Munich to Prague via rail or air?

Hello,

At the end of May my wife and I will fly into Munich, and then need to
transfer to Prague to begin our two-week bicycle tour. One option is
to take the train from MUC to Praha, a fairly long trip. I was
thinking of breaking up the train travel by traveling MUC to Furth in
Wald or to Stankov in CZ, and staying overnight before catching
another train to Prague the next morning. We will be arriving at MUC
on Saturday, and from what I can see on the DB Web site the
SchonesWochenende ticket will get us over the border to Stankov for 30
Euros total, leaving only the onward travel to Prague the next day.

So, a few questions:

1. Am I correct that the SchonesWochenende ticket is valid into CZ as
far as Stankov? (Actually, it seems to cover as far as Pilzen.)
2. I can't find any lodging on the Net for Stankov. Is this a tiny
town with no services? Can anyone recommend a lodging?
3. Would we be better off staying in Furth i.W.?
4. Are there any low-fare airlines serving the MUC-Prague route?

Any other thoughts or suggestions are most welcome. We plan to bicycle
Prague-Wien-Budapest, and then train back to Munich at the end
(probably Wien-Passua-Munich).

Brian Wasson
Philadelphia, Pa./USA

"Brian Wasson" schrieb im Newsbeitrag
om...
Hello,

At the end of May my wife and I will fly into Munich, and then need to
transfer to Prague to begin our two-week bicycle tour. One option is
to take the train from MUC to Praha, a fairly long trip. I was
thinking of breaking up the train travel by traveling MUC to Furth in
Wald or to Stankov in CZ, and staying overnight before catching
another train to Prague the next morning. We will be arriving at MUC
on Saturday, and from what I can see on the DB Web site the
SchonesWochenende ticket will get us over the border to Stankov
for 30 Euros total
if bought over the counter. If you buy it from a ticket machine it's only
EUR 28. The red ticket machines with touchscreen of DB accept credit cards.

, leaving only the onward travel to Prague the next day.

So, a few questions:

1. Am I correct that the SchonesWochenende ticket is valid into CZ as
far as Stankov? (Actually, it seems to cover as far as Pilzen.)
Yes. See this map:
http://www.bahn.de/pv/view/mdb/conte...tz_tschech.pdf

2. I can't find any lodging on the Net for Stankov. Is this a tiny
town with no services? Can anyone recommend a lodging?
3. Would we be better off staying in Furth i.W.?
http://www.furth.de/
or also an alternative would be to travel via/stay at
http://www.bayerisch-eisenstein.de/english/index.html

You can reach this places also with the Bavaria-Ticket for EUR 22,-
(otherwise the same condition like the HappyWeekendTicket, but not valid in
the Czech border region)

4. Are there any low-fare airlines serving the MUC-Prague route?
No.


Any other thoughts or suggestions are most welcome. We plan to bicycle
Prague-Wien-Budapest, and then train back to Munich at the end
(probably Wien-Passua-Munich).

Brian Wasson
Philadelphia, Pa./USA

"Brian Wasson" wrote in message
om...
Hello,

At the end of May my wife and I will fly into Munich, and then need to
transfer to Prague to begin our two-week bicycle tour. One option is
to take the train from MUC to Praha, a fairly long trip. I was
thinking of breaking up the train travel by traveling MUC to Furth in
Wald or to Stankov in CZ, and staying overnight before catching
another train to Prague the next morning.

I would caution against this. It will gain you very little and give you
a lot of aggro finding a hotel.
I suppose it really depends on what time you will be arriving.

We will be arriving at MUC
on Saturday, and from what I can see on the DB Web site the
SchonesWochenende ticket will get us over the border to Stankov for 30
Euros total, leaving only the onward travel to Prague the next day.

So, a few questions:

1. Am I correct that the SchonesWochenende ticket is valid into CZ as
far as Stankov? (Actually, it seems to cover as far as Pilzen.)

I think it goes this far yes.

2. I can't find any lodging on the Net for Stankov. Is this a tiny
town with no services? Can anyone recommend a lodging?

It would seem to be a tiny towm. The stop befo Domazlice
is bigger but I can't recall seeing a hotel there either.

3. Would we be better off staying in Furth i.W.?

Or Bayerisch Eisenstein: lots of hotels there.

Personally, I would plan to stop at Cheb or Karlovy Vary
(Karlsbad) as they are much more interesting places to go.

tim

4. Are there any low-fare airlines serving the MUC-Prague route?

Any other thoughts or suggestions are most welcome. We plan to bicycle
Prague-Wien-Budapest, and then train back to Munich at the end
(probably Wien-Passua-Munich).

Brian Wasson
Philadelphia, Pa./USA

Thanks for all the responses so far... keep the suggestions coming!

To answer the question that was asked: we're thinking of stopping en
route to Prague because:

1. We'll be coming off a nine-hour trans-Atlantic flight, and aren't
too keen to spend another eight hours on a train immediately
afterwards.
2. We'll be traveling with a tandem bike, which makes connections a
bit more difficult (especially when very tired).
3. We'd rather not get into Prague at 22:00 and have to get our bike
and gear to a hotel in the dark.
4. I figure staying somewhere other than Prague the first night will
allow us to save some $$ over Prague hotel prices, while still
allowing us to get to Prague early enough in the day to get in some
sightseeing. We'll probably stay another two days before beginning our
ride to Wien.

Brian W.

"Brian Wasson" skrev i meddelandet
om...
Thanks for all the responses so far... keep the suggestions coming!

To answer the question that was asked: we're thinking of stopping en
route to Prague because:

1. We'll be coming off a nine-hour trans-Atlantic flight, and aren't
too keen to spend another eight hours on a train immediately
afterwards.
2. We'll be traveling with a tandem bike, which makes connections a
bit more difficult (especially when very tired).
3. We'd rather not get into Prague at 22:00 and have to get our bike
and gear to a hotel in the dark.
4. I figure staying somewhere other than Prague the first night will
allow us to save some $$ over Prague hotel prices, while still
allowing us to get to Prague early enough in the day to get in some
sightseeing. We'll probably stay another two days before beginning our
ride to Wien.

Brian W.
So why not follow tim:s suggestion with Bayerisch Eisenstein ?
(it's on the border to the Czech republic b.t.w)
It's not the usual route to Prague but it's a real nice scenic route over
mountains.
I've done it and wouldn't mind to repeat the trip. Local trains with a
change at Plattling.
Bicycles allowed onboard.

Isn't the czech name
Zelezna Ruda ??
"Lennart Petersen" ha scritto nel messaggio
...

"Brian Wasson" skrev i meddelandet
om...
Thanks for all the responses so far... keep the suggestions coming!

To answer the question that was asked: we're thinking of stopping en
route to Prague because:

1. We'll be coming off a nine-hour trans-Atlantic flight, and aren't
too keen to spend another eight hours on a train immediately
afterwards.
2. We'll be traveling with a tandem bike, which makes connections a
bit more difficult (especially when very tired).
3. We'd rather not get into Prague at 22:00 and have to get our bike
and gear to a hotel in the dark.
4. I figure staying somewhere other than Prague the first night will
allow us to save some $$ over Prague hotel prices, while still
allowing us to get to Prague early enough in the day to get in some
sightseeing. We'll probably stay another two days before beginning our
ride to Wien.

Brian W.
So why not follow tim:s suggestion with Bayerisch Eisenstein ?
(it's on the border to the Czech republic b.t.w)
It's not the usual route to Prague but it's a real nice scenic route over
mountains.
I've done it and wouldn't mind to repeat the trip. Local trains with a
change at Plattling.
Bicycles allowed onboard.

"tile" wrote in message
...
Isn't the czech name
Zelezna Ruda ??

No, this is a separate town (village) the other side of the border.
There's a couple of kilometers between the two.

The area both sides of the border is a minor winter resort
and has lots of medium sized hotels, and not a great number
of summer visitors to fill them. As the OP has discovered
getting information about hotels on the German side is 100
times easier than the Czech side.

tim






"Lennart Petersen" ha scritto nel messaggio
...

"Brian Wasson" skrev i meddelandet
om...
Thanks for all the responses so far... keep the suggestions coming!

To answer the question that was asked: we're thinking of stopping en
route to Prague because:

1. We'll be coming off a nine-hour trans-Atlantic flight, and aren't
too keen to spend another eight hours on a train immediately
afterwards.
2. We'll be traveling with a tandem bike, which makes connections a
bit more difficult (especially when very tired).
3. We'd rather not get into Prague at 22:00 and have to get our bike
and gear to a hotel in the dark.
4. I figure staying somewhere other than Prague the first night will
allow us to save some $$ over Prague hotel prices, while still
allowing us to get to Prague early enough in the day to get in some
sightseeing. We'll probably stay another two days before beginning our
ride to Wien.

Brian W.
So why not follow tim:s suggestion with Bayerisch Eisenstein ?
(it's on the border to the Czech republic b.t.w)
It's not the usual route to Prague but it's a real nice scenic route
over
mountains.
I've done it and wouldn't mind to repeat the trip. Local trains with a
change at Plattling.
Bicycles allowed onboard.