Bloke

When traveling by train in Central Europe (i.e. Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Austria) can you generally store luggage at train stations? For example, if travelling from one city to another, and you make a stop in a town for a few hours for a tour or visit, are there normally facilities or lockers for storing bigger suitcases?

Andrew

Yes, generally, most of the larger train stations either have luggage lockers or a manned luggage storage place. But not every station does. Check ahead of time to make sure a specific train station you will stop at does indeed have lockers or a place to store luggage.

unclegus

I can only speak for the Czech republic but most trains stations in the larger towns and all the cities will have somewhere to leave your luggage either locker or a left luggage place (Prague has both) and the prices are pretty cheap compared to what I would have to pay in the UK.

Donna_Demaree

Main train station in Budapest also has cheap lockers - to the right of the front main entrance..

Bloke

Thank you. The places I would be interested in would likely be in smaller towns, between big cities.

Bloke

Also, how would you check in advance to see if one is available? By phone? By email? On the internet?

Andrew

If I wonder about a train station having lockers, I just google the name of the specific train station and try to find an information page on it - or google for "(name of town) train station lockers" and look for answers from other people who have asked the same question. Chances are, you are not the first person to wonder if some town you plan to visit has luggage lockers at their train station.

Sometimes you can be creative with storing your luggage. When I was going to do a hike in the Mosel Valley in Germany a couple of weeks ago, I unexpectedly decided to do the hike before I got to my hotel (another few towns away on the train) to save time. I already knew that the tiny train station did not have luggage storage. I had read in Rick Steves that a certain hotel in the town would store your luggage for you (for free), but they were not open for some reason. So I found a restaurant that was open on a Sunday afternoon, and they stored it for me for a few hours. They asked me for nothing in return - had I had time I would have eaten dinner there but instead I just gave them a few euros as a tip.

Man_in_seat_61

This may help:

http://www.seat61.com/luggage-lockers-at-stations.htm

There's almost always lockers available at any given station (a generalisation, I know, but usually true).

Emailing the station to ask if there's a locker free would be a bit like emailing your local supermarket before you left the house to ask if there were any packets of Kelloggs cornflakes 500g packets on the shelves. You just go there and see! ;0)

PalenQ

For all the stations the average tourist will go to there will be IME luggage lockers and also many times manually staffed left-luggage depots - lockers charge obviously by the locker and there are often 2 or 3 sizes with varying charges but the manual places charge by the bag usually for each 24 hour period.

Period of lockers vary from 24 hrs to 72 hours usually but once you open the locker you have to pay to re-shut it.

For lots about trains in Eastern Europe check these superb IMO sites: www.seat61.com - Man in Seat 61's commercial site and www.budgeteuropetravel.com and www.ricksteves.com. If traveling on more than a few trains and you wish full flexibility check out the Eastern European Railpass that lets you hop at will on just about any train in Austria, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia.

PalenQ

Most lockers still work on coins IME - and if you do not have the right change station store keepers IME are loathe to give away any of their change - so the agony of defeat is when you find one vacant locker (lockers could always be full IME - not usually though) and you do not have the right change - especially bad if traveling solo like I do and others are waiting for a locker as well.

unclegus

yeah the old ,not enough coin problem, though in Prague main train station (which I use often) there is a machine that gives change but largest note it takes is 200kc. I sometimes just go in there to get some small change.

PalenQ

Folks always ask about the safety of lockers - IME of using zillions everywhere in Europe I have never had my locker opened (TMK) but also would never leave anything really valuable in them - but generally they seem very secure - especially now with security cameras everywhere.

Bloke

Thank you all for the great advice.