleeping cars (11:30 p.m. - 8:15 a.m.).

http://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/que...=yes&protocol=

Check out this site for your train connections. It's the German DB site but it will work for the connections you are looking at. There are no "fast" trains in CZ.. not like the ICE trains in Germany. But the fares are much lower as well. Good luck

Praha-Holesovice 30.07.03 dep 12:58 EC 171
EuroCity
Please reserve, International supplement, BordRestaurant
Pardubice hl.n. dep 14:04
Ceska Trebova dep 14:44
Brno hl.n. dep 15:49
Breclav dep 16:26
Kuty(Gr)
Kuty dep 16:48
Bratislava hl.st. dep 17:30
Nove Zamky dep 18:23
Sturovo dep 18:54
Szob(Gr)
Budapest-Nyugati pu 30.07.03 arr 19:48

Duration: 6:50; runs daily