Buying a train ticket in Prague, language
 

I need to buy a train ticket in Prague for a night train to Krakow and I am worried that I may run into language problems. Do the agents speak English, in general? If not, where shold I buy my ticket from? I need to be certain I am going to Krakow as I meet my travel companion there and not somewhere else. I know Krakow is spelt two ways, which is correct or which is the spelling that will be understood in Prague? Krakow? Cracow?


Any help will be appreciated.

Thank you

You could go to a free language translation website and type in the information that you want and translate it to Czech. Print it out and take it with you.

While I didn't need to buy a train ticket in Prague, I spent 4 days in and outside the city and had no problem finding English speakers everywhere, including my car rental pickup and dropoff and the public buses. I don't think you'll have a problem.

M

If you're taking an overnight train you may not want to wait until you get there to get a ticket. Generally train travel is not a problem to arrange on the spot - but some trains do sell out - depdning on waht type of accommodation you want - so I would do it in advance. Yu can easily go into a travel agency in Prague and have them explain all the options if you want to wait until you arrive.

I've never had any problems in Prague speaking only English - but then I've never tried to discuss multiple options/costs for different types of sleepers.

I bought a ticket in Kromeriz (a small town in the Czech Rep) to go from Brno to Krakow and had no problems buying the ticket, even though the agent did not speak English. I wrote down what I wanted on a piece of paper (Brno - Krakow) with the train time (use the 24 hour clock when specifying times) and the departure date. I got the ticket I needed.

In a station as large as Prague I'm sure there will be an agent who speaks English. In the Brno station info center there was someone who spoke English.

If you're concerned about the spelling of Krakow why not use both spellings and put one in parenthesis.

I think people worry too much about international travel. I spent two weeks in small towns in the Czech Republic and didn't have a problem, even in places where people did not speak English. Don't over think these small issues.

Have you seen how many stops the night train makes? I doubt you'll get much sleep unless you're very adept at sleeping on trains. Coming into and leaving stations is what always wakes me up. Have you looked into flying?

I bought train tickets when I was in Prague and didn't really have any language problems. The customer service wasn't very smooth, but they did their job and there were no problems. I think writing things down is a good idea, just in case there is a confusion about the pronunciation.