Prague and Salzburg week before Easter

Thank you %26quot;Vertical%26quot; for your suggestions.

Are you living in Vienna?

Out of Vienna, Budapest, Prague, and Salzburg, would you suggest Prague and Salzburg if we should only pick 2 places?

What is the lake region near Salzburg like? What is the scenery and weather typically like in the area the first week of April?

I%26#39;ve also heard that Cesky Krumlov is nice. Do you have any recommendations?

I don%26#39;t have arrival or departure cities because I%26#39;m still deciding about where to go. We prefer to travel by train (probably fly in and out of Prague from the United States).

Thank you for your help. We have never been to Central/Eastern Europe before.

|||

Hi Panaito,

First of all, central Europe (or Mittel Europe) includes Austria, Hungary, Czech and Slovakia. People in these countries do not like to be referred as Easterners Europe which give an idea of poverty and bad reputation, I guess.

If you have 8 days, you can split between Prague (3 days), 2 / 3 days in Vienna and 2 / 3 Days Salzburg. Depending on your flight option, if you can do open jaw (arrive Prague, leave from Vienna, Salzburg or Munich which is 1 hour from Salzburg), it will then be possible to cover three cities.

Personally, Vienna is my favorite of the three cities. If you want majestic palaces and grand buildings everywhere, Vienna is the place. It%26#39;s elegant, classy, clean and highly cultured. It%26#39;s also extremely easy to walk around as the city center is encircled by a ring road (ringstrasse) and historical sites (except Summer Place) are within the ringstrasse.

Prague has some scaled down version of Vienna%26#39;s baroque buildings, although it does win over in some points with its lovely old town square, river view, the famous Charles Bridge and castle on the hill. If you like history and culture, you can definitely spend a bit more time in Vienna than Prague.

Salzburg is a lovely and elegant town. The surrounding lake towns and mountains should not be missed. You can see those places on %26quot;The Sound of Music%26quot; tour although this is probably not something Austrians will recommend (it was an American movie), haha. The town center itself is not big, you can explore within a day.

You can take a train to Vienna from Prague (5 hours+) and from Vienna to Salzburg (3 hours+) or vice versus. Alternatively, you can travel from Prague to Salzburg, stop at Cesky Budejovice and take a bus to Cesky Krumlov. I think Cesky Krumlov is overrated. It%26#39;s a tiny town with interesting setting on the river (like the shape of tongue looking from the castle on hill) but the architecture is like a tacky version of Baroque. Anyway, the town is so small, you can finish within half a day. Stay over is not recommended as it is small and isolated unless you are contend with drinking and eating cheap.

If you have planned to travel to these cities, you can plan out by buying Euro Select Pass. It can be either a 3 -5 days pass (non consecutive) so that you can do you side trip to Cesky Krumlov or the Salzkammergut region (Halstat !!!).

|||

-:- Message from TripAdvisor staff -:-

This topic was inactive for 6 months and has been closed to new posts. We hope you'll join the conversation by posting to an open topic or starting a new one.

To review the TripAdvisor Forums Posting Guidelines, please follow this link: http://www.tripadvisor.com/pages/forums_posting_guidelines.html

We remove posts that do not follow our posting guidelines, and we reserve the right to remove any post for any reason.

Removed on: 1:16 pm, August 21, 2009