How to get from Prague to Dresden via train
 

I would like to travel from Prague to Dresden by train. I know there is a special train station in Prague to catch a train to Dresden. What is the NAME of the station, and most importantly, WHERE in the city is it located???

Cheers,
John G.

Hi TG,

Go to http://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/en
for schedules from Praha Holesovice to Dresden.

There is a good map at http://mapy.atlas.cz/aquariusnet/frm_uvod.asp

That isn't the case that there is a a special train station for trains to Dresden. There are a lot of trains to Dresden from Prague and they leave from both main train stations -- Holesevice in the north across the river, and the main station in center city, Hlavni Nadrazi. Schedules may change when you are going, but right now, Hl Nad has the morning runs and the ones from Holesovice are late afternoon/evening runs. I think you would want the main station, therefore.

There is an EC 174 train at 9:08-11:52 and EC 1178 at 7:08-9:52 am from Hl. Nad. Those would be best for getting there early, the next one is at 1:08 pm.

Both stations have metro stops so are easy to get to. Holesovice is the last stop on the C line (two past FLorenc) and the main train station is one stop past Florenc in the other direction.

Thanks, Christina. My hotel, Esplanade, is right across the street from H. Nadrazi. How convenient!!

Does anyone have any idea of what a round-trip ticket would cost??

Thanks again,
John G.

Topping.

The German Railways charge you 50 Euro, but if you buy the tickets in Prague it should be considerably cheaper. I think not more than 30 USD.

By the way, Christina, are you sure about the railway stations? The website of the German Railways always lists Holesovice as the name of the station in Prague. But I guess these trains are running Budapest (or Vienna) - Prague - Dresden, so they should also stop at Hlavni Nadrazi.

Hi ingo,

You are correct. The German Rail site shows that the train from Vienna stops at HL. N. 6 min before arriving at Holesovice.

well, I don't know about all of this, but I was using the Czech Railways web site itself, not the German one. I thought that would be best for Czech train schedules and Czech railways. I think the German one could be good for return trips. Maybe only return trains go to Holesevice.

The Czech rail site is www.cd.cz
I think parts of it are in English, but I know a little Czech so use the Czech section.

some key words are:
odkud=from
kam=to
pres=via
odjezdj=departure (for time)
prijezd=arrival (used for times)

vice=more
vyhledat=look up

well, that's enough of that, the search box is on the right side

In any case, as a check, I just looked for schedules on Raileurope and they list trains from both stations, so that seems to verify it.

I guess it sounds like the trains from the main station stop a few minutes later at Holesevice, and I didn't see that because on the Czech site you see the station the train first departs from, not all the stops on the route (at least I didn't look at the detailed itinerary). The trains in the pm do start at Holesevice going to Dresden, it appears.

Thanks for all the info. I will certainly check out the train schedules once I get to Prague. All I have to do is walk across the street from my hotel, so I should be able to get myself to Dresden quite easily.

I took the train from Prague to Berlin in Oct.2003. This train stops in Dresden. I got round trip tickets. I got my tickets through Cedok. I would recommend Cedok over getting tickets through the train station. It cost me 2928 ck for tickets roundtrip and reservations. I ask for a window seat, but it was already reserved. The train had the 6 person compartment. When the train took off there was only me and an older German lady. She only spoke a little English and I only spoke a little German, but we were able to communicate ok. The train follows along a river with mountains on both sides. It was one of the best train rides that I had taken as far as scenery. The leaves were changing colors which made it even more scenic. I find out that there is a rock wall on the window side. You can not see anything. You want to get a seat next to the aisle. The German lady had taken the trip before and she was able to point out the highlights of the trip. There were a lot of very scenic little towns across the river, but there were no towns of any size until we got to Dresden. Most of the people on the train got off at Dresden and a new bunch got on for Berlin. I left the Prague hl.n. station at 8:55 and got to Berlin Zoo. Garten at 14:31. The train arrived at Dresden at 12:03. This was the EC174 train. The next stop from Prague hl.n. is the Holesovice station. I like the hl.n. station better than the Holesovice station. The Holesovice station is too far out of the town center. Coming back I took the EC175 train from Berlin Zoo. Garten that left at 13:26 and arrived at Prague hl.n. 19:00. It stopped in Dresden at 15:45. It was dark by the time that we got back to Prague, but the sunset on the trees gave me a different view of the scenery. Again most of the people got off at Dresden. Again the window seat has the stone wall and no scenery. There were 2 older German ladies from Dresden to Prague in my compartment. They did not understand English and we could not communicate very well. I wish that I had had a German phrase book. The scenery from Dresden to Berlin was only average. After we left Dresden to Prague, the conductor came around and removed all the reservation cards from the compartments. I would highly recommend this train trip.

What do you mean there is a "wall" obstructing the view from the train?? This wall is from Prague all the way to Dresden??? That is a very long wall.

I don't know about the wall, although maybe there is a wall in a lot of parts and that's what Denis meant. You can't usually see very well from aisle seats in 6 seat compartments, though, so I don't know.

I do agree that getting tickets and information at Cedok might be better than the train station. Sometimes the lines at the windows are very long in there and the general train schedules on boards in the station (like is usual in Europe) is not that easy to figure out. The schedules aren't listed by city or something logical, as I recall, maybe just by train number, so you have to really look all over the board for a long time to find trains to a particular place if you don't know the train number you want.

The guy at the window speaks some English and I know a little Czech so we managed, but it wasn't that easy to get complete information--I already knew the exact train and times I wanted. The lines were really long for that, also. I think Cedok's main office is Na Prikope 18 where they speak fluent English. There is also an office at Rytirska 16.

Thank you again, Christina. Na Prikope is not far from my hotel.

What I mean by a wall is that the train goes through a river valley with the mountains coming up next to the river. They have cut out a path for the train on the side of the mountain with the rocks going straight up. If you want to see the side of the mountain and a lot of rock, then get the window seat. If you are going to take pictures, then you will probably be in the aisle most of the time. If you have the aisle seat, you won't be bothering other people in your compartment when you get up to take pictures or look at the scenery. Hope you have a nice trip.

I had also heard there was a bus you can take from Prague to Dresden - takes about an hour- anyone know anything about that? We are going to Prague in May with our grown kids - would also like to hear any recommendations that the 20-something group would enjoy...
Thanks.

Sure, there are also buses. But these take yet longer than the trains and are in no case cheaper. Whoever told you these take one hour was wrong. You cannot drive in 1 hour by private car!

Stick with the trains. Even if you are in Prague first, you can get the cheap Czech fares.