Help with travel!!!! (berlin - prague - Munich)

March 19, 2008 11:30 AM

Hey I'm travelling to Europe this summer and want to go from Berlin to Prague. I found a previous post on it but it's from 2005 and the info is a little outdated so i was wondering if anyone had a good suggestion for going about getting to prague? I'm travelling with my Girlfriend and we'll be going from Prague to Munich after our stay there. Does anyone know if we can use our Eurail passes in Germany (from say berlin to dresden then switch trains to prague) or book a roundtrip ticket that will take us into Prague and then on to Munich? All help would be appreciated! Thanks
posted by monkeyagent to travel & transportation (8 comments total)

Yes, Eurail passes work in both Germany and Czech Republic. Here's a list of the countries you can visit on the Eurail.
posted by nitsuj at 11:36 AM on March 19

OK, now I think I know what you're REALLY asking.

Since you'll have a Eurail pass, and they work in both Germany and Czech Republic, here's what you'll want to do.

When in Berlin, go to the train station and tell them you want to go to Prague. Even though you have Eurail, you still have to secure a reservation. There may be some transfers involved, but you don't have to worry about it when booking your ticket. Just tell them, "I want to go to Prague," then ask if there are any transfers, and if so, where?

When you get to Prague, do the same for Munich.

There's really not much else to it.
posted by nitsuj at 11:40 AM on March 19

Seconding that, follow thy nose and the trains of Europe will take thee anywhere those tracks go.
posted by Freedomboy at 11:58 AM on March 19

It depends on the tickets you buy, though. They have tickets for different regions, so if you've purchased one of those it could be more complicated. When I went there for spring break in 2006, we bought France/Germany region passes cause we were going Prague-Munich-Paris.

So we had to buy regular train tickets to get from Prague to Munich. Cheap as hell, but still an extra step to just walking in with your Eurail pass.
posted by hubris at 12:55 PM on March 19

Ditto hubris. If your ticket is in a region that doesn't include the Czech Republic, buy a ticket to the furthest city in Germany, then buy a ticket from there to Prague. It'll be really cheap, and I didn't have any problems when I did this a few years ago. (I think I was in Dresden when I bought my ticket to Prague.)
posted by bassjump at 2:38 PM on March 19

Some info here on the excellent seat61.com (the site is a bit traveling-from-the-UK-centric but still has some good info). The best site I find for europe train times is the DB site.
posted by badrolemodel at 3:34 PM on March 19

Oddly enough, I had the most luck with the Czech timetables (even for non-Czech trains).
posted by nitsuj at 4:18 PM on March 19

nitsuj is right, you just have to go into the train station and ask for a seat reservation. If you explain the pass you have, they'll understand. And in the event that your pass is not good for that trip, they should tell you. In any case, trains from Berlin to Prague go several times a day and you shouldn't have any problems.

Also, FWIW, I believe you can travel with the pass *without* a seat reservation, though I am not 100% certain. I know that you can buy a regular ticket without a seat reservation, which means that if the train fills up, you have to stand. One time doing this on a long train ride I found a seat in the bicycle car, but others without seat reservations were not so lucky.

Regardless, it's very cheap to get a seat reservation, and if you don't in general buy one, there's a significant chance you'll end up without a seat, especially on the inter-city express trains.
posted by cotterpin at 4:38 PM on March 19 [1 favorite]