Train to Prague?

21yrold

Afternoon!

My mate has his stag do 3rd of May next year for the weekend.

I know you cant book trains yet and I've done a bit of research but just wondered if anyone knew or has done trains in Europe?


Most people will fly there but i want to explore Europe a bit so my and my friend were thinking of getting the train/sleeper train?

We would have to get there on the Friday so either cologne or Amsterdam seem to me be the best places to go to for a night out and then get the train to Prague from either of those?


Does anyone know of a easy way to sort the trains ie decent website or just some advice in general?

Alan_Bowen

The best site for everything train related is www.seat61.com. The guy behind it is a train expert, he can show you routes, times and costs and even pictures of the trains!

claire16c

you could always fly to one place, and then get trains from there?

joerugby

"Travel from Cologne to Prague by City Night Sleeper train leaving Cologne daily at 22:28 and arriving in Prague's central Hlavni station at 09:26 next morning."

This looks like fun

http://www.seat61.com/Czech.htm#Prague

21yrold

Thanks guys!!

It works out about the same as the plane, but alot more fun haha

GlennTheBaker

I've travelled to Prague by train from Berlin and it was really nice and relaxing.

callum9999

If you want to get the sleeper from Cologne, I'd recommend a Deutsche Bahn ticket from London to Cologne. If you book it as soon as it becomes available, it should be about £38 (including the Eurostar from London), and you can have 2 stop overs along the way for up to 48 hours each.

I've recently paid £38 for a ticket from Munich to Frankfurt (overnight stopover), Frankfurt to Liege (overnight stopover) and then Liege to London.

21yrold

callum9999 wrote: »

If you want to get the sleeper from Cologne, I'd recommend a Deutsche Bahn ticket from London to Cologne. If you book it as soon as it becomes available, it should be about £38 (including the Eurostar from London), and you can have 2 stop overs along the way for up to 48 hours each.

I've recently paid £38 for a ticket from Munich to Frankfurt (overnight stopover), Frankfurt to Liege (overnight stopover) and then Liege to London.

That's awesome! When would they go on sale for May 2013?

callum9999

21yrold wrote: »

That's awesome! When would they go on sale for May 2013?

They normally go on sale around 90 days before you travel and come in varying price ranges - the cheapest being €49. When I read about it most places said you needed to book as soon as it's released to get the fare, but I booked one for next week only a fortnight ago (though I'd still recommend you do it ASAP!).

If you just want a ticket straight from London to Cologne then it will be relatively simple to find. But it can get a bit fiddly if you are trying to arrange stopovers. It only works on the "ICE" trains (plus Eurostar obviously) but after around 10 minutes of fiddling, I had managed to organise the journey I mentioned above using the "advanced options" section and putting in random stopover locations/durations.

The tickets are called the "London Spezial" if you want to read about it before you do it.

GlennTheBaker

I echo what callum9999 says above. When we went, we booked a ticket from London to Berlin, stayed in Berlin overnight and then travelled on a separate (and very cheap) ticket from Berlin to Prague, doing the trip in reverse several days later. I suppose it may have been possible to get the whole lot on one ticket if I'd have tried hard enough.

We booked on www.bahn.co.uk. I think the London-Berlin-London ticket could be printed out but the Berlin-Prague-Berlin ticket had to be sent by post for a small fee. The best thing is, the tickets could be cancelled right up to the day before travel with just a €15 charge.

Again, as callum9999 says, you may have play around with dates and options to get exactly what you want but it is worth it.

Just one other thing, I can get you into a really nice central hotel for €75 per night if you don't have anything sorted. PM me and I'll tell you exactly how to go about it as it involves using a large hotel chain's 'Best Rate Guarantee'.

21yrold

callum9999 wrote: »

They normally go on sale around 90 days before you travel and come in varying price ranges - the cheapest being €49. When I read about it most places said you needed to book as soon as it's released to get the fare, but I booked one for next week only a fortnight ago (though I'd still recommend you do it ASAP!).

If you just want a ticket straight from London to Cologne then it will be relatively simple to find. But it can get a bit fiddly if you are trying to arrange stopovers. It only works on the "ICE" trains (plus Eurostar obviously) but after around 10 minutes of fiddling, I had managed to organise the journey I mentioned above using the "advanced options" section and putting in random stopover locations/durations.

The tickets are called the "London Spezial" if you want to read about it before you do it.

I've found the London special you talked of on the site, so i've saved it and will set a reminder for a few month to check again!

I will try and do the stop off thing, i hope it works ok but if not we will just have another day in prague or something hehe

So are the sleep over trains pretty good?