Hi,

We've finally decided on our travel plans for this summer: Prague - Dresden - Berlin.

We will fly in and out of Prague, no jet lag involved (2-hours flight from Romania).

We plan to spend 11 days on this trip, visiting museums, palaces and drinking beer. Arrival in Prague is early morning, before 8am.
Departure from Prague, on the 12th day, at 11am.

We want to spend about 5-6 days in Berlin, from where we would like to take a day-trip to Schwerin and another to Potsdam.

We prefer to be in Prague the days before our departure (3 days), so maybe we shall take a train to Dresden as soon as we arrive in Prague.

We would like to spend 2 days in Dresden.

This means that upon return we shall take a non-stop train from Berlin to Prague, almost 5 hours... Is there another stopover, or how else can I break this travelling time?

I couldn't find any budget airline connecting these cities, to shorten the trip.

Any special or interesting beer places or gardens in these 3 cities?

What is a good, interesting and informative Nazi place to visit (except camps).

We would like to visit the grave, house or museum of any famous writer, philosopher or artist in these cities. We know about Franz Kafka's grave in Prague.

Do you know of anybody else?

Any tips, ideas, comments on this itinerary?

As I go on with my planning I'll come back with more questions.

Thank you.

In Prague there is an interesting monastic brewery with a restaurant. Food is good, beer is even better. The web site is www.klasterni-pivovar.cz.

Thank you very much, zorba, for your suggestion. Both my wife and I like that place and we'll visit it.

In Berlin, look for the <i>Topographie des Terror</i>.

Hi G,

&gt;I couldn't find any budget airline connecting these cities, to shorten the trip.&lt;

Did you check www.whichbudget.com?

FYI, there is no such thing as a non-stop train from Berlin to Prague. All trains stop in Dresden, and a few other stops near the German/Czech border.

If you're a music fan and are looking for a stopover, you can consider Leipzig. There are hourly trains from Berlin that take just 1hr, and same for Leipzig to Dresden, where you can connect to the Prague train quite easily.

I recommend you follow Ira's link and consider an open jaw ticket (fly into Prague and out of Berlin, for example), so you can avoid backtracking.

Michael, thank you for the Topographie des Terror. It looks interesting.

Ira, thank you for that. I checked there and couldn't find anything. There are other sites as well and I intend to check them as well.

J62, you're right, it's not a non-stop train. I meant a direct train, don't know what was on my mind when I wrote.

My flight originates in the UAE and the Bucharest - Prague leg will be included in the fare. It would be more expensive, even with a low cost flight, to go for an open jaw on that part of the trip.

hi, gabriel,

lucky you - we loved our 3 nights in Berlin 2 summers ago, and I really want to get to Dresden and Potsdam before everyone else does.

In Berlin, you can do a very nice trip on the river down to Schloss Charlottenburg which is a palace you may enjoy, and the museums were wonderful [and air-conditioned which was important in Berlin in the summer as it gets very hot.]

In Prague, we came across Dvorzak's house - can't quite remember where but it was very interesting as was the museum of hiking beneath the cafe at the top of the cable car overlooking the town.

THere is also a microbrewery on the way to the botanical gardens in Prague, which does all sorts of weird and wonderfu concoctions, including nettle beer. I wished I hadn't bothered, but DH said that his &quot;ordinary&quot; beer was very good.

regards, ann

I haven't been to Prague in more than 10 years, so sorry no advice there. But I was in Berlin last summer. We loved it. We stayed in Hotel Astoria if you are looking for an affordable yet upscale place to stay. I also did a trip report if you want to click on my name and dig for it, we had such a great time.

I second Charlottenburg Palace, it was really neat, not anything grand like Versailles or English castles, but still really interesting.

I've been to both Prague and Dresden, but not up to Berlin so can't comment on it. But I would second the idea of Leipzig if you want to break up that trip, if you don't want more time in Dresden. Of course, I don't think of five hours as really that long a trip that you need to break it up, but Leipzig is a pleasant city for a day. It has one of the nicest train stations I've seen in Europe, also. I think you could enjoy Leipzig even if you aren't a classical music fan, the historical museum (I think that's in the City Hall or old one, it's very wellknown) was quite nice, as well as some others things and just walking around.

