Travel from Prague to Basel
 

My wife and I will be taking a Viking River Cruise this summer from Basel to Amsterdam and are planning to start with four days to visit in Prague. We are thinking of renting a car and driving from Prague to Basel, taking two days to visit sites along the way.

Does this plan make sense? Can we do the same by taking a train to Nuremberg for the day and traveling the next day on to Basel?

Any ideas would be appreciated

Be aware that there is a stiff cross-border drop=off fee on car rentals.

First explore all options on car rental sites - do they allow a one-way rental, if so - where can you drop it off (does it make a difference as to where?), how much will the one-way drop-off fee be, what other conditions apply that you should know about? Then decide.

Swiss flies direct from Prague PRG to Basel BSL (the three-nation airport just north of the city of Basel, Basel-Mulhouse-Freiburg) but it usually costs a lot. Even flying more reasonably via a switch-over, or flying to Zurich (and train to Basel, only an hour), would make sense if you then could get a car in Basel that you surrender again in Basel, avoiding all those fees.

Distances are not great from there, you could do the Alsace, the Black Forest - plenty of good spots to explore when starting out and ending in Basel.

Ground transportation between Prague and southern Germany incl. Nürnberg is still not up to par, no real fast trains, but certainly possible, I've done it going east and it was kinda slow and boring but got us there. Because of track work it sometimes involves switching to a bus for a portion of the route. See www.bahn.de

For interesting sight en route you have many many options - but first you have to decide which locations you want to stop by and see between Prag and Basle - there are too many to list, you need to get a good guidebook and read up, starting with the Czech republic (Plzen, Cesky Krumlov, to name just two obvious ones), then the German targets of which there are dozens - look up "Romantic Road" and take your pick - Würzburg, Bamberg. Rothenburg ob der Tauber, and many many more. Then the Black Forest region, the Alsace just north of Basel - and on and on. There is enough there for a three-month road trip, and I'm not exaggerating.

So get all the guidebooks and travel DVDs you can get ahold of and make a short list, then see which ones are easy enough to access in the few days you have to get you to Basel in time for your cruise,.

Happy research - that's half the fun!

Thanks Michel, great input

Go by train to Dresden, visit Dresden and fly with http://www.easyjet.com (July fares for evening flights actually between 50 and 100 EUR) to Basel.
Only 2 days would by far not be enough for the visit of only a few of all the gems along the land itinerary from Prague to Basel.