Prague and Budapest
 

We have booked an 18 day trip with arrival in London and departure from Paris. We would like to include Budapest and Prague in our itinerary. We are looking for suggestions on transportation from London to Budapest and then to Prague and finally Paris. Should we look at a flight with Ryanair or take a train? Any advice re: accomodations would also be great.

I'd fly rather than take the train. If I remember correctly, the scenery is not that memorable, and time spent on the train can't be spent in your destination cities.

The Arcadia Hotel is Prague is great (click on my user id to see my report). They also have apartments in the Old Town and at the Charles Bridge.

The flight is about an hour. You have to add the security delay but on the return trip you are departing from a relatively small airport so it shouldn't be too bad. Budapest has a fairly new, modern airport which is about thirty/forty minutes from downtown.

We had a nice hotel in Prague but I wouldn't suggest it because it was too far from the Old Town and the Charles Bridge. That's where you want to be.

In Budapest we stayed at the K&K Opera. It has an excellent location and it is a very nice, comfortable hotel. It provides a wonderful breakfast and free internet access. It is also very close to the metro. We would happily return there.

A side note that may be helpful to you: in case you haven't yet been there, these two cities make a wondrerful combination with Vienna.

Have a great trip.

Easyjet do cheap flights to both Budapest and Prague from a few London Airports. You need to be careful with Ryanair and check just where the airport is as it may not be in City you want to be in but maybe near it. That is not a problem if you are aware and you then need to cost in the extra time and cost to get to where you really want to be, but that might not be too much of a problem just check out their website first.

Hi Snowflake - we are doing a similar trip over 25 days but in the end we eliminated Budapest due to time constraints. (We now have extra days in France and Prague).
But anyway, we are using Smartwings for our flight from Prague back to Paris. They also fly from Budapest to Prague and are a budget airline. They are at www.smartwings.com

Thanks for your suggestions. We have considered Vienna as well. We have decided to fly out of London and are checking for best flight times etc to decide if we will go to Prague or Budapest first. We are thinking about a stop or two in Germany if we take the train to Paris. We have been to Munich ( and loved it) so thought we would find somewhere else to stop off. Any suggestions?