I don't frequent beer gardens so can't comment on them, but in Prague, the cemetery and garden and general views from Vysehrad cemetery are good. Prague has several large parks, of course, that are easy to see on a map or read about. I've been to Dvorak's house and museum in Prague and it's kind of out of the way and not near mny tourist things, so I'm surprised someone could just stumble upon it, although maybe if you were staying in a hotel in that area. I had trouble finding it even when I had that as my goal (it's near IP Pavlova metro stop in Prague 2). The Smetana museum near the river is very easy to find, though, and has some things about Dvorak, as I recall. It is in a nice big &quot;mansion&quot; so to speak. Dvorak's own house was quite nice and he has a pretty garden around it, but there really wasn't that much in it that I think would be of any interest except to those really interested in him as a composer. It wasn't as good as many other composer museums I've visited (nothing much in it but some manuscripts and photos). In fact, in Prague, I think the Mozart house and museum are really more impressive and interesting (it wasn't really his, but a villa of a friend) -- Bertramka -- which isn't far from the Andel metro stop. Well, that's just my opinion, obviously.

You might be interested in my reports from separate trips:

http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34596684

http://www.fodors.com/forums/pgMessa...p;tid=34598738

Sorry, copied the wrong URL:

http://tinyurl.com/2fd9bz

Boy! What a revival for my post, after more than three weeks of deep sleep!

Now I really have to get down to work on all your suggestions.

Ann, thank you for your input.
I'm in a race against you now, to reach Dresden and Potsdam first.

I like the idea of taking the trip on the river to Schloss Charlottenburg.
I'm taking notes about the microbrewery in Prague.

StephCar, thsnk you for your tips.
I'll look for your trip report and read it.
Charlottenburg is one of our must sees.

Christina, thank you for your suggestions.
I'm taking notes about Mozart house museum and Smetana museum.

Unfortunately I don't think we want to break our trip to go to Leipzig, as we have quite a number of places to see and visit for 11 days.

Michael, now you really got me busy.

Thank you, I'll read your reports.

The Smetana museum in Prague is nice because it's right on the river, so has nice views, and there are some nice riverside cafes nearby. It's also very near Bethlehem Square, which is a nice area, and not far at all from Charles Bridge and Old Town Square.

Here is a good listing of those composer museums with addresses and links and location information, and a few other museums of interest.
http://www.discoverczech.com/prague/museums.php4

The Smetana museum had a lot of damage from those floods several years ago, being right on the river, but I am hoping is restored by now. Here's a photo of it:
http://www.praguecard.biz/attraction.php?id=522

hi, again, Gabriel,

i realised that we have kept a beer -mat from that micro-brewery - it's called &quot;pivovarsky dum&quot; - and they have a web-site too.

opposite the pub is the church where the marks made by german bullets can still be seen in the wall, and just down the road is the botanical garden. you can walk from the big square at the top of the road - prague 2.

we found the dvorzak house because my DH loves just walking around &quot;exploring&quot;. That means that we find some out of the way places, and miss the more obvious!

regards, ann

Thank you all for your inputs.
I have been doing some more research, reading reports and checking out what we want to see and do.

Now I have come down to deciding the way to visit these three cities.

I checked many budget airlines and there's no connection between Berlin and Prague.
Flying from Bucharest, I also checked budget airlines to connect Berlin or Prague with Bucharest and couldn't find any.

There's no open jaw possibility either,
so we'll fly Czech Airlines to and from Prague as initially planned.

After a two-hour flight, we shall reach Prague at 07.45 on a Monday early morning.

A train to Dresden takes around 2.5 hrs, so by the time we reached there it would already be noon, which is not that feasible.

So we stay in Prague the first day. In the evening we take a train to Dresden, stay there overnight, next day visit the art museum and other places (Zwinger closed on Tuesday, art is closed on Monday).

In the evening we'll take a train to Berlin, where we plan to stay for 5 nights. On Sunday evening we plan to leave for Dresden, visit Zwinger on Monday, then on to Prague in the evening.

Two days in Prague and the third is the departure.

Should I do it in a different way?

Which Prague Card should I buy, the one year (with less free attractions) or the 4 days (with lots of free attractions)? I tend towards the one-year card, since I'll visit Prague on a stretch of 10 days.

Is there anything that we could do different and better?

I think that your plan sounds good. The right amount of time for each city, and the train segments will not be too long. I'll look forward to your report!

There's no budget option to connect Bucharest with Berlin or Prague, but alternatively consider these options: Wizzair (connects with Dortmund, about 3 hours from Berlin), Germanwings or Blue Air(connects with Cologne, about 4.5 hours from Berlin), or SkyEurope (connects with Vienna, and might fit in somewhere).

And Wizzair Bucharest-Budapest.