My husband and I plan to visit Prague and Budapest this coming Fall. Can anyone recommend a tour company that specializes in Cental Europe?
Thanks, Margo

I know it may be bad form to start by querying the very premise of a poster's inquiry. But, if I may:

Unless one of you is disabled or elderly and if you are planning to visit only those 2 cities, why a tour company?

If you'd like, I can suggest exactly where you could stay, dine, roam -- as will others. Even getting from an airport or the train station to your hotel need not be a problem as both cities have reasonable pick-up services.

And you have at least 6 months for your planning.

topping

If you are looking for packages to Central Europe (as opposed to guided tours) I can recommend the vacation company of Austrian Airlines. I flew to Prague last March for $399 - which included hotel stay, breakfast, airfare, transportation, and some entry to museums/touristy stuff.

They were really good deals and I would definately encourage you to look into it.

Here is their website:
http://www.imtc-travel.com/

Even if you are elderly, planning a trip to these two wonderful cities is not a problem. We did it year before last (with a couple of days in Vienna in between) and got along fine. I too would be happy to provide further help regarding hotels, things to see and do, transport between cities, etc. based on our planning and actual experience. Let me know either on this thread, or feel free to email me if I can help further.

We used http://www.laifertours.com/2004/cover4plus.php
with good results. They provide packages not guided tours and are experts for central Europe. We had a great time without a hitch in Prague, Vienna, and Budapest and found that they were flexible in accepting our input in helping select hotels that are centrally and conveniently located.

We sometimes use in-country travel agents or companies that specialize in certain areas to help with or supplement our travel arrangements although we usually prefer to do it ourselves.

Giovanna, I'd like to hear more about your trip and how you traveled between cities. We're considering the same 3 cities...

We flew into Prague, took the train to Vienna and then to Budapest, and flew home from there. I worked out our train schedules before we left, printed them up and took them with me. Thanks to Ben Haines, who gave me wonderful advice about sites to choose train schedules, etc., we had no problems at all getting from one country to another.

Rather than reserving our train tickets ahead of time, while in Prague we went to the Cedok Travel Agency, showed the English-speaking agent the train schedules I had chosen and within half an hour we had our tickets for both trips.

What else would you like to know? It was one of our favorite European trips and I would be happy to share whatever information I might have that would help you plan your trip.

If you wish email me and I will try to help by emailing you direct.