Pls review my itinerary for critique

Old May 21st, 2014, 03:13 PM
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Pls review my itinerary for critique

Hi all!! My husband and I are travellng to Europe. We are in our 30s and would do most our travelling via trains. Our interests are experiencing different cultures, their food and their way of life. We like to see major attractions in a city ( usually by taking a city tour), sampling local food and specialities and to explore the city and get a feel of the place by alot of walking.... We are not into night life and we are not into art mueseums. Our planned itinerary is as follows.

june
3 arrive amsterdam in the afternoon by air
4 Amsterdam
5 Amsterdam (Day trip to ????? )
6 Spend entire day in Amsterdam and take evening train to Bruges.
7 Bruges
8 Bruges ( Day trip to ??? )
9 Taking morning train to Brussels, spend the day in brussels and take overnight sleeper train to prague.
10 Prague
11 Prague (take the overnight sleeper train to Budapest)
12 Budapest
13 Budapest
14 Early morning Train to Vienna
15 Vienna
16 Early morning train to Salzburg.
17 Salzburg.
18 Train to Munich
19 Munich
20 Munich.
21 Fly back

I'd love to have suggestions from the seasoned travellers. Is this itinerary possible in such time or is it too little time being spent in each area. And what are the day trips i should be taking.. Thank you in advance.
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Old May 21st, 2014, 04:29 PM
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Too many stops in too little time. You are going all the way to Prague for just 1.5 days, have just 1.5 to Vienna. If it were me I would go to 2 fewer places and see more of each one.
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Old May 21st, 2014, 04:52 PM
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I don't see a sleeper from Brussels to Prague. The trains take 17 to 18 hours with a minimum of 3 changes.

Your itinerary is possible but not one I'd do as there is too much moving around. Of the Prague, Budapest, and Vienna trio decide on two of them and give yourself a bit more time in each.
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Old May 21st, 2014, 05:13 PM
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You could try flying from Brussels to Prague. There may be seasonal direct flights.

For the day trip from Bruges, you could visit the nice town of Ghent.
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Old May 21st, 2014, 06:19 PM
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I don't think you would want to take too many day trips from Amsterdam or Bruges (although from Bruges you could easily get to Ieper or Gent) - there is enough to see in those cities to fill up a couple of days. Depends on the pace you like to keep.

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Old May 21st, 2014, 07:28 PM
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adrienne from what i checked at seat61.com :

Brussels to Prague from €62...

Option 1, by sleeper train. This is the time-effective option!

Step 1, take the 18:25 high-speed ICE train from Brussels to Cologne, from €19 booked at www.b-europe.com. You print your own ticket.

Step 2, then take the excellent City Night Line sleeper train from Cologne to Prague, leaving Cologne at 22:28 and arriving Prague at 09:26 next morning.
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Old May 21st, 2014, 07:34 PM
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I was actually planning to take this train to save time. I checked there was no direct flight, so with all the layovers it wastes a whole day if i go by air. DO u think its still a bad option to take the sleeper train. If not what route should i take. These are the places i wish to visit Amsterdam, Bruges, Prague, Budapest, Vienna, Salzburg, Munich.

Maybe i should visit munich as a day trip from salzburg??? The Bavarian castles can also be done from Salzburg so no need to relocate to Munich?????
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Old May 21st, 2014, 07:47 PM
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There are cheap direct flights from Brussels Charleroi (airport code CRL) to Budapest, if you can re-arrange your itinerary a little. I've not flown out of this airport and see it is a ways out of the center of Brussels. You can still reach it by train/bus Still might be faster than an overnight train.
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Old May 21st, 2014, 11:28 PM
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Ah...it's the sleeper from Cologne, not from Brussels. That's quite different.

I think you mean there are no non-stop flights from Brussels to Prague - different from direct flights.
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Old May 21st, 2014, 11:35 PM
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Since you want to visit Munich then you should stay there and not spend 4+ hours going back and forth from Salzburg each day.
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Old May 22nd, 2014, 04:36 AM
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Thanks for correcting me adrienne... that is what i meant, there are no non stop flights to Prague.
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Old May 22nd, 2014, 04:46 AM
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andrew can u give me a link to where i can find such a flight... my search on expedia didnt give me any such results.
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Old May 22nd, 2014, 05:00 AM
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Would it help things at all to go from Brussels to Munich, Salzburg, Vienna, Budapest, and fly home from Prague? The cities you want to see are not so easily connected. It would certainly be easier if you skipped Prague this time or if you wanted to include Berlin rather than Budapest. Or, what about Munich, Prague, Budapest, Vienna, skip Salzburg. Looks like a lot of travel time versus sight seeing time getting to Prague.
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Old May 22nd, 2014, 05:23 AM
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Sassafras are 2 full days in Prague not enough for sightseeing? The reason i am taking a sleeper train directly to Prague is because i dont want to spend half a day travelling to Munich and then after doing Munich i spend anther half day travelling to prague. By going to prague directly via sleeper i sleep in Cologne and wake up next morning in Prague. Same reason i take sleeper from Prague to Budapest is to save travelling time in the day. Is it even making sense??? Maybe i can leave Munich out for this time and end my trip at Salzburg. Will still have to take the flight back from Munich though.
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Old May 22nd, 2014, 07:42 AM
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I used Kayak.com . Originating airport is CRL, destination is BUD . These are low-cost carriers like RyanAir and Whiz Air. Personally, I'd avoid RyanAir due to their reputation for extreme customer non-service. I haven't heard much about Whiz Air.
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Old May 22nd, 2014, 07:56 AM
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Both Brussels Airlines and Czech Airlines have non-stop flights to Prague. Takes 1hr 25min.
See www.ebookers.com
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Old May 22nd, 2014, 07:58 AM
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I meant to say ... have non-stop flights from Brussels (BRU) to Prague
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Old May 22nd, 2014, 08:48 AM
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Yes - direct flights for $405 USD per person from BRU-PRG. From CRL-BUD, they are about $83 USD per person.
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Old May 22nd, 2014, 10:12 AM
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Budapest isn't Prague.
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Old May 22nd, 2014, 11:58 AM
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Have you been on overnight trains before? I ask because, while I think they can be fun and work in certain situations, I found it hard to actually sleep with the noise and movement, so wouldn't want to do that too many times on a trip.

I also would cut at least 2 cities, and put an extra day each on the ones remaining on your itinerary (there's too many stops in too short a time the way you have it now, in my opinion).
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