We are planning a trip to Prague, Vienna and Budapest in October. There will be four nights in each city. I just booked the transatlantic flights from Toronto to London and we will use Easyjet or the like to conect Prague and Budapest to London. Don't worry there will be a cushion of a couple of nights in London between flights.

Is there anything to choose between starting in Prague on October 10 and Budapest on October 18 or the reverse. Vienna is, naturally, in the middle chronologically to shorten the train trips. I am thinking of such things as crowds, weather and "travel logic", by which I mean it is better to see this before that. Don't be concerned with flight options, I will figure those out. Apart from Krakow this is our first trip to this part of Europe.

We just did almost the same trip (adding Bratislava and Cesky Krumlov), and we flew to Budapest first.I would vote Budapest first because Prague is such a hard city to follow. Budapest is much more "real", while Prague is just magical.

Last year we did Prague, Vienna and Budapest in that order. Next time I'll go to Budapest first, so I can lounge around at a bath and recover from the flight.

I would tend to agree with Kjenn. After Prague, Budapest may seem very plain.

1) Vienna..."grand"

2) Budapest...down to earth and perhaps a place to decompress after the (perhaps) "formality" (or even rigidity and yes, elegance) of Vienna

Prague...the Middle Ages just came back to life!!! Magic in more ways than one.

1) Vienna..."grand"...."elegant". ...perhaps even a bit "rigid"

2)
Budapest..back down to Earth but with a grandeur and presence all its own; a place to decompress after all that elegance and rigidity of Vienna

3)

Prague...the Middle Ages just came back to life and yes, magical in many ways!

Thank you for your thoughts. Now to book the flights.

No-one has mentioned weather as a factor.

I would tend to start in the northernmost city and work my way south.

But the weather is still a crapshoot in that season.

Tedgale, that was one of the things I had thought of. On the other hand perhaps there will be fewer visitors in Prague a little later.

It is moot now as I have just booked the flight from Prague to Gatwick so we are set with Budapest first. The London to Budapest flight would be booked now but the Skyeurope site is not working properly now and I want to see what they have to offer. I will give them a day to fix it before I go to the competition.

Just returned this week. Did Budapest, Vienna, and Prague in that order and thought it was perfect